Well, I'm on the stage, but today I'm at Southland Civic Theater and I have my friend with me, Aaron Nichols.

I love seeing you.

It's been a while since I've been on the stage with you.

Well, I love it when you come here.

These kind of on location reviews are my favorite, especially when the location is our beautiful Wilson Auditorium stage.

It is, and we're going to talk about the set in a little bit, but you guys have a lot of stuff going on.

I know we are officially into December now, but you guys are still doing some great things here.

Oh my gosh, we have so much going on.

We had a reading going on.

We have what we call our breakfast with Santa and friends, which is something we started.

We coordinated with Santa, called him up at the North Pole, and he is absolutely going to be here.

Actually, Mrs.

Claus is coming too.

That was part of the writer that she was to come as well.

They like it when they can spend time together.

It will be having I think it's a right in the morning.

Their brunches and Metro Diner brings.

All the food is delicious food.

They get to play games, you have activities you eat, and then you write letters to Santa.

You make a craft and then Santa's not anyone here at the civic, but Santa comes down from the North Pole and reads Twas the Night before Christmas with Mrs.

Claus.

And they, they they work with all the kids.

There may be snow machines involved.

It's just.

It's just the best time ever, really.

A whole entire experience.

It is.

It is.

And parents are looking for that kind of experience.

And honestly, it's better than than waiting for Santa at the mall.

I mean, Santa likes going to the mall, but it's it's all over.

But it is fun to have a little meal, have activities, and you really can have that great time supporting a local business.

And that's what we love in first two Saturdays of the first two Saturdays.

Tickets are probably limited at this point.

They are limited.

We have, I think, I think 90 per each one and there's three total.

There's one on that first, Saturday and then two on that second Saturday.

Okay.

Perfect.

Okay.

So once we get through that, you guys are getting ready.

I know we're just about to head into tech week here, right?

We are.

We are the best Christmas pageant.

And you are standing on the set.

And it's funny.

This is one of the first shows I ever did when I came back in 20, 20 years ago.

So we have we're glad to be bringing it back.

Is it how long it's been since you guys have?

I think so, yeah, it's been a while because I haven't seen this one performed much in the Michiana.

Yeah.

And it is a classic.

We love it.

And one of the nice things about it is it's short.

It's about it's a little over an hour.

So that means your littles can really enjoy this.

Sometimes a two hour, 2.5 hour show that becomes a little hard to have the kids be excited the whole time.

Definitely family friendly, definitely family friendly.

We and we are selling really well for this too.

So I would look at opens on what we call the 11th is our pay what you can preview.

Oh tell about that.

That is something we do for every one of our shows on the Thursday right before opening night.

In this case, it would be December 11th.

That Thursday night we have something called a pay what you can preview and that basically says we want to have this place full for our cast so that for that final dress that they can have a great cast.

But for the community, it's an opportunity to come for a dollar or five bucks or whatever you can afford and have a wonderful time at the theater.

What a gift it is.

We think so too, and that's that's our mission.

We want to create community through live theater, and that's one of the ways that we can do it.

So then it opens on the 12th, and then we actually have matinees and evening performances on the Saturdays.

Oh, because we found that Saturday matinee is something that's really attractive to people, because then they don't have to spend their evening.

They can do it a little earlier in the day for the kiddos, and a lot easier than being up until 10:00.

Well, especially with other Christmas parties happening and things like that, that gives more flexibility for everyone.

So that will go through the 11th to the 21st, then and then you're going to celebrate your holidays together after you come and celebrate with us.

I love it.

Okay, so I think this one became a movie, didn't it?

Yes.

Yeah.

This is one of those popular ones where it's just it's such a lovely story.

Again, it fits within our mission of okay, to the Santa metaphor, kids going from the naughty list to the nice list.

Okay?

Right.

Sometimes you think, okay, this kid's going to be naughty, or this kid's going to be nice, and this kind of flips that narrative and says, you can't judge a book by its cover.

These become it transforms the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of this Christmas pageant, and lets you understand that it's all about connecting.

It's all about embracing your community, maybe embracing those families that haven't been interacting as much with you.

