Director’s Notes: The Great Leap
Directing a Lauren Yee play is an honor. Every word matters and every thread woven into the fabric of her plays has a meaning. Lauren often talks about how every playwright has one basic story they are trying to perfect with every play they write. Her plays are about family secrets and how only when those secrets are revealed can we experience catharsis.
The Great Leap to me is a call to action, with young people teaching us that today is your day to step up and make a difference. It’s about home, and what that word means for a country of immigrants. It’s about living with the impact of our parent’s decisions and how our perceptions of them can change completely over time. I also love what Lauren is saying about the power of state and the capacity of governments to do deep, lasting damage to their citizens. You don’t get to demonize a foreign power before you deal with the sins of your own country’s past.
As for basketball, I grew up in North Carolina, where the tobacco road rivalries meant it was a part of my life whether I liked it or not. The state is home to Michael Jordan and 13 NCAA titles. My dad and I played basketball from the time I got off school until it was time to eat dinner. He used basketball to teach me about integrity and belief…lessons much like the ones in this play.
Sports bring people from all backgrounds together. It is one of the few subjects that you can bring up to a stranger at any bar in the world and find common ground. The event of theatre and sport are very similar. Both require physicality, fast thinking, hours of preparation, and responsiveness from the players. Both bring people together for a shared live experience. Both are influenced by the reactions and energy of their audiences. They have their heroes and villains, and on any given night you can witness something magical.
The characters in this play are brave. They have an enormous amount of heart and sacrifice for the things they love. And through this entire process they have taught me it is always your turn to take a shot.
Now, the ball is in your court.
From the playwright: Lauren Yee
Get insight into the playwright’s inspiration for The Great Leap!
“The Great Leap” written by Lauren Yee is her turn on the basketball court. According to director Rob Lutfy, “Yee’s plays often have at their core a family secret that needs to be revealed for catharsis to occur”. In the play, the character of Manford is loosely based on Yee’s own father who was considered the best basketball player in San Francisco’s Chinatown despite his shorter stature. Yee connects her Dad’s personal story to a pivotal moment in Chinese history where the costs for taking a charge or driving to the hoop are more than a foul shot.
By Lauren Yee:
“Growing up, my father played basketball. every day, all night, on the asphalt courts and rec center floors of San Francisco Chinatown. It was the only thing he was good at.
He was never good enough that he was going to play for the NBA or even at the college level, but for a 6’1″ chinatown kid from the projects, he was good. Really good.
I know this because even today, people still stop him on the street and try to explain to me what a legend he was. They tell me his nickname (spider), his position (center), and his signature move (the reverse jump shot). Then they will tell me about China.
My dad’s first trip to china was in the ’80s playing a series of exhibition games against china’s top teams. At their first game, my dad and his American teammates faced off against a Beijing team of three hundred-pound seven footers that demolished my dad’s team. It was the first of many slaughters.
Today he no longer plays, but his head is still in the game. He will walk up to tall young men at checkout counters, parking lots, and sporting events, and ask them if they’ve ever considered playing basketball. And no matter the answer, he proceeds to give them a master class in technique right then and there.
Cygnet Theatre Announces Season 18!
From classics to contemporary, remounts to world premieres, Cygnet Theatre’s 18th season is filled with emotional, physical and theatrical dexterity. Join us for a season that promises to be truly Cygnet! New subscription sales will be available in March of 2020. For more information regarding subscriptions packages please contact the box office at 619-337-1525 or visit www.cygnettheatre.com.
Powerful Hit Musical
CABARET
Music by John Kander and Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Book by Joe Masteroff
Directed by Sean Murray
Music Direction by Patrick Marion
Choreography by Katie Banville
Jul. 8 – Aug. 16, 2020
Cygnet is pleased to remount one of its beloved hit musicals! Cabaret depicts the interlocking stories of a cabaret singer, an American writer and the denizens of Berlin, all caught up in the swirling maelstrom of a changing society. In the seamy, sleazy Kit Kat Klub, on the eve of Hitler’s rise to power, almost anything – including love – is possible. This dark, daring, and provocative musical was winner of 8 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Composer and Lyricist. Based on “The Berlin Stories” by Christopher Isherwood. Winner of the 2011 SD Theatre Critics Circle Award for “Outstanding Direction of a Musical” and “Outstanding Lead Performance.” Cygnet is thrilled to reunite Director Sean Murray and Karson St. John as she returns to her role as Emcee.
