Around The U.S., Holiday Theater With Local Flair
Whatever they are, our holiday traditions tend to be a mixture of the universal and the specific.
If we celebrate Christmas, for instance, we might have stockings and trees just like our neighbors, but we might also be the only ones in town who wear homemade elf hats while we open presents. It's a mix that helps us feel closer to the rest of the culture while reaffirming what's special about our own little community, family and home.
That balance also energizes theater this time of year. For every touring production of The Rockettes or comforting remount of A Christmas Carol, there's a holiday show specifically intended for a local audience, bringing together a block or a city instead of the world.
Take The Christmas Schooner, a musical about real-life sailors in the early 20th century who risked their lives to carry a boatload of Christmas trees from Michigan's Upper Peninsula across Lake Michigan to sell them to Chicago's German immigrants. Written by John Reeger and the late Julie Shannon, the show has been produced in the Windy City almost every season since it premiered in the mid-'90s; for the last three years, it's gotten a highly polished treatment from the Mercury Theater, which opened its latest remount this week.
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