Judy's Scary Little Christmas: Accessibly Live Off-Line Review

Accessibly Live Off-Line

12/06/03

JUDY'S SCARY LITTLE CHRISTMAS is back! The classic holiday musical of a Judy Garland TV special that goes beyond the 'happy holidays' mode, returns for this season at West Hollywood's Court Theater.

It's Christmas time 1959. On the CBS television network, Judy Garland (Connie Champagne) is having a little holiday get together in her 'home' (actually, a TV setting of a 'home'), inviting such stars over as Bing Crosby (Sean Smith), Liberace (Don Lucas), Ethel Merman (Lauri Johnson), Vice President Richard Nixon (Eric Anderson), Joan Crawford (Joanne O'Brien) and author Lillian Hellman (Jan Sheldrick) for a little holiday song and cheer. All goes well until an unexpected visitor arrives and tells everyone where they really stand, both 'now' and in the 'future'.

This hit musical with book by James Webber and David Church, and music/lyrics by Joe Pactrick Ward is a take off of those sappy Christmas specials that littered the TV landscape from the 1950's well into the 1980's; the ones full of cute musical numbers and comedy that produced more cozy titters than full fledged belly laughs. Unlike those Christmas specials of not-so-long ago, this musical has more rip-roarin' belly laughs than one could stand! The songs performed in this production are great and really has the feel to those songs that were sung in 1950's/60's/70's TV holiday fodder. Kay Cole directs and choreographs this program that will bring a bit of holiday cheer to anyone!

The only element that is 'scary' is Connie Chanpagne's portrayal of Judy Garland. She plays Judy so well with each voice element and physical mannerism, one would swear that Miss Garland herself had returned from the great beyond to do 50 encores in a row of Swannee River and to cry each time! A winner of an Ovation award for lead actress in a musical, Connie's performance as Judy is worth price of admission alone!

Also appearing in the cast are Allen Everman II, Heather Holland, Terri Homberg-Olson, Johathan Neely, and Dustin Strong. Forget the 'Nutcrackers' and Christmas Carols' playing out in the theater world! JUDY'S SCARY LITTLE CHRISTMAS is the only Christmas-themed play that one should see this year! Well, OK! This is one of the only Christmas plays one should see this year! Happy Holidays!

JUDY'S SCARY LITTLE CHRISTMAS performs at the Court Theatre, 722 North La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood, until December 29th. For information on show days & times and for reservations, call (323) 960-4410, or visit the web site at http://www.plays411.com.

Visit the JSLC web site at http://www.judychristmas.com

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ACCESSIBLY LIVE OFF-LINE

(Vol. 8-No. 49-Week of December 8th, 2003)