Tuesday, December 19, 2006

From the Choir Loft

"A 1940's Christmas Homecoming"
The Christmas musical from behind the scenes...
It was Sunday night, December 17, 2006. What a great night! We had a packed house...it seemed as though each person we had invited to the performance showed up...it was the best weather we had ever experienced for a Christmas musical...the audience was responsive...the actors were very believable...and the choir was powerful! Everything I wanted for Christmas I received in one night.
The town historian loaned us a black & white video showing our area in the 1940's & 1950's. While we projected that historic video, we played recordings of Christmas tunes played by the Glenn Miller Band.
Many people loaned us uniforms, helmets, posters, pictures, etc. The USO Ambassador from Ft. Drum had sent us USO banners to use and they looked great. I'm sure the audience felt as though they were participating in a WWII USO show.
JoAnn and Pastor Molly did last minute decorating on our "living room" scene and "barracks" scene, while poor Terry was lugging wet pallets up the stairs for our scenery. The army barracks came to life when JoAnn got our local Paper Factory store to enlarge an army barracks picture to 4 feet x 14 feet and applied it to a vinyl canvas.
The biggest victory of the evening came while I was conducting. I fell off the stool and off the podium and ended up vertical. The choir never missed a beat. What a group! For my next act I'm going to fake a serious injury just to see if they'll stop when they see me lying on the floor.
I can't thank Diane enough for all her help!