White Christmas

 
I keep being so impressed with the quality of local theater productions. I managed to make it to the last performance of White Christmas at the Ramsdell Theater in Manistee.

Boy is it tough to pick only a few pictures from a show with so many scenes and songs! Nevertheless, I chose six.

First is the opening where Bob Wallace and Phil Davis are doing the Christmas Show for the troops during WWII. After the war, they become a celebrated entertainment act. But they would like to add some girls, and go to see Betty and Judy Haynes.



Here's one of the classic scenes, "Sisters." (The lady on the right was a classmate of Steve's, which has nothing to do with anything theatrical.)


Here, Bob sings "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep" to Suzy, the granddaughter of his former General, whom he's recently discovered is the innkeeper of the place they are visiting in Vermont. (Is there anyone who doesn't know this story? It's quite complex. I highly recommend the movie if you aren't familiar with it.)



As a result of a spat and major misunderstanding between Bob and sister Betty, she goes to New York and leaves Bob and Phil to double as the "sisters" in the Christmas program.



Betty has a gig in New York and performs the dark number "Love, You Didn't Do Right by Me."



But Bob follows her, and she realizes she's made a serious mistake about his motives. So she returns to Vermont in time to save the show and be part of a big surprise for the General.



This is a huge production, and for a small local group to do such a fine job is quite a coup. The orchestra was very good, which is sometimes the weakest area of the local shows. My only real complaint was that for the first act the balance wasn't good and the music overwhelmed the mics. They got that adjusted for the second act.

There were six performances, and I made it to the last one. It was nearly sold out. The only open seats were the really lousy ones. I'm betting most of the other times were sold out too. Excellent experience.

I am really enjoying getting to more plays.

	See The Glass Menagerie
if you like this blog, click the +1   or