Cumberland County Playhouse's WHITE CHRISTMAS Helps Ease Your Holiday Season Worries

Less than 48 hours after opening night of Cumberland County Playhouse’s 2023 holiday season offering of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, we are happy/sad to report that tickets are mighty scarce as the sparkling production is almost certainly headed to a complete sellout! That momentous news can be attributed to many factors, not the least of which is that audiences are anticipating a wonderfully nostalgic and tune-filled celebration of the Christmas spirit after the pandemic-induced doldrums of the past couple of years and the knowledge that White Christmas is the type of show that CCP and its artists excel at each and every season.

Furthermore, to make sure that credit is given to whom it is due: Congratulations to producing director Bryce McDonald and the amazing leadership staff at CCP for doing their jobs during a difficult time for theater companies throughout the world and for accomplishing what is becoming harder every season: Developing the donor and support base that allows CCP to keep thriving and continuing to offer seasons filled with shows that have kept audiences returning to the plateau every season for the past 58 years, including a 2023 season that has played at near-capacity all year long. It’s an impressive feat – not even considering the artistic accomplishments achieved in the intervening years – that is to be celebrated just as the artists usher us into this festive time of year, glowing in the warmth of their splendid holiday-perfect gift.

In short, there is absolutely no better way to fill your heart and to kickstart your festive season revelry than with a performance of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, featuring the top-flight direction of CCP artistic director Britt Hancock, the skillful musical direction of Lauren Marshall and Jacob Miller, the impressive choreography of Ashley Gentry, the eye-popping design aesthetic provided by Curtis Phillips, Christopher Van Tuyl and Zahra Jangbar and the heartfelt and electrifying performances of a cast of consummate showstopping talents led by Heather McCall, Noah Sowalskie, Kelsey Brodeur and Riley Wesson.

The presence of such CCP stalwarts as nine-time First Night Award winning and 2015 First Night Honoree Martha Wilkinson, who began her illustrious professional career there in 1985, the beloved Jason Ross, Patty Payne, Michael Ruff, Daniel W. Black, DeAnna Helgeson, Lauren Marshal, Caitlin Schaub and others are almost an embarrassment of riches as we reminisce and recall the litany of superb productions we’ve reviewed at CCP over the years, while welcoming new cast members to the Tennessee theater family.

It is not unlike receiving a particularly beautiful, glittering and glowing Christmas card that you may delight in, consider and savor for two-and-a-half hours, one that takes you to a red and green-hued festive fantasyland, the sort of holiday setting for which we all long, but so seldom take the time to enjoy. Thanks to Hancock’s expert direction and Gentry’s sublime choreography, the show’s brisk pace and sprightly dancing may even inspire you to put on your own dancing shoes.

Filled to overflowing with all sorts of delightful elements – both holiday-wise and theatrical (there’s enough witty repartee to get you through a whole slew of seasonal cocktail parties) – and elevated by performances that bring the iconic characters from the 1954 film version (starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen) to life, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas is filled with style, grace and an elegant sufficiency of incredible talent.

It is as if all your Christmas wishes have been granted, every hope expressed is realized and every task on your ever-growing to-do list has been completed by unprepossessing elves bent on ensuring you have the best festive season ever. If this is indeed a harbinger of what is to come – well, I couldn’t be happier, nor will you if you can score a pair of tickets!

Consider White Christmas the very best gift under the tree on Christmas morning – one that comes from the prodigious, prolific and dedicated efforts of a Jewish man born in Imperial Russia who ultimately came to personify “American musical theater.” Irving Berlin lived to be 101 during his lifetime, but in our hearts he will never pass away as his timeless music continues to reverberate.

Kudos to Lauren Marshall and Jacob Miller, whose combined efforts as musical director create the lovely sounds coming over the footlights and from the orchestra pit that pay homage to Berlin’s score and which make every singer and every musician sound even better than before.

Irving Berlin’s White Christmas tells the story of two song-and-dance men and their female counterparts who come together during one particularly unseasonable winter ski season in 1954 to help save the bacon of an inspiring leader who’s played a significant role in their lives. It’s a tuneful, feel-good show that’s certain to lift your spirits and, quite possibly, reaffirm your faith in the human spirit in the process.

Hancock directs the proceedings with his consistently effective attention to detail and appreciation for classic musical theater, contributing his casting expertise to the show’s many successes.

