The 2018 show was a great success with
a good sized crowd in the auditorium at TC Williams on King Street in
Alexandria, at 7:30 pm.
“The Secret of Christmas” show had a
special International twist. It was the
continuation of the Harmonizer Jack-in-the-Box routine for the first half, but
this time Jack had to cope with a Russian operative and his “helpers” who were
trying to steal the secret. Terry Reynolds was the usual fun and
over excited “Jack” and Troy Hillier
was “Boris Badenove” and Noah Van Gilder
was the “Fearless Leader” who came to check on the work of Boris and his men! The “support staff” for Boris was our own a
cappella group TBA who sang on the show and included associate director, Tony Colosimo, who was often often “nominated” to sing for Boris on command.
The chorus was dressed as elves or
toys for the first half as they were helping Jack conduct a guided tour of the
North Pole and Santa’s workshop for the Russians. And as you can imagine, the
jokes were pretty bad but got lots of laughs none-the-less.
Director Joe Cerutti was Junior, the Music Elf again and was a happy elf
with the chorus’s great singing of the songs.
At one point, Jack needed to use
“captions” to explain something to the contingent from Russia – so he had Monks
come diagram the words for “Hallelujah Chorus.”
Monks in brown robes included Michael
Bagwell, Bob Blair, Janet Cerutti, Clark Chesser, Matt Doniger, Naida
Harrington, Chris Huber, Hal Reney, Lorraine Reney, Ben Roberts, Eileen Spinela
and Sandra Stamps.
For the second half of the show, the
chorus was in red, green or blue sweatshirts with white scarves. Songs for this portion of the show featured
soloist Brad Jones for the opening
song “Let All Mortal Flesh,” and a trio of Drew
Fuller, Frank Fedarko and Mike Kelly
were featured in our always crowd-pleasing closing number “Do You Hear What
I Hear.”
Guest quartet for the show was
BETTER TOGETHER with Tony and Elizabeth Colosimo and Andrew and Heather Havens. They sang a
set to start the second half. At the end
of their set, they sang about the meaning of Christmas, and their little
children came onto the stage to join them. Heather
also helped the chorus with an echo voice solo in “Gloria.”
TBD sang a Hanukkah song as part of
their set in the second half of the show with Jacob Broude, Tory Hillier, Terry Reynolds, Connor Goss, Brian
Ammerman, Josh Roots, Kellen Hertz, Nick Leiserson, Noah Van Gilder, Clark Chesser,
Josh DesPortes, and Jeff Burkey.
Special mention and thank you for
the annual addition of real sleigh bells from Steve White. He has a set made
by his grandfather in 1963 and has brought those handmade rich-sounding bells
for 42 years to our show.
The chorus met at the school on
Friday nite for a dress rehearsal and tech rehearsal. Members brought
holiday-wrapped boxes for the stage.
Then everyone was on hand Saturday nite at 5 pm to help finish setting
up, changing into costumes and warm up.
Administrative team for the show
included director of shows, Joe Cerutti
Sr.; producer, Jeff Burkey; ticket
manager, Dean Sherick; printed
four-color program, Casey Belzer and Lacey Patrick; technical producer, Mike Kelly; advertising/marketing, Steve Murane; front of the house, Krissi Folsom; and photography, Rob Langston. Kristin Kelly managed the large silent auction event in the lobby
with help from Randall Eliason and
many members of the chorus who obtained items for the auction. The script team
included Scipio Garling, Troy Hillier,
Nick Leiserson, Terry Reynolds, Joshua Roots and Carter White. In addition
to these folks, there were many members and family supporters at work in the
lobby and hall to help with tickets, welcoming guests, the auction sales and
payment process, sales of Harmo CDs, and back stage work.
After the show, it was
all-hands-on-deck so we could be out of the building by 10:30 pm and avoid an
extra charge. Chapter executive director
reports we made it with 10 minutes to spare after clearing the stage, all the
dressing rooms and the lobby area.
Until next time – editorjack! (This message is prepared for your review if you were there, for your information if you had to miss, and as a historical record of the great things going on each week during the 70th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd
