Why I Believe in the Magic of Christmas

Whatever her motivations were, Lucy was right when she told Charlie Brown that a great way to get into Christmas spirit was to direct a Christmas play. This year  I  was asked to direct a stage production of Miracle on 34th Street for Centerstage Theatre, a fairly new community theater company here in Middle Tennessee. I had previously performed with my husband in their productions of To Kill a Mockingbird and Father of the Bride.  I like this theater’s mission of being a true community theater, open to performers whether they are just starting out or have been performing for years. I also like their commitment to diverse casting.

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We started rehearsals the week after Father of the Bride opened in October. This was not a musical, but I added songs for the store elves to sing and wrote a little “Elf Theater” show for them to do. The elves were played by 12 and 13 year old kids, I had six other children, in the show between 7-11 years old, and two of my "grown-up roles" were played by 17-year-old boys. I have directed shows before but not many. It had been five years since my last time at the helm, and that was a play I wrote myself (Don Coyote).

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We had a lovely cast of people who got along brilliantly. I purposely cast several women in roles that had been played by men in the movie version: our judge, the prosecuting attorney, and Kris Kringle’s doctor. Yes, it is easier to find women for community theater than men, but I liked the idea of all these professionals being women from the get-go. If you don’t know the story of Miracle on 34th Street, it is about a divorced mother who is a manager at Macy’s department store in New York. She has taught her daughter not to believe in Santa Claus or fairy tales. But then a man shows up who believes he is the real Santa Claus, and he changes their lives.

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I told my actresses that in my mind all of them were different versions of Doris, the mother. The attorney was the hardcore disbeliever, the judge was the one trying to find the sense in it all and make the right choice, and the doctor was the believer. It was fun working it all out. I’m a writer, so sometimes I get caught up in the motivations behind my characters’ actions. I applied a lot of this to my directing of the play. Sometimes I think my actors liked this, and sometimes they cocked their heads and wondered what point I was making.

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In the end, the show was quite lovely, and I was very proud of it. It was a lot of fun. Doing a Christmas play is a great way to get into the spirit of the holidays. Sometimes you get a little tired of Christmas by the time it finally rolls along, especially if you start rehearsing early. (I did a blog post a couple months back about how, for me, most of this year has been about Christmas). This year, as the director of a show, my Christmas spirit thrived with each performance. I got to sit back and watch the performances instead of having the stress that comes with being onstage in live theater. It was a nice experience to just enjoy this story coming to life night after night, watching it evolve and take on a life of its own.
 
I wrote a director’s note for the program. I’m a bit wordy (if you haven’t noticed, ha ha), so they put it in this teeny-tiny font to fit it in, and I’m pretty sure no one read it. I thought I’d share it here on my blog. My thoughts about Santa and belief in magic just in time for Christmas.

Director’s Note
 
I have always loved Miracle on 34th Street, with a particular fondness for the 1947 black and white version. However, this movie always bothered me a little as a kid. I couldn’t fully get my head around whether or not I believed Kris Kringle was, in fact, Santa Claus. Like little Susan, I wanted to believe, but it just didn’t make sense to me that real Santa would be milling about New York in December and didn’t have more important things to do like being in the North Pole making toys with the elves.
 
Not surprisingly, I became a very practical-minded grown-up, and despite juggling careers as a teacher, entertainer and children’s book author, I don’t allow myself to have many flights of fancy. I relate to Doris and her efforts to shield her daughter from a life of believing in things that can’t possibly be real because I too have been disappointed and let down at times. And yet, is that really the right thing to do? Shouldn’t children be allowed to cling to their innocent imaginations as long as possible? Imagination leads to dreams; dreams lead to hope; hope leads to positive action. So much of childhood disappears so quickly nowadays. We saw that at auditions when I asked every child what they wanted for Christmas, and only one of them asked for an actual toy.
 
Thirty years ago I played Peter Pan and encouraged all the children in the audience to clap and shout that they believed in fairies so Tinkerbell wouldn’t die. Today, I ask you all of you to open up your minds and believe in Santa Claus. Believe in magic. Believe in goodness and selflessness. Believe in pure joy. I know it’s silly, but believe.
 
Thank you to the cast and crew here at Centerstage Theatre for taking this journey with Kevin and me. Everyone has worked so faithfully. We’ve done many Christmas shows over the years, and this will always stand out as a favorite memory.
 
Donna Driver

Now I must get back to cooking Christmas dinner. If you have time, please leave a comment, scroll down to read some of my other posts, or poke around the website. I have lots of excerpts of my work posted. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and wonderful holiday season.

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