The Carmel Community Players offer you The Best Christmas Pageant Ever for two weeks only, Thursday through Sunday, starting Nov. 29. The play will stage at Ji-Eun Lee Music Academy, 10029 E. 126th St. D, Fishers.
The play is written by Barbara Robinson and is directed by Lori Raffel, who told The Reporter she is surprised by how her experience is mirroring one of the characters in the play.
The play is about a small church that has put on the same Christmas pageant, with the same cast and director, for years. But this year the director breaks her leg and someone new steps in to put the pageant together.
“The new woman in charge, Grace, is naïve in that she is just full of the Christmas spirit and thinks everyone should be included,” Raffel told The Reporter. “And that means the Herdmans, a group of five kids who don’t normally go to church, but started going when they heard there were free refreshments. The Herdmans are a little on the rough side. They don’t have a whole lot of supervision and they don’t even know what the Christmas story is.”
So much goes against her, but Grace decides she’s not going to give in to the difficulties. She will put on the best Christmas pageant ever, no matter what.
“I don’t normally direct Christmas plays,” Raffel said. “It’s a tough one. People are traveling, and it is hard to find a director. So I said I’d do it because I don’t have any family left and I don’t need to travel. I thought is might be really fun and I’ve just had a blast.”
Of the 16 cast members, 11 are children ranging in age from 9 to 14. This is the first time Raffel has directed a play with kids.
(Seated, from left) Maya Davis, Jayda Glynn, Abigail Smith, Austin Helm, Delaney Soper. (Standing, from left) Debbie Underwood, Lee Meyers, Nikki Vrtis, Joe Meyers. (Photo provided)
Thus, Raffel is directing her first play with kids about a first-time director working with kids.
When asked if she sees the parallels between herself and Grace, Raffel said, “Oh yes! I really didn’t at first. But when we started rehearsing and running through the whole thing I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m Grace.’”
One example of the learning curve came when Raffel scheduled rehearsals as she normally would for adults.
“First I set the rehearsal time for 7 to 9:30 p.m.,” Raffel said. “Of course the parents said, ‘Then they don’t get home and go to bed until 10:30.’ I’ve never directed kids before. So we set it for 6:30 to 8:30 and parents just started talking to each other, they built a Facebook group, they give each other rides and have carpools. They are helping with the costumes. Now I’m not sure I want to do a show again without parents. They have been so wonderful!”
Can Grace pull off the best Christmas pageant ever?
And did Raffel pull together her first Christmas play – and her first play with young actors – as well as she hoped?
You will just have to buy a ticket to this family-friendly production and find out.
Visit carmelplayers.org or call (317) 815-9387 for tickets and more information about The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.