Inge Rep: Rarely Seen American Classics
BUS STOP
By William Inge
Directed by Sean Murray
Sep. 29 – Nov. 7, 2020
In the middle of a howling snowstorm, a bus out of Kansas City pulls up at a small roadside diner. All roads are blocked, and the weary travelers on board have to take refuge in the diner until morning. Disillusioned saloon singer Cherie must deal with Bo Decker, the boisterous but naïve cowboy who insists on marrying her, as the other passengers make connections and confront the disappointments in their own lives. A simple play about ordinary people and the effect they have on each other’s lives.
Inge Rep: Rarely Seen American Classics
PICNIC
By William Inge
Directed by Rob Lutfy
Sep. 30 – Nov. 8, 2020
On a sweltering Labor Day morning, the women of a quiet, working-class neighborhood are preparing for the annual picnic when charming young drifter Hal Carter hops off of a freight train and into their lives. Hearts are broken and lives are changed, as Hal’s dangerous energy challenges the restrictive mid twentieth-century American values of this sleepy community. Spiked with the social mores and pressures that were shaping the country at the time and sparking the beginning of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, Picnic explores themes of sexuality, repression, rites of passage, and disappointment.
Favorite Holiday Musical
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Adaptation & Lyrics by Sean Murray
Original Score by Billy Thompson
Directed by Sean Murray
Music Direction by Patrick Marion
Dec. 2 – Dec. 27, 2020
Cygnet’s holiday smash hit is back for its seventh season! Enjoy the holiday classic adapted from Charles Dickens’ timeless tale of hope and redemption. This imaginative production features original music, creative stagecraft and puppetry, and live sound effects. Step into a Victorian Christmas card for a unique storytelling experience that is sure to delight the entire family!
Historical Dramedy
World Premiere
THE PROSTITUTE PLAY
By Kate Hamill
Directed by Rob Lutfy
Jan. 20 – Feb. 14, 2021
For decades, English society has been ruled by the world of high-class prostitutes and their noble patrons. As the Victorian era begins, the moralizing middle class gains power and societal attitudes shift – and the prostitutes’ opulent way of life is becoming obsolete. One of the most popular courtesans, Harriet, wants to get out of the ‘business’… and she has a plan. She’s long been promised a lifelong pension from the Duke of Wellington, and now she’s ready to cash out. However, the Duke withdraws his offer. Undaunted, she threatens to write a memoir that will expose his history. He refuses to give in to blackmail, and starts putting pressure on her to give up – threatening her reputation, her business, and ultimately, her life. Featuring playwright Kate Hamill as Harriet, playing opposite her husband Jason O’Connell.
Tender Musical Story
A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE
Book by Terrence McNally, Music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Directed by Sean Murray
Music Direction by Terry O’Donnell
Mar. 10 – Apr. 11, 2021
Dublin, 1964. Meet Alfie Byrne, a bus conductor with a poet’s heart. In the morning he dispenses tickets and Oscar Wilde’s poetry to his passengers. After work, St. Imelda’s amateur theatricals are his passion. But his heart holds secrets that he can’t share with anyone but his imagined confidante, Oscar Wilde. When he attempts to put on an amateur production of Wilde’s Salome, he confronts the forces of bigotry and shame over a love “that dare not speak its name.” Truths tumble out, and judgments fly. But when the accounts of friendship are reckoned, Alfie’s true goodness, and his quiet philosophy—“you just have to love who you love”—wins out. Featuring Sean Murray as Alfie.
To Be Announced
TBA
Directed by Rob Lutfy
May 12 – Jun. 6, 2021
Something exciting will be announced soon!
Director’s Notes: The Last Five Years
I fell in love with theatre by reading Shakespeare in high school English class. I loved the structure and how the language worked on your emotions. It was pure form in action. It wasn’t until years later that I fell in love with musicals for the exact same reasons. I walked past a practice room and heard a woman playing the cello and singing the first song in this show (Still Hurting). That was my entry point into musical theatre. There was nothing flashy. It was pure raw emotion, poetic and form-bending. I’ve grown to love and appreciate the genre but it was this musical that started that shift.
Composer Jason Robert Brown is sophisticated, literate, and passionate in his craft and storytelling. Here is a story that plays with metaphor and form in ways that get my synapses firing. It is more a poem than a play. Brown takes the heart threads of love and runs them in opposite directions, so that while the man is falling in love, the woman is mourning the end of their relationship. The music makes my heart sing and break all at once. Perhaps it’s because these two artists are trying to make their love for each other and their love of their craft co-exist, perhaps it’s the nonlinar structure, perhaps it’s just the chill in the score. I love this story. It’s small and it’s huge all at once.
I always come back to this musical because I ache for Jamie and Cathy. I ache for their futures and I am reminded of the mistakes we make when we we give over to love. How lucky we are to find each other at all, to invest and to care for, and to grow through the pain. When I sing the songs in my car or fall deep into this story, my heart wants to beat out of its chest. I feel alive.
The lasting works in the theatrical canon are infused with love stories — and this is one of them. Let there never be enough reminders that love is always worth the risk.
For Duckie
The Last Five Years plays Oct. 23 – Nov. 17. Don’t miss this emotionally powerful and intimate musical.
Playwright’s Notes: Kate Hennig on The Virgin Trial
“What’s a virgin?” my eight year old sister asked my father one Christmas in our very brown 1970s family room deep in the suburbs of southwest Calgary. As a sixteen year old I think my eyes bugged right out of my head while waiting with bated breath to hear how he would dig himself out of that one.
“A girl who is not yet married, ” he replied, without a batting of the eye.
Darn. Good answer, I thought, somewhat disappointed at his ease. Of course my father, being a Lutheran minister, was practiced in his response to this question, bombarded as he was at this time of year by curious Christmas-pageant performers.
Elizabeth the First would also be pleased with his answer. The fact that it makes no mention of sexual intercourse would support the cult of innocence that was constructed around her: she was Gloriana: the Virgin Queen.
But though my father’s answer was enough to satisfy my younger sister, it was certainly not the whole truth. It was a convenient truth. I would venture to say that the professed virginity of the second queen regnant of England is also a convenient truth. It has extensive dramatic possibilities: and we know how this princess loved dramatic possibilities. Might we even consider her a creative artist?
What if Elizabeth created a campaign of virginity to distract the masses from her dubious integrity? What if this girl-who-is-not-yet-married was in full control of her destiny even in her teenage years? Out of necessity, she imagined her own pristine narrative in the face of a life-threatening scandal; a wily teenager, well-trained in the arts of deception, she then put a spin on the facts to whitewash her part in a variety of extremely suspicious circumstances; this young Elizabeth was capable at a very young age of making choices that would determine her highly potent future.
But she was only a girl. Can a girl really be capable of such foresight?
Ha! We don’t give girls enough credit.
In 1549, Elizabeth was doing exactly what girls and young women are doing today: adapting: re-inventing her own image, pursuing her self as art, utilising her unique principles and prescient solutions to achieve her goals.
Call it girl power. Call it virgin power. Both then, and now, it’s the beating heart of my play.
The Virgin Trial by Kate Hennig plays Sept. 11 – Oct. 6. Buy tickets before the reign is over.
Angels in America: Notes from the Director and Dramaturg
From the Director: When Angels in America opened in NYC in 1993, it broke the wall of silence on AIDS. Brilliant, theatrical and urgent, the play depicted the AIDS epidemic with startling honesty. It also takes on such a wide range of additional ideas that it feels like the one diminishes it by trying to name them all: conservatism, Mormonism, Judaism, Bolshevism, love, abandonment, justice, responsibility towards each other and ourselves, global warming, heaven and a God who chose to abandon it all and leave us to our own! Simultaneously both an epic, sprawling play and an intimate, personal play.
The angels in Angels in America ask us to stop moving. Stop progressing. Stop. Stop. Stop. They tell us that our curiosity, our restlessness, is barreling us forward into an unknown future that is full of destruction. But the play fights this idea and ultimately defies these angels; humans cannot do what they ask. We are essentially creatures of motion. The world only spins forward.