And I love that we can tell that story here on the civic to make sure that our community realizes that empathy, compassion, kindness, grace, all of those beautiful things.

Spirits of the season can be celebrated right here.

Now, you're not directing this.

I'm not, I'm not.

So tell us a little bit more.

The how does the cast and the director, how do they work together to really bring all of those components?

Yeah.

I mean, Don Hunter, who's an amazing director, he worked at Bethel College, Bethel University now for a long time.

He's directing the show.

We have over 30 people in the cast.

Oh my gosh.

And so a lot of the tickets are going to be family and friends of that.

We love that too.

But having those rehearsals where people who are strangers, six weeks later, you're this cohort, this family, you know, you use family a lot in these kind of things, but it truly is.

You finished that process and you've been kind of refined in that fire of the stress and all the things of the, of the, of the show.

But then you come at the end of the season and you're like, oh, I have 30 new friends, right?

And isn't that isn't that great?

And for adults, not just kids.

And I do and I talk about that every time I'm on stage interviewing one of our amazing performing arts, centers in the area.

Yeah, I talk about that when you become it, whether you're a volunteer, whether you sit in the audience or you're on the stage or working behind the scenes, you become family.

It really is that it gives you that sense of belonging.

And that's just a wonderful thing.

Belonging is a perfect word.

I absolutely, and I want to talk about adult friendship.

You think about it, right?

Right.

Where do you think?

And old friends here at the civic, all these kind of places we can ask our friends.

We are be part of join things.

You know, that's so important to break some of the the loneliness that exists in these days and ages.

Go somewhere, do something together.

If it's at the civic, great.

But there's so many and you celebrate them all on your own on your show here, right?

All of these places where you can come together.

And speaking of going places, let's talk about this set, okay?

Okay.

Yeah.

This is going place I'm going to show you, and I'm going to show you how easy it is to.

So okay, here we don't have any beeps or anything, but I'm going to move.

Oh my gosh.

The entire set is on a turntable which means you have two totally different sets and a turntable is something where you have a middle point on a stage and you can move the entire set.

Just one shoulder here is moving the entire set around, and now we have the internal mechanics of our house that's earlier in the show.

So we go from home to church and back again several times during the show.

It's just a set design here.

Jeff Barrack is our resident scenic designer.

He's amazing, but we have so many volunteers who go above and beyond to make these kind of things possible.

So this is a civic theater, remember?

So these are your friends and family making it possible I love that.

Okay, so tell us a little bit more about the cast and the characters within this.

Sure.

Well, you have you have multiple families.

You have the it's basically telling this Christmas pageant, this nativity that happens and these families come from all these different places.

You have what you think is going to be the the normal cast of characters.

And then this family comes and they are known as kind of the oh, the trouble, the troublemakers, the ne'er do wells.

And she is they're cast as some of the lead characters and oh no, what happens next?

And I think people have a little surprise in store that maybe the people that they thought maybe wouldn't be as well behaved, maybe are the ones that bring that true Christmas spirit to life.

And what are you hoping people walk away from at the end of this?

You know, when they see this performance?

Yeah.

Is it a lesson of hope I think yeah.

Well said.

It's a lesson of hope.

But I think it's a lesson of allowing yourself to be open to everyone in your community so that you might not put up those barriers, put up those walls, but really do open yourself to that extreme, that that radical welcome that I think is so important during the season.

I love that.

Okay.

Remind us again, how can people get their tickets?

You guys have so much.

The best way is spiked.org.

That's our website.

We do have a call.

We can still use the phone if you want to.

574234 1112 if you want to go that way.

But again tickets are limited.

So get out there.

Get those tickets.

Once again we run the 11th through the 21st of December for the best Christmas pageant ever.

Perfect.

Awesome.

Thank you so much, Erin.

I appreciate your time and I guess we'll go for another ride.

Oh, you want to go?

Okay, okay.

Wait.

Can I get on it?

Yeah.

Okay.

Get on it.

Ready?

Here we go.

Take a ride.

You're going on the South Bend Civic Express.