The Best Christmas Pageant Ever coming to the Ritz

Millions have read the book, or seen the television adaptations of Barbara Robinson’s book, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, featuring the tragically Christmas-ignorant children of the Herdman family and their participation in the town’s annual Christmas pageant. Starting Dec. 6, you can watch the story unfold onstage before your eyes when the Ritz Community Theatre’s Tuesday Troupe program presents the play live, just in time for Christmas.
Director Chad Goebel recently spoke about the production.
“We do a Tuesday Troupe every Tuesday, which is the kids’ program. From there, we decided every semester we’re going to end with a show,” he said.
“So this semester, we’re ending with The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. We thought it was a good show to choose. It’s a small show. It’s a one-act. It runs about an hour and 20 minutes. So it’s kind of simpler for the kids, but it’s a well-known story.”
Goebel said the story, written in the 1970s, is still popular.
“I remember reading this book. I think it was in third grade,” he said.
“We ended up reading it all together. It’s a good little story. It’s a story of ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ along with these Christian values that are in the show. The Christmas pageant and these terrible Herdman kids who don’t know what the Bible is and have never heard of Mary and Joseph. They’re kind of in this wonderland of ‘What is this?’ and by the end of the show it wraps up to be them learning all these life lessons from the Bible, from the show, from each other. It’s a very good family show.”
Rehearsals have gone well, according to Goebel.
“I’m very surprised at the hard work these kids are putting in. They really are pushing forward and doing things I’m very surprised at,” he said.
“The show goes up next Friday, which is the sixth, at 7 p.m. Then Saturday the seventh, we’ve got the Lighted Christmas Parade, so we decided to postpone it until 8 o’clock so we’ll be able to enjoy the Lighted Christmas Parade, and maybe grab a few people from outside.”
Performances are also scheduled for Sunday at 2 p.m., Dec. 6 and Dec. 7 at 7 p.m., and Dec. 8 at 2 p.m.
The show features a cast of around 20, Goebel said.
“It’s a pretty big cast. It’s primarily kids, though. It’s only six adults,” he said.
“I want this program to be something that we can get the college kids involved, those that are interested in teaching, and kind of see if that is the route they want to go. The first year we did kind of a Christmas follies, just different songs and stuff like that. Then last year around the first of June we did Annie Jr. which turned out really well. That proceeded into the summer camp, where we did Shrek Jr. So we’ve tried to kind of tried to build and build and build. This will be our, what, fourth show. Then we’ve got another show the end of the spring semester called Game of Tiaras, which is kind of Game of Thrones mixed with Disney princesses.”
Goebel said the show is appropriate for the entire family.
“I’d say bring your entire family out. It’s going to play to the littlest of kids, the oldest adults in the family, grandmas, granddads. It’s family friendly,” he said.
“I was talking to a friend of mine who has kind of younger kids. She was worried about bringing them into the theater. ‘They’re going to get bored, they’re going to cause havoc.’ But in the time we do the show, just over an hour, it kind of keeps their concentration. So I’d say it’s family friendly for everybody.”
“There’s all sorts of links you can follow to get tickets. Or we sell tickets at the door,” he said. “We’re hopefully going to be selling a lot of tickets for this show. It’s going to be a big thing, I hope. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students.”