In 1986 my partner, Jim Wirz, contracted AIDS in the peak of the plague years. We were both in our twenties with a whole lot of life ahead of us. But in less than a year, he lost his battle for life at the age of 27. His panel on the AIDS quilt was one of the first in that monument to loss and life. That I too was not one of this disease’s victims is an inexplicable miracle and randomness at work. This play has unearthed so many “lost” memories and experiences and has made this project both devastating, emotional, joyous and personal for me. I dedicate this play to Jim for his very Prior-like courage, strength, humor, wit and defiance in the face of a killer angel intent on taking him from us. 32 years gone, 32 years remembered.
From the Dramaturg:
MORMONS, ROY COHN and AIDS
by Tim West
The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, is a tragi-comic tapestry rich with references from our remote and recent past. Kushner’s brainy play deploys an astounding array of cultural touchstones, from AIDS, ACT-Up and AZT to democratic socialism and Zionism, to 1950s Red Scare figures and 1980s Reagan cabinet officials.
The play is also inherently political, about “Mormons, Roy Cohn and AIDS,” as Kushner originally pitched it. As in other periods, politicians and moralists found a wedge issue in the emerging gay culture. This was confronted with fierce resistance. In the dozen years between the Stonewall Riot and the first news clippings of a ‘gay cancer,’ a vibrant community had been nurtured, come out of the closet, marched, paraded… and changed our world for the better.
Laisse-faire social policy and restriction of personal freedoms produced the gross hypocrisy that was Roy Cohn. Cohn was a political ‘fixer’ whose behind-the-scenes manipulations haunt American history, extending from his unethical but effective interference in the 1951 Rosenberg Atom Spy case and the 1953 Army-McCarthy hearings. Cohn’s influence is felt today, as he formed meaningful mentorships and interconnections with Fox founder Rupert Murdoch, self-described dirty-trickster Roger Stone, and real estate developer Donald Trump.
Opposed to this malevolent force are Louis, whose political radicalism initially lacks courage to confront contradictions in himself; Belize, whose cynical but spot-on observations contrast with earnest care-giving; and Prior, whose humor and inventiveness brings meaning to our smallest existence. Joe struggles with untenable moral strictures, makes progress, yet ends with a new equally vulnerable identity; Harper searches for truth among lies but ultimately settles for the cold comfort of knowing she must create her own truth; Hannah holds onto traditional faith, yet grows past her background with an impressive authenticity. The Angel, the most indefinable and explicable character, has a simultaneous aversion and attraction to flawed humanity, leading us to accept that this voice from on-high has no better answers than we do.
The play offers few answers with any finality. It urges us to nonetheless work together to further the conversation.
Angels in America – performed in rotating rep – runs through April 20th.
Getting to Know Marie and Rosetta
Termed ” The Godmother of Rock and Roll,” Sister Rosetta Tharpe is one of the most overlooked stars of early American rock music. The list of musicians who cite her as an influence is staggering. Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eric Clapton. But what of the woman who they admired? And who is Marie Knight?
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was born in Arkansas in 1915. A guitar prodigy, by the age of 6 she was performing gospel music as part of a traveling evangelical troupe. She would also spend time in Chicago and New York, fusing her southern, gospel roots with big-city sound to create her own unique style. By all accounts, she was a force nature on stage as she stomped, growled and sang to the heavens in a voice full of grit, all the while playing a guitar that easily rivaled or surpassed her more noted male contemporaries. Rarely deviating from gospel material, Sister Rosetta Tharpe infused her performances with a drive and a passion that led her to be the first gospel artist to cross over onto the R&B charts (Strange Things Happening Every Day – 1945) and drew thousands to sell-out arena performances.
