A couple of weeks ago we hosted our first Christmas production in our new worship center. Crossroads is known for big, elaborate productions, so the pressure was on to ‘bring it’ in the new digs. We designed the new building for these kinds of events - A big stage with multiple curtains and fly tracks for bringing things on and off stage. It was so much fun having the facility we needed to accommodate the kind of production we wanted to share.
Early this year, while the building was still going up, we decided on a musical stage version of the beloved Peanuts television classic, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” I’ve always enjoyed the comic strip, and the television special has always been a family favorite this time of year. One of Broadway’s most successful shows a few years back was “You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown.” The combination of adult actors playing these characters in the costumes we remember, with over-sized sets to make them look more child-like has a magic all of it’s own and we knew it would work with the Christmas special as well as it had with the “Good Man” story line. We just needed to work in some original musical numbers, build on the spiritual message that already exists in the original script and we would have ourselves a terrific production for this Christmas season.
We began with a great director. We knew we needed someone who had experience with musical stage shows, so we asked Kathy Pooler to direct and I’m so glad we did. She did an incredible job filling our huge new stage!
Next we were on to casting. The actors we selected did an incredible job! Jason Rhoades played Charlie Brown. (Completely shaving his head for the role!) Daphne Gaspard played Lucy, Aaron Domegeaux played Linus, Coy Watson played Schroeder, Kari Campbell played Sally, Phil Bergeron played Snoopy, Michelle Sanchez played Frieda, Madelyn Roberts played Violet, Stephen Clark played Franklin and Stephanie Elmore played Peppermint Patty.
Coy Watson, Kari Campbell and I wrote original songs for the production. They came out great. Kari’s song, “Phobias” was performed by Daphne Gaspard as Lucy in the Psychiatrist scene. Kari, playing Sally Brown, performed a song written by Coy called “Tens and Twenties.” The song I wrote was called “This Little Tree” and it was performed by Jason Rhoades, as Charlie Brown. We also included a song originally performed by the Royal Guardsmen called “Snoopy’s Christmas.” The song featured a mechanical doghouse that ‘flew’ (thanks to Shane Thompson) in front of a 16x19 screen, with Jordy Davidson on vocals and Mariah Hebert, Ashley Boullion, Anna Hansen, Kriston Arceneaux, Gavin Kondo and Kevin Wold dancing as German soldiers. Michelle Sanchez choreographed the dance numbers. As always, Coy Watson did a marvelous job arranging and performing the music with his talented band consisting of Steve Melancon, Tom Lyles, Kari Campbell and Lance Morgan. The stage set designed by Rhett Wyatt and company was magnificent! Rhett also managed the XMC stage hands who beasted all the prop placements and scene changes! Holane Davidson was our costume designer. She and our hair and make up artists, Britney Bergeron and LaGwen Miller made all the Peanuts characters look legit!
We had over 4,800 in attendance, the largest service we’ve ever had, with 80 decisions for Christ which means Charlie Brown isn''t such a blockhead after all! Thanks to everyone who helped make this year's production such a tremendous success!
