The Making of a Musical Production of the Nativity

I cannot remember a time in my life that the idea of writing and producing a play had ever crossed my mind, that is, not until almost a decade ago. Until then, I never seemed to have the time to even consider such an enterprise, especially during my professional working years.

But hold that thought, please.

In the late 1990s, my wife and I attended, for the first time, "The Passion Play" at St. Thomas Church in Southington, CT. To me it was a smash hit—not at all what I had expected from a church or community theatre type of production. The play was (and remains today), a marvelous depiction of the Passion of Jesus Christ, a wonderful musical and a superbly performed, well-rehearsed production.

More amazing is the fact that the production represented months of planning, rehearsals and hard work. Kudos to those who had the talent, enterprise, creativity and commitment to put such a grand piece of work together with a virtually all volunteer company.

After seeing the production again, I realized that there was nothing close to that level in Southington of this spiritually energizing, educational and entertaining opus about the Nativity. I put the idea of something similar for the Nativity on a "back-burner," honestly wondering if I could ever be part of a serious attempt for the Birth of Christ.

After being immersed for about 15 years of retirement in church and community service activities and writing, it came to me in early 2010 that we could put together a meaningful Nativity play, a musical production that would be based on factually accurate historical and biblical research, but written in today's American-English language. Of course, it would only be a start and could develop through the ensuing years if it turned out to be worthwhile.

In May 2010, I approached Lisa Carroll, well known in Southington and the surrounding area for her theatrical and musical expertise and many successful productions through the years. Lisa heard my ideas and understood that I would need to collaborate with someone of her talents and special skills to take a script that I would write and make it work as a quality musical production of the story of the Nativity; The Birth of Jesus Christ, King and Savior.

Lisa suggested simplicity as a starting point, so we were agreed about that. We wanted our focus to be on a quality presentation in telling the basic story with well-chosen music, which Lisa also organized.

Collaboration with her and the cast she recruited was a new experience for me, one which I not only enjoyed, but it fulfilled the dream of a decade to present such a work as a gift to our community with Lisa Carroll and the whole company. The key was Lisa's direction and understanding of every phase of the production.

May we invite you now, to come and enjoy being with us for our second annual production of The Story of the Nativity: The Birth of Jesus Christ, King and Savior on Sunday evening, December 11, 2011 at 6:00 pm at the Church of Saint Dominic at the corner of Flanders Road and Laning Street in Southington, CT.

We developed the play through a combination of brief narrated scenes of the story and live action of the actors and their portrayals of the characters also presented on our large church screens.