In 1946, after seeing gospel singer Marie Knight appear onstage with Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta brought her to Decca Records. They began recording and performing as a duo. Described as “a beautiful woman with a beautiful contralto voice, who had a spellbinding effect on audiences,” Marie brought a hipper, current gospel vibe to Sister Rosetta’s older style. She left to pursue her solo career again in 1951 after losing both her children in a house fire. Sister Rosetta and Marie would remain friends, regularly reuniting on stage. Marie recorded throughout the 1950s, foraying into secular music and R&B. Although she effectively retired in the mid-1960s to work a regular job and preach, she did release 4 more gospel albums before her death in 2009. A review from the San Francisco Chronicle described her delivery as “soulful enough to surely cause some nonbelievers to want to get right with God.”
Sister Rosetta’s career would wane over the 50s and 60s as a new generation of rock and rollers would refine the style she helped to pioneer. Sister Rosetta found herself too sacred for the rockers and too secular for the gospel crowd that had catapulted her to fame. Despite the fact that her name has largely been forgotten, her influence remains undeniable, and with her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2018, she is finally getting the credit she so richly deserves. Sister Rosetta Tharpe passed away in 1973. Marie Knight helped to arrange the funeral. Her epitaph reads “She would sing until you cried and then she would sing until you danced for joy. She helped to keep the church alive and the saints rejoicing.”
Check out this clip of Sister Rosetta performing “Didn’t It Rain?” in Manchester in 1964 – https://youtu.be/MnAQATKRBN0
Marie and Rosetta runs through February 16. Don’t miss this story of letting loose, finding your voice, and freeing your soul is a soaring music-theatre experience chock full of roof-raising performances.
Cygnet Theatre Announces Season 17
Cygnet Theatre’s Season 17 takes you UP CLOSE: close to the heart, close to the action, close to the edge. It’s also FAR REACHING: travel across oceans, across time, and across the tracks. New subscription sales will be available at the beginning of March 2019. For more information regarding subscriptions packages please contact the box office at 619-337-1525 or visit www.cygnettheatre.com.
Hit Musical Comedy
ROCK OF AGES
By Chris D’Arienzo
Directed by Sean Murray
Music Direction by Patrick Marion
Choreography by Katie Banville
Jul. 2 – Aug. 25, 2019, Opening Jul. 6, 2019
Journey back to the sexy 1980s era of big: big bands, big egos, big guitar solos and big hair! Aqua Net, Lycra and liquor flow freely on the legendary Sunset Strip rock music scene. Amidst the madness, aspiring rock star Drew longs to become the next big thing in music, and longs for fresh-off-the-bus newcomer Sherrie, a Kansas kid with stars in her eyes. This musical comedy lovingly nudges the fashion of the 1980s and features some of the best rock hits from the time with music from Styx, Journey, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake and many more.
“Rock of Ages is the power-ballad decade in all its glory, tricked out with big perms, bigger dreams, and the kind of operatic ecstasy you read about only in bathroom stalls.” – Entertainment Weekly
Racy Political Thriller
THE VIRGIN TRIAL
By Kate Hennig
Directed by Rob Lutfy
Sept. 11 – Oct. 6, 2019, Opening Night Sept. 14, 2019
In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, the young princess Elizabeth navigates a labyrinth of political and sexual intrigue in the Tudor court that threatens her freedom – and even her life. After the death of both her parents, 15-year-old Elizabeth I must defend herself against cutting accusations of plotting to kill her brother, the king, and having an illicit affair with her stepfather. Don’t miss this eagerly awaited companion piece to the runaway hit The Last Wife.
“The Virgin Trialweaves complex tale of innocence and guilt.” – The Calgary Herald
Ingenious Modern Musical
THE LAST FIVE YEARS
Book, Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Directed by Rob Lutfy
Music Direction by Patrick Marion
Oct. 23 – Nov. 17, 2019, Opening Night Oct. 26, 2019
Written by Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown (Parade),The Last Five Years is an emotionally powerful and intimate musical about two New Yorkers in their twenties who fall in and out of love over half a decade. Made up mostly of solo turns, with beautiful music and alternately humorous and heartfelt lyrics, it is only in the middle of the show that Jamie and Cathy come together as Jamie proposes and the two are wed.
