So another creative project going on in Peer Manor this Christmas season was The Jingle Boys. The musicians in our house and life put together this Christmas album for the second year in a row. It turned out pretty amazing, if I do say so myself. I was part of a quartet of a capella ladies singing Ave Maria. The guys were over at our place at least once a week (often more) recording and producing this amazing record.
Here's our roommate Ben. He put in an incredible amount of hours producing this album as well as playing trombone, guitar, et al. I spent many a weekdays listening to the sounds of his music editing radiating from the walls of his room.
One particularily special recording session was the night we recorded Chris Martin on the Moog syth. This is an instrument that requires a separate set of hands to turn the knobs that make the sound funky. Matt Oden volunteered for that important job, and upped the anty by doing it with bear claw arms. Kudos.
Peer really enjoyed having the musicians around. Drummer Ry Sarmiento was very gracious and actually sat down to give PJ his first drum lesson. Peer loved it and has been "drumming" on everything ever since.
Here's us practicing Ave Maria. It was actually a really tough piece to learn. Although I had it easy with the melody.
Andy designed the Album cover, with most of the photography taken by Ananda Dillon. Here it is:
This Christmas I had the privilege once again to direct the Christmas play at church. This year it was a play entitled One Special Christmas. Determined to scale it down from last year, we embarked on this journey of a family who searches for the meaning of Christmas in many meaningless avenues, finally finding it in the story of Jesus' birth.
I really enjoyed working with a very talented cast. Our leading man was the newest pastor to join our church staff, and he turned out to be really incredible. The vulnerability with which he embarked on the very dark personal journey that this character travels was astounding.
My leading lady has a background in acting, so it was great to work with her well-tuned acting chops. Here's her balling out our leading man. The play required quite a bit of workshopping, so all the cast got an opportunity to exercise improv techniques.
Old timer Rob Fox played the young teenage son who spends most of the play slouching on the couch ignoring everything but his ipod.
Until, of course, he has a huge blow-up with his Dad. This was one of the best moments of the play. Very tense.
The show has a couple of scene that take place in a TV Studio. This is where the title of the show comes in: the name of the TV program is "One Special Christmas: Christmas Special." The tough part was figuring out how to use our space as a TV Studio, a living room, and a church, all within the same 1-hour period. Ended up having the studio upstage in the loft and the living room downstage on the platform. Then the WHOLE thing was struck for the church scene. I thought it would be a beast of a strike and allowed a monologue to cover the re-set. Amazingly, the stage crew did it in about 50 seconds. If I had know they'd be so incredible I would have made that sacrifice! Kudos, stage crew!
We put a few "fake musicians" onstage with bandstands. The crew members really enjoyed doing that. The real band generously lent us their instruments and Jeremy even taught Saul how to spin the upright bass!
We had a lovely ensemble of singers for the TV scene
We had a Bing Crosby/Bob Hope homage going on for our hosts. They did a great job!
The third scene in the play was the church scene (yet another play-within-a-play). It was a simple retelling of the Christmas story with narrators, a simple nativity scene, lots of choral numbers, a dance, and some very heartfelt testimony/monologues.
Here are the narrators in front with the choir in back. I moved them around to different positions throughout the telling of the Christmas story. For the Shepherds announcement, as you can see below, I put them far upstage at the top of the loft beneath cool lighting that was going on. Kinda made them like they were the angels. My favorite part of the whole narration came at the very end when I had them stage left looking at the Nativity scene right. The very last line of the narration is one of my favorite lines in the whole Bible: "But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart." This was the last line of the narration and was spoken by Matilde, a wise, grandmotherly women who has a real knack for story telling. I made the other narrators walk away and Matilde approached Mary as she spoke those tender words. Mmmm. It was a very moving moment-- one of my favorites in the whole play.
The Glory of the Lord! Can't tell from the still image, but there was a cool disco ball effect that, if I do say so myself, resembled nicely a "multitude of the heavenly host." Ben did a pretty awesome job with the lighting in this scene. It was very dim and colorful, while the family scenes were bright and mostly white. I wanted to contrast the harsh reality of their home life with the sublime spiritual experience in the church scene. Later, at the end, after the family has achieved a higher spiritual understanding, their house lighting starts to resemble this scene more.
Carrie was brought on about two weeks before opening to choreograph this dance. Can't believe she pulled off such a beautiful piece in such a short amount of time!
Here's Eric keepin' it real!
So one interesting thing about the show this year was that I actually ended up re-writing the ending. I don't consider myself a writer at all, but it turned out okay. It was cool to see the actors take a basic structure of my creation and run with it. It was also cool to see the lighting enhance the emotional qualities of that scene.
Here's what happens: instead of the main character reciting a rather lame monologue explaining how "his heart has changed," (which was how the ending was written by the playwright) I chose to show said change by having him go out and do something meaningful for once. He finds a homeless man, brings him in, wipes his hands, gives him his Homer Simpson slippers, and invites him to dine with his family. In case you're wondering about the theological basis of this, I am not in any way advocating a works-based salvation. The main character, John, has already experienced a spiritual connection to the Divine wherein repentance is made and grace is received. The change he feels in his heart therefore motivates him to action, compelling him to "do" something meaningful at Christmas instead of all the meaningless "doings" he and his family have always done. There. There's my explanation. Sorry to get all preachy on ya.
It ends with a lovely prayer I found that goes like this:
For food in a world where many walk in hunger
For friends in a world where many walk alone
For faith in a world where many walk in fear
We give you thanks, O Lord. Amen.
And then on the last night, the senior pastor, after giving his pastoral address, called David and I up spontaneously to thank everyone. Holy cow I was surprised. David then proceeded to hand me the mic first. I blubbered on for about a minute and then threw up all over everyone. It was horrible.
(just kidding about that last part)
Oh, and here are my director's notes, if anyone is interested:
Thank you for joining us for this year’s Christmas production, One Special Christmas. What has struck me most as I have been directing this play is the notion of what makes a Christmas special. The characters in this play experience a Christmas very much like any other. In many respects it is not special at all. They are involved in baking, decorating, Christmas cards, holiday parties—the same things we all busy ourselves with every year. There are no big events to make the Christmas any more special than usual. But there is one significant aspect of life in the Graham household—their family is in crisis. The things they do every year to try to make Christmas special have gotten old and have turned out to be meaningless. This endless search for meaning has made them argumentative, miserable, and lost. It begs the question of us—what will make our Christmas special this year? Some of you enjoying this evening with us tonight may have low expectations for Christmas. Perhaps you are also at the point of misery and loss. Luckily, this is exactly the depth of emotion that God often uses to teach us something. The warm dawn of inspiration, clarity, and redemption often springs out of the winter of our discontent. No matter what your spiritual state is this evening, we are very glad you are here, and hope this production blesses you and offers you a moment away from the madness to think about what really makes Christmas special.
