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Home for the Holidays at Mountain Theatre Co. Review
Written By: Luke Osteen | Issue: Whats News
But here’s my own version of a Christmas Miracle – my heart grew three sizes that evening, buoyed by the irrepressible good cheer of seven extremely talented performers.
When I attended Highlands Playhouse’s premiere of its Christmas Revue, Highlands Home for the Holidays: A Christmas Tradition, I wasn’t in the best of moods.
We’d just wrestled Laurel’s Winter Issue into something fun and readable and I was slowly healing from a scary infection I’d contracted in the wilds of Honduras (don’t ask).
Those holidays and traditions that this production was supposed to be celebrating felt like a decade away, despite what the calendar may have proclaimed.
Dragging my tired carcass out into a cold Friday evening to sit through a Christmas-themed show felt like opening a window on the world’s saddest advent calendar.
But here’s my own version of a Christmas Miracle – my heart grew three sizes that evening, buoyed by the irrepressible good cheer of seven extremely talented performers.
Writer/Director/Choreographer/Costumer (and possibly Bottle Jockey at the Lobby’s Wine Bar) Scott Daniel delivers a relentlessly upbeat (you should see what happens when David David Tanciar momentarily halts the effervescence with a moody Blue Christmas) confection that’s giddy with elfin goodness.
Standouts include Alyson Snyder slinking through Santa Baby channeling Marilyn Monroe at her most scintillating; Sam Alan Johnson who somehow out-wickeds the legendary Thurl Ravenscroft with his extra-creepy version of You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch; Lori Nielsen’s profound We Are Lights, a paean to understanding (and an unimpeachable plea for treating one another with kindness in this sad, embittered age); Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (delivered with off-the-wall exuberance by Holly Wilder); Erin Leigh Knowles’ exuberant Sleigh Ride; and Emanuel Carrero’s astonishing O Holy Night.
It’s all delivered with the sincerity of those old Andy Williams Christmas Specials and the panache and technical proficiency of a Vegas Revue.
Let me recommend this show to you if you’re finding that the Spirit of the Season is proving difficult to conjure or if you just need to top off your allotment of Christmas Cheer.
In fact, I’m so confident that you’ll emerge from the Playhouse with a measure of giddiness equal to or exceeding that displayed by Mr. Scrooge on that fateful Christmas Morning that I, Luke Osteen, will buy you a cup of coffee and pastry of your choice if your heart hasn’t grown by three sizes.
Reservations are essential – this show’s going to sell out in a hurry.
