Christmas was everywhere on Friday, Dec. 14. So I hit three Christmas bashes beginning with the Lethbridge Shakespeare Performance Society’s annual Shakespeare Meets Dickens fundraiser.

 I missed the reader’s theatre version of A Christmas Carol, but was in time for a comedy skit starring  Cole Fettig and DJ Gellatly as well as plenty of beautiful singing from  Stephanie Savage, who sang a sultry version of “Santa Baby.”

Megan Wittig sang more operatic Christmas  songs.

 But most of the laughs came from Monica Baczuk’s version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”

New West Theatre is excited to present  their annual  music-revue show  Hit Parade,” at the Yates Theatre, Dec. 19-Jan. 5.
 As expected, the production is a greatest hits collection of some of the audience and cast’s favourite music and comedy from previous year.

 It is also a homecoming and welcome back to some familiar faces like Scott Carpenter, Erica Hunt, Kathy Zaborsky, Kyle Gruninger, relatively new newcomers Ashley Thomson and Rylan Kunkel, and other familiar faces who are making a long awaited return to the stage like Jessica Ens.

“Jessica Ens  has been teaching. She was pregnant with her daughter Chloe when she did her last show with New West four years ago. So Chloe was the youngest cast member because she was a fetus at the time,” chuckled Scott Mezei, the new music director for the show, who is  co -music director  with long time cast member and vocal director Kathy Zaborsky. “I’ve been in the last five shows, but I’m still the new guy here, chuckled Rylan Kunkel.
“ And I get to play saxophone in this show again,” Kunkel enthused.

“I’m a musician who acts, so that has been great,” he continued.
“I get to  perform  Elton John’ ‘Crocodile Rock again too. So it’s nice to be able to repeat that again,” he said, adding he is enjoying watching the cast work.
“Erica and Scott are back and they have such powerful voices and  presence,” Kunkel continued.

 Grahame Renyk returns home to Lethbridge  for a break from studying  for his PHD in Ontario to direct this production.
But though there are familiar faces, there are some changes as Mezei is filling the massive shoes of long time music director and drummer Paul Walker who retired this year.
“They are massive shoes to fill,” he said.

We’ll take a cup of kindness, yet.

 Chinook High School hopes to promote compassion and understanding with their production of “ the Curious Incident of the Dog in The Night-time, which runs  Dec. 12-17.

The Simon Stephens penned drama, based on  Mark Haddon’s novel is a five time Tony Award winning, seven time Olivier Award winning play. Chinook High School drama teacher Duane Piper is directing the production.

“ So we feel pretty lucky to be able to do it,” said assistant director, Grade 12 student Kaitlin Carter.
“It is about Christopher Boone, A 15-year-old with autism who is really good at math. We get to see the world through his eyes,” Carter continued, adding the 25 member cast and crew tell the story though  a lot of tech, sound, storytelling as well as the acting itself.

“The Story opens with Christopher finding a dead dog on the road and is blamed for it because he is first on the scene, but he decides to try and solve the mystery and find out who did it,” she described, noting as the story progresses, he discovers a devastating secret about his family.

“ It’s a really exciting project for us to work on,” she said adding Chinook students are working with more tech and fewer cast than in most of their previous performances.
“It’s definitely a drama, though there are some funny moments,” she said, adding  the story contains some important lessons about compassion, caring  and empathy for other people.