It’s a Christmas miracle! Or we hope it will be! To help get you and your family into the holiday spirit, the Historic Crighton Theatre presents the classic holiday play: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Written in 1972 by Barbara Robinson and adapted for the stage by Samuel French, this beloved children’s play is filled with heart, comedy and, most importantly, the Christmas spirit of love, hope, generosity and redemption.
Pictured are The Bradleys: Charlie (Garrett Blaylock), Mother (Kaiti Evans), Father (David Voncannon),
and Beth (Clover Johnson) and The Herdmans: (Top left to bottom) Leroy (Carter Bernard),
Ralph (Lucas Marshall), Claude (Karson Hutchinson), Ollie (Joshy Ragland),
Imogene (Brandi McCaskill) and Gladys (Bella Ragland).
Director Matthew Johnson is a familiar face on the Crighton stage (Patsy in Spamalot and the D’Ysquith Family in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) but is new to directing there.
A small town’s Christmas Pageant is the same every single year with Mrs. Armstrong at the helm, but this year Mrs. Armstrong lands in the hospital and must reluctantly pass the reins on to someone else. Everything falls to hardworking housewife, Grace Bradley and, even though she never asked for the job, she’s certainly going to do everything in her power to make sure that the pageant isn’t cancelled. Everything is stacked against her, and nobody believes in her. Her husband, Bob, doesn’t even want to go, and her own two kids, Beth and Charlie, aren’t thrilled about being in the same old pageant either. Not to mention that goody-two-shoes Alice Wendleken just has a problem with everything imaginable and cannot keep it to herself. Mother must roll up her sleeves and do everything she can to prove all the naysayers wrong and to pull off a Christmas miracle.
It all seems possible, too, until the Herdman kids show up unexpectedly and decide to take over all the biggest parts in the pageant! The toughest and meanest of them all is Imogene, and she’s decided she’ll be the Virgin Mary!
Photo 1: Grace Bradley, Kaiti Evans gets the call, surrounded by Church Ladies Rachel Blaylock (top left), Jaime Lyn Faulkner (top right), Christie Conley, Andrea Phipps and Shelby Colvin (bottom, left to right).
Photo 2: Madi Blaylock (Alice Wendleken), and Clover Johnson (Beth) don’t see eye-to-eye.
Can the Herdmans come together and learn the true meaning of Christmas? Will this be an unforgettable flop, or will it be The Best Christmas Pageant Ever?
Everything simply must work out in the end. After all, it’s Christmas!
Stage Right’s The Best Christmas Pageant Ever will run each weekend, December 5 – 21. Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, and Sunday Matinees at 2:00 pm. Get your tickets now by calling the Crighton Theatre Box Office at (936)441-7469, or by purchasing them online at either www.crightontheatre.org or www.stage-right.org. Season Tickets are also available.