“Bittersweet and nearly perfect.” – Variety
Favorite Holiday Musical
A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Adaptation & Lyrics by Sean Murray
Original Score by Billy Thompson
Directed by Sean Murray
Music Direction by Patrick Marion
Nov. 27 – Dec. 29, 2019, Opening Night Nov. 30, 2019
Cygnet’s holiday smash hit is back for its sixth season! Bring the family back to enjoy the holiday classic adapted from Charles Dickens’ timeless tale of hope and redemption. This imaginative production features original music, creative stagecraft and puppetry, and live sound effects. Step into a Victorian Christmas card for a unique storytelling experience that is sure to delight the entire family!
“It’s not Christmas without A Christmas Caroland this is the best one around.’ – SDGLN.com
Sharp-witted New Drama
Southern California Premiere
THE GREAT LEAP
By Lauren Yee
Directed by Rob Lutfy
Jan. 22 – Feb. 16, 2020, Opening Night Jan. 25, 2020
When an American basketball team travels to Beijing for an exhibition game in 1989, the drama goes deeper than the strain between countries. For two men with a past and one teen with a future, the game is a chance to claim personal victories on and off the court. Tensions rise right up to the final buzzer as a pivotal moment in history collides with the action in the arena. Driven by rapid-fire dialogue, this perceptive new play explores the cultural and political risks of raising your voice and standing your ground.
“[This] imaginative vault over the decades . . . asserts a quiet, beautifully unexpected power”– Denver Post
Flamboyant Musical Fun
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
Book by Harvey Fierstein, Lyrics and Music by Jerry Herman
Directed by Sean Murray
Music Direction by Terry O’Donnell
Choreography by Luke Harvey Jacobs
Mar. 11 – May 3, 2020, Opening Night Mar. 14, 2020
After twenty years of un-wedded bliss Georges and Albin, two men partnered for better-or-worse get a bit of both when Georges’ son (fathered during a one-night fling) announces his impending marriage to the daughter of a bigoted, right-wing politician. Further complicating the situation is the ‘family business’: Albin and Georges run a drag nightclub in St. Tropez, where Albin is the “star” performer Zaza. Georges reluctantly agrees to masquerade as “normal” when he meets the family of the bride-to-be. But Albin has other plans, with hilarious results. Featuring David McBean as Albin and Lance Arthur Smith as Georges.
“A glittering, fast stepping extravaganza.”– New York Daily News
Powerfully Resonant Drama
TWO TRAINS RUNNING
By August Wilson
Directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg
May 20 – Jun. 14, 2020, Opening Night May 23, 2020
It’s 1969 and the Civil Rights Movement is sending tremors through Pittsburgh’s Hill District. At the center of the community is Memphis Lee’s diner, slated to be demolished — a casualty of the city’s renovation project. Confronted with a rapidly changing world, Memphis and his regular customers struggle to maintain their solidarity and sense of pride. From Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson comes this masterpiece about everyday lives in the shadow of great events, and of unsung citizens who are anything but ordinary. This will bring Cygnet to a total of six of the ten Century Cycle plays produced.
“Wilson’s most adventurous and honest attempt to reveal the intimate heart of history.” – The New York Times
Director’s Notes: Marie and Rosetta
My friend George Brant posted that he was working on a play about Sister Rosetta Tharpe on facebook and I immediately started researching her. I started by reading her biography. I stayed up late watching and listening to everything I could find about her. I keep asking myself, “how did I not know that rock was invented by a black gospel singing woman from Arkansas? Does the world know this?”
The big problem when dealing with the history of rock ’n’ roll is the way it is dominated by men. The story that is told is one of men crowding out women and white men crowding out black men and finally rich white men crowding out poorer white men. What we know as rock ’n’ roll did not exist before Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She came before Elvis and Johnny Cash. She preceded Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Every single one of those men, including Jimi Hendrix, has credited her signature style–a blend of blues, jazz, gospel, and a new sound with more grit and edge than anything that had been heard before—for the sway it had on their own creations. We can also thank her for bringing the electric guitar front and center.
Holiday Q&A with the Cast of A Christmas Carol
Cygnet’s holiday smash hit is back for its fifth season! Bring the family back to enjoy the holiday classic adapted from Charles Dickens’ timeless tale of hope and redemption. Step into a Victorian Christmas card for a unique storytelling experience that is sure to delight the entire family! Read on to find out what A Christmas Carol cast answered to our Holiday Q&A.
