Although it’s been years since I watched 1954’s Silver
Screen version of White Christmas starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye when the
last musical number concluded and we put our hands together in stunned appreciation
for the High School company that just performed it for Debra and I, in my mind
it could have rivaled any production stage or screen. Maybe that’s overstating things a bit after all it was a
High School production. But Ladies and Gentlemen what a production!
If these young adults many of them anyway aren’t headed for
Julliard then for the Broadway stage knock me down with a feather. When you
look at the Broadway like Playbill and then peruse the pictured actors and bios
they look like kids. Yet up on the stage they become transformed into 20
something and when they open their mouths they become adult performers and in a
flash of lightning you’re whisked away to the Great White Way in the
exquisitely designed Page Family Center for Performing Arts.
The story a simple one Bob Wallace and Phil Davis ex Army
vets team up with sister act Betty and Judy Haynes put on a Christmas show in
rural Vermont in a failing Country Inn run by their ex General Henry Waverly.
With a little romance mixed in, the cast performs music by the legendary Irving
Berlin with voices this side of heaven. This troupe featured junior Kyle Martin
in Bing Crosby’s role filling the crooner’s delivery with a mellifluous voice
that filled every inch of negative space and with his sidekick Graham Popadic a
senior with equally rousing melodic chords in the Danny Kaye portrayal as the
devil may care playboy suddenly struck by Cupid’s arrow by dancer and singer
Gracie O’Connor in the Vera Ellen role. And rounding out the love interest duo
is senior Jessica Turley as Betty Haynes who was instantly equally smitten to
Kyle Martin. Gracie and Jessica both with earthbound Angelic voices
complimented each other like no duo in recent memory. These Haynes sisters together, apart and as a trio with Kate
Higgins also a senior and a quartet with the boys nearly flattened me with each
note. A surprising addition was the diminutive sophomore Sara Meldrim playing
the General’s granddaughter belting out “Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep”
took the audience by surprise in terms of it’s strength and melodic
timbre. Some of the best and
lesser known masterfully crafted Berlin musical compositions are here including
“Blue Skies”, “Sisters”, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm” and of course
“White Christmas”. However what made the whole evening astonishing was how the
production blended the music with the pageantry of dance and costume. We will
look forward to the King’s Academy’s next production which is slated for late
January, Peter and the Star Catcher.
The choreography alone is worthy of Broadway. The dancers had our pupils widened with
each scene. The tap dance numbers were syncopated with precision and the
costuming was visually stunning. And leading this production is a Tony
nominated director with the moniker of David Snyder without whom despite these
gifted players this spectacular show could not have been elevated to this level
of success.
The Kings Academy players are the crème de al crème and with
White Christmas not only did they set the mood for the season but these
teenagers made us hearken back to a period in this Country to a simpler time
and for two hours had us riveted to our seats until it was time for us to bolt
from our winged chairs and applaud them for this phantasmagorical Christmas
delight.
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