Feature: CIRQUE'S TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE... at KC Music Hall

With the turn of the calendar from August to September, the Holiday Season has shifted into the active area of your family planning.  If your family is like our family, travelers both locally and nationally are planning to converge at your home over the Thanksgiving weekend.  How do you entertain them?

The Presidential election will then be about three weeks in the rearview mirror.  Your challenge, and you have no choice but to accept it, is how to keep all those partisan relatives from open warfare during their holiday weekend with you.

One suggestion is a trip down to the Kansas City Music Hall to witness a new production by Montreal’s famous Cirque Du Soleil.   The new show is called “Twas the Night Before…”  It is the first ever holiday themed Cirque in the almost fifty-year history of the company.

Because of the limited shelf life of a holiday show, “Twas The Night Before…,” four companies are mounted each holiday season.  One of the four companies this year originates in Kansas City. Performances open (believe it or not) on the “Night Before Thanksgiving” November 27, take a break on Thanksgiving Day, and continue through December 1 afterwards packing up and taking the show on the road through the holiday season.   There will be eight Kansas City performances.

Playwright James Hadley utilizes the poem, one of our two seminal Christmas tales, “A Visit From St. Nicholas” as the basis for the Cirque du Soleil version of Christmas.

Based on the Clement Clark Moore 1823 poem, ”A Visit From St. Nicholas”   and also the 1843 Charles Dickens’ novella “A Christmas Carol,” we can see almost all of America’s secular vision of Christmas.

Playwright and Director Hadley has deconstructed the poem and spun it into an amazing Cirque du Soleil for the entire family.  To that, he has re-imagined Christmas music to go along with the story.

If you have ever wondered what happens to all those amazing Olympic gymnasts from around the world after their Olympic dreams have dimmed, you may see them in Cirque du Soleil performances.  Cirque employs close to five thousand people.

A troupe of forty individuals including twenty-six onstage performers will have descended on the Music Hall to re-create the classic Cirque version of the Clement Moore poem.  

The family we meet is one whose Christmas tradition includes a reading of the poem, but one daughter thinks she has outgrown the tradition.  She nods off only to find herself inside the story.

Cirque shows demonstrate the pinnacle of human abilities.  The cast shows off their dance skills, specially made props, exceptional lighting, a story that hangs together, handmade costumes and incredible physicality. 

Cirque has an unmatched ability to share stories universally without the need for too many pesky words. It is impressive artistry.  

Your guests will be so entranced, they won’t care who won the election.   

“Twas the Night Before…” runs at The Music Hall November 27 to December 1.   The production runs time is about eighty minutes without intermission.  Tickets are available online at www.cirquedusoleil.com/twas-the-night-before.

Photos courtesy of Cirque du Soleil.

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