Oh come all ye faithful /
Joyful and, like, triumphant….
Or something?
I’ve done my post show revisions to Forever Christmastown, and it’s up on the New Play Exchange. Check it out. Read/review/produce it.
The page is here.
Forever Christmastown started with a few days of improv, a reading from Noises Off, some dusty decorations I took down from the shelf, and a loose concept, and it became a beautiful, tinsel-eating monster of a play. Act I is fairly traditional as the crew attempts to put on a show to save Forever Christmastown, whereas Act II goes off the rails when they accidentally start a cult. This is shortly followed by them declaring the theme park a sovereign nation. It’s very Texas. And it’s very me.
In the end, while a few of the characters do have full arcs, there’s only one character who truly changes. Everyone else doubles down. Although a big reveal waves away some of the negativity, I wondered if the cynical elements that live beneath this comedy would make this too dark, and would impact our experience or the message to our audience. Instead, we found that it was joy to produce and perform. The play finds common ground between people who are jaded by commercial Christmas and people who love the holiday season. I drink black coffee, but this play is also for our Pumpkin Spice Latte-drinking friends.
Briandaniel Oglesby 