Noah Sowalskie and Riley Wesson lead the cast as World War II and Broadway veterans Bob Wallace and Phil Davis (respectively), two song-and-dance men who are rehearsing for their next big Main Stem musical revue, when Cupid’s arrow and Davis’ machinations throw a wrench into plans and redirect the men (and their entire Broadway company and two beautiful and talented sisters of a former comrade-in-arms) northward to Vermont for a life-changing few days during which they are pressed into service to pay back all that is owed to their beloved former commanding officer, the erstwhile General Waverly (played by the equally commanding Dennis Elkins). It’s the kind of story that works best if all disbelief is suspended and one succumbs to the allure of a technicolor musical comedy of the stage variety.

Sowalskie and Wesson are ideally cast as the two, showing off their own showbiz bona fides and establishing themselves as song-and-dance men of the golden age in a decidedly more contemporary era. To their credit, both men take on the mantle left to them by stars of an earlier time in order to create authentic characters fresh off the screen, circa 1950s. They are smoothly debonair, obviously handsome, and still able to deliver the musical goods with aplomb.

As the Haynes sisters, Judy and Betty, Kelsey Brodeur and Heather McCall are picture perfect examples of mid-century stage and screen stars who can sing, dance, tell a joke and melt your heart – all with one glance. Each woman displays her ample talents: Brodeur is wonderful, singing and dancing with Wesson, to “The Best Things (Happen While You’re Dancing)” and Act Two’s showstopping musical number “I Love a Piano.” McCall, who time and again has proven her tremendous musical talents in shows at CCP, has never sounded better than in her big 11 o’clock number of “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me.” And her duet with Sowalskie to the hauntingly romantic “How Deep is the Ocean” that follows is, if I am totally honest, the very best musical number in a show filled with “the very best musical numbers.”

Now if someone could just figure out how to interpolate “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” into the score, I would be ever so grateful (and I would never ask for another present for the rest of my life. I swear).

Also, I feel compelled to call attention to just how good the Misses McCall and Brodeur and Messrs. Sowalskie and Wesson look in Zahra Jagbar’s period-perfect costumes: they may have stepped out of the pages of a Vogue fashion spread from 1954, so far as I know. There is a moment during which McCall and Sowalskie are dancing and their right arms are extended just-so and the line of her outstretched arm and gloved hand is as beautiful as anything I have ever seen in my entire life. It takes my breath away to even recall it!

Musical comedy powerhouse Martha Wilkinson, whom I have long proclaimed as the very best musical theater star to be found in these parts, once again proves how deserving she is of that title in the role of Martha Watson, the power behind the throne or the major-domo (or should it be “doma” – is there a feminine equivalent for major-domo, outside of housekeeper?) of the Columbia Inn, who shows off her own vocal chops with her stunning performance of “Let Me Sing and I’m Happy.” With her formidable stage presence and absolute command of her talents, Wilkinson stops the show to the sheer delight of the audience, who reward her with sustained applause. For a particularly delicious lagniappe, she is joined in Act Two by McCall and Brodeur for the rousing, rollicking and oh-so-much-fun “Falling Out of Love Can Be Fun,” for another of the show’s musical highlights.

Among the impressive supporting cast, Daniel W. Black is great as GI turned TV producer Ralph Sheldrake. There’s never been a more harried production stage manager than the one portrayed by the always spot-on Jason Ross, nor a more taciturn Vermonter than James Scott’s Ezekiel Foster. Elle Lisic (who shares the role with Harper Hadden) has her own show-stealing moments as the precocious Susan Waverly and she definitely makes the most of every one of them.

Curtis Phillips creates the picture postcard/movie musical spectacle/theatrical magic that is the production’s scenic design, which is so beautifully lighted by Christopher Van Tuyl’s illumination, while Denise Kappel’s props designs are truly outstanding. Matt Bundy provides the superb sound design that results in a flawless production.

During these troubled times, in which we often find ourselves on-edge and on-alert 24/7, there may be nothing better to lighten our load than a show by the master of American musical theater to transform and transport us to a land of theatrical magic and romantic make-believe. It’s sure to fuel you through the writing of hundreds of Christmas cards, the baking of dozens of cookies destined to fill countless tins for loved ones and all the other minutiae that consumes us at this time of year, every year.

Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. Music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. Book by David Ives and Paul Blake. Directed by Britt Hancock. Musical direction by Lauren Marshall and Jacob Miller. Choreographed by Ashley Gentry. Stage managed by Kayla Jenkins. Presented by the Cumberland County Playhouse, Crossville. Through December 22. For tickets and other details, go to www.ccplayhouse.org. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (with one 20-minute intermission).

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