The Sun

At American Music Theatre: Celebrate The Spirit of The SeasonFree Access



With Thanksgiving barely in the wings, Christmas decorations and toys are lining store shelves and shoppers are already in the mode, checking their lists. Amid twinkling lights and holiday hysteria, it is sometimes difficult to find the true feeling and spirit of Christmas.

American Music Theatre’s production of “Joy to the World,” which opened Nov. 1, and runs through Dec. 30, celebrates the spirit of the season, uniting in tradition and creating memories through the power of music.

“We are most excited to present this year’s show, it is set in an inviting Christmas town filled with family and friends who invite you into their joyous Christmas community,” the show’s artistic director Andrea McCormick said. “In creating this show, the AMT team focused on the magical details in building a world for audiences to escape into.”

The two-act musical extravaganza, written, directed, and produced completely in-house at AMT, opens in a quaint town square, which is transformed into a vintage small-town winter carnival, brimming with family and friends, heralding the spirit of the season.

A cast of over 60 dancers, singers and musicians, festooned in brilliantly colored and elaborately styled costumes, create a magical world that alternates between the nostalgic sentiment of being home for the holidays, the whimsey of Santa’s elves dreaming of what they would be if they weren’t elves and the and traditional sacred Christmas pageant with a children’s living creche, featuring vocal and instrumental renditions of “Away in a Manger,” “Our Father,” “Panis Angelicus” and “O Holy Night.”

All aspects of theater magic come together to create this “most wonderful time of the year.” Creative staging seamlessly transforms a park gazebo to an instant rotating carousel; cast members interact with the audience hawking popcorn, creating an assembly line of gifts to insure Santa’s making his timetable and a bell choir leaves the stage with its “Carol of the Bells.’

Dancers explode in multiple modes, tap, jazz, modern, accompanied by creative instrumentation and musical arrangements from the onstage orchestra artistically ensconced on amid Main Street store fronts and veranda or staged, moving among vocalists and dancers.

For tickets or more information about this show and others at American Music Theatre, 2425 Lincoln Highway, Lancaster, call 800-648-4102 or visit AMTshows.com.

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