A Musical Journey

Photo by Dan Hagen
John Stephens and Therese Kincade take center stage backed by 27 performers.

•December 16, 2015•

By Dan Hagen
For the News Progress

The Little Theatre adds a fresh treat to traditional holiday fare in the person of Decatur’s Julie McClarey, an undefeated National Ragtime Piano Playing Award winner three years running.

A large video screen above the stage catches McClarey’s almost hypnotic fingers flashing on the keyboards as she plays Celebration of Joy and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree and, in the second act of the show, The Bell Carol and Oh, Holy Night. She enlivens her performance by crowd-pleasing virtuoso stunts such as playing with her hands behind her back.

The rest of the Little Theatre’s Jingle Bell Jive holiday show spotlights the home team as the Little Theatre’s Executive Producer John Stephens and Associate Artistic Director Therese Kincade take center stage backed by 27 other performers and directed by Jesse Sharp. Stephens, Kincade and Sharp also wrote the show.

The set features a tiered stage with varicolored holiday-lighted steps that are echoed in lights surrounding the stage. The happy-feet choreography, and there’s a lot of it, is by Megan Farley and Lexie Dorsett Sharp, and the ever-changing colorful costumes — gold lamé gowns giving way to prancing reindeer hats — are by Stephens.

It’s funny how this holiday tends to gravitate toward different eras in different regions. In England it’s the Dickensian 19th century, and here it seems to be the 1940s, perhaps because of the inherent poignance of family holidays haunted by a world war. True to form, the show opens with the chorus boys and girls performing the big band era’s Glenn Miller hit In the Mood, then shifts swiftly into a little of We Need a Little Christmas, from the musical Mame, as Stephens and Kincade step on stage.

Brisk and breezy, the show’s 22 songs are linked by scripted patter and thankfully unburdened by story. Stephens follows up with The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, then Nick Carroll, Christopher Timson, Galloway Stevens, Michael Ferraro and Clint Hromsco perform White Christmas.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.