What are the best and worst holiday gifts you’ve ever received? I really appreciate when I receive gifts. I guess it was the best because it was completely not expected but when I was about 6 or 7, Santa surprised my brother and I with new bikes. Big bikes! After we had opened all of our gifts, my parents asked my brother and I to gather up all the paper and take it into the garage. When we opened the door…there they were. Bright shiny new bikes! The worst if I have to pick was my brother once gave me a $.79 bottle of clear nail polish. I don’t remember what I got him but I spent at least $2.50 on his gift. Mind we were very young but come on, clear nail polish? At least he could have bought color nail polish!
What is your least favorite holiday food? Eggnog. I used to love it, now not so much.
What is your favorite way to serve others during the holidays (and beyond)? I know this is going to sound so corny but I honestly love telling the story of A Christmas Carol. Its message is timeless and just as relevant today as the day it was written.
You’re walking down the street, feeling great – what holiday song would be playing in the background? What is your most cringe-worthy holiday song? Anything from A Charlie Brown Christmas puts me in the best mood. I listen to it year round. The cringe-worthy holiday song, and I don’t care who is singing it has got to be “Santa Baby”. Yuck!
Finish this thought, “It wouldn’t be Christmas without _____.” Baby Jesus!
What are the best and worst holiday gifts you’ve ever received? Honestly nothing stands out as my worst holiday gift! The best holiday gift I ever received was a handmade wooden music stand that my dad made for me in 5th grade when I was learning to play the violin.
What is your least favorite holiday food? My least favorite holiday food is fruitcake!
What is your favorite way to serve others during the holidays (and beyond)? We like to have the kids pick out toys to donate to other children in need. We also participate in a family serve day.
What is your most cringe-worthy holiday song? “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus” it has always made me cringe!
Finish this thought, “It wouldn’t be Christmas without _____.” My family and the traditions we have created together over the years really make the Christmas season for me.
What are the best and worst holiday gifts you’ve ever received? Too many to chose from. For the sake of this exercise let’s say the best one was a French horn. The worst would be playing one of those swapping gift games and ending up with a can of tomato soup.
What is your least favorite holiday food? Eggnog. Hands down.
What is your favorite way to serve others during the holidays (and beyond)? Performing.
You’re walking down the street, feeling great – what holiday song would be playing in the background? What is your most cringe-worthy holiday song? Winter Wonderland is my Christmas soundtrack. “Fum, Fum, Fum” is a little cringe-worthy.
Finish this thought, “It wouldn’t be Christmas without _____.” Candles.
What are the best and worst holiday gifts you’ve ever received? The best gift I have received is being welcomed into another family’s Christmas celebrations. The worst was a laminated map of the world.
What is your least favorite holiday food? Anything with meat.
What is your favorite way to serve others during the holidays (and beyond)? Doing A Christmas Carol and serving as a music director for the church where I work.
Finish this thought, “It wouldn’t be Christmas without _____.” My “A Christmas Carol” family.
What are the best and worst holiday gifts you’ve ever received? I think I can answer both of those! Best: Day 1 – The whole family home for the holidays. Worst: Day 6 – The whole family home for the holidays.
What is your least favorite holiday food? Eggnog! I swear it tastes like liquefied bubble gum.
What is your favorite way to serve others during the holidays (and beyond)? There is a great quote from Patton Oswalt as he is describing our world… “It’s Chaos, be kind”. The holidays are my annual reminder to practice kindness to all those that I meet.
Finish this thought, “It wouldn’t be Christmas without _____.” A Christmas Carol! There is a reason this story has been retold countless times since its creation. The message is a powerful one and it is a pleasure getting to share it every year.
What are the best and worst holiday gifts you’ve ever received? I can’t recall but the best gift I’ve ever given to someone was Paisley (rest her soul) an adorable miniature Labradoodle.
What is your least favorite holiday food? Fruitcake.
What is your favorite way to serve others during the holidays (and beyond)? Performing in A Christmas Carol.
Finish this thought, “It wouldn’t be Christmas without _____.” Asking my daughter if she’s been good or bad according to Santa.
Catch A Christmas Carol through December 30th.