Review: RED MOUNTAIN THEATRE'S HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR Gets You into the Spirit Through the Eyes of a Child

It's finally time to get into the holiday season. Gathering with friends and family to celebrate good cheer and togetherness. Red Mountain Theatre is celebrating the season off with a high energy Holiday Spectacular. This creative, fun, and must see holiday musical revue is a gift box overflowing with classic standards and contemporary hits of the season. There are also many surprise original Birmingham elements tossed into this sweet cookie mix. The production delivers the priceless feeling of opening presents from loved ones, watching holiday movies, wrapping presents, singing carols, or listening to the fireplace crackle. The performance is wrapped tight with song and dance numbers, angelic choirs, comical whimsy, traditional standards, and plenty of surprises.

"Holiday Spectacular" features a seeming endless number of spirited and talented children from the Red Mountain Theatre Youth Ensemble. The large-scale production showcases the importance to teaching the arts has on our community. The children pour everything into musical revue. The adult casts are featured RMT veterans Abijah Cunningham, Davis Haines, Kendall Johnson, Eboni Jane, and Kelli Dodd-Steffen. They each deliver warm cheer, smooth vocals with wide range. Dancers Jamorris Rivers and Bria J. Tyner give beautifully fluid motion that captures your emotions. The enormous cast share the stage in balanced and at times highly entertaining blocking.

This impressive "Holiday Spectacular" is written and choreographed by Red Mountain Theatre executive director Keith Cromwell, Associate artistic director Roy Lightner and Brad H. Forehand. Music director Anthony Smith's well-orchestrated arrangements treats the audience with tight, clean harmonies and fresh flavor to familiar songs of the holidays. A show highlight is how they infuse Alabama elements as a gift to our Birmingham community. You may feel the need to visit "Jim and Nicks" after the show.

The playlist results in a bright-eyed audience singing and clapping along, having fun in the spirit of the season. You'll enjoy "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", "Christmas Time is Here, " Jingle Bell Rock" and more. Original songs "Frosty the Blues Man", and "Santa Got Stuck on 280" will be a new addition to your season song list.

"Holiday Spectacular" is the biggest answer to why to leave the house this December. It is a loud hurray for gathering with friends, to watching talented performers share the joy of the holidays. Sharing not an individual religion but a spirit of giving, togetherness, unity and joy. That is what you walk out of the performance with. It is a unique "Spectacular" that fills you with song, hope, and togetherness.

After viewing "holiday Spectacular' you will see a specific focus on the joyful spirit and childlike wonder of the holidays. To close out the night I asked Keith Cromwell and Roy Lightener to share in just a few words, what does the holidays mean to you?

"Children" Cromwell earnestly says with a bright storybook twinkle in his eyes. "Remembering children. What it's like to be a child who believes and imagines believing in miracles." If you have never met Cromwell before , his love for mentoring children is equal to Santa's. "There are children up there from nine to eighteen. It rekindles your spirit in some way. There is something magical about watching this whole thing. There is nothing like this anywhere that I know of."

Roy Lightner shares a similar sentiment.

"I think now more than ever we are finding comfort in tradition. We've all been so pulled apart by the pandemic, by divisiveness, and by horrible people in the world. The holidays are a way to remind us to look at each other and see humans, see people. I love that it is holidays, not a specific religious experience. "

Red Mountain Theatre's Holiday Spectacular" is a joyful celebration of song, laughter, togetherness, and hope. Things with COVID may have dulled your view of unity right now. This production clears the isolation fog and allows you to believe in miracles again seeing with the eyes of a child.

Red Mountain Theatre's "Holiday Spectacular"

Directed and choreographed by

Keith Cromwell, Roy Lightner, and Bradford H. Forehand

Music direction -Anthony Smith

Red Mountain Theatre Arts Campus

1600 3rd Ave S, Birmingham, AL 35233

Oct 10 - 19th

FOR TICKETS

Visit the Red Mountain Theatre website - HERE

COVID vaccines requirement and mask protocols are in place at theatre. Please read directions on their website.

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