Valley Center Stage debuts new holiday show on Dec. 3

Published 11:34 am Thursday, December 3, 2015

Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus, and Tiny Tim are coming to North Bend on Dec. 3 as part of the Valley Center Stage’s new production, “’Tis the Season”.

“‘Tis the Season” isn’t your average play. Instead of one story being performed on stage, “‘Tis the season” is a collection of stories, songs, poems, and monologues about the holidays.

Jim Synder, director of this production, thought that an anthology-type show would work well for the holiday season.

“We needed a holiday show, It’s an audience pleasing time of year. I’ve put together assemblages of monologues and stories and songs and scenes before and it’s gone well. We thought it would fit really well for the holiday season,” Synder said. “There are holiday songs, some very funny ones, a few touching ones thrown in, and some funny scenes that are appropriate for people of all ages and a couple of monologues where people tell their own story.”

Craig Ewing, a performer at the theater for over 12 years, explained that after doing Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” as the only holiday show for many years, the Valley Center Stage decided they needed to switch things up.

“We decided we wanted to do something else, so for the last three years it’s been something else,” Ewing said.

“We did ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, last year we did ‘Sherlock Holmes and the case of the Christmas Carol’. So it’s a mashup of Dickens’ Christmas Carol and Sherlock Holmes. It went over very well.”

The Valley Center Stage has a strong community atmosphere as each of the actors are volunteers who come out to perform for fun. Greg Lucas, a community member looking for an artistic outlet, found that the community theater was a great place for him.

“I work a nine to five and I need something like an artistic outlet. I just started looking around online and saw that they just started auditioning for Dracula, which was the first show I auditioned for,” Lucas said. “It was intimidating, but this theater is a great theater. Everyone here is super welcoming and really supportive of each other.”

The adults aren’t the only ones who get to act, there are kids who participate as well. Both Ewing and Snyder said that the kids who are currently involved with “’Tis the Season” are the best child actors they have seen.

“There are three kids in the show and they are far and away the best kid actors that we’ve had. They blew me away,” Ewing said.

According to Snyder, getting everyone together to rehearse and practice for a play can be tough, but the experience of learning and collaborating has been good.

“I always have to tell myself to trust the process,” Snyder said. “We’ve been laughing a lot and having a lot of fun so this has been a very pleasurable one to work on.”

The Valley Center stage is set to premiere “‘Tis the Season” at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 3. The production will run at the same time Dec. 4, 5, 10, 11, and 12, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 13.

“It’s such an intense thing to do, so a number of problems come up but the wonderful thing is that it’s intense and very goal-oriented and you work toward performing it together and usually they have such a wonderful time performing it together,” Snyder said. “A play is a wonderful thing.”

Greg Lucas and Julie Lester practice singing “Baby It’s Cold Outside” during rehearsal.

Santa, played by Peter Cook, speaks with the elves Gimble and Macy, played by Tavis Medina and Zoe Farnsworth.

Ebenezer Scrooge, played by Ed Benson meets Santa and Macy the Elf in Valley Center Stage’s production of “Tis the Season.”