’Tis the season to be jolly

46th annual Virginia Christmas Spectacular opens Nov. 30 at Thomas Road

Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC) is taking audiences back to a 1940s Christmas in New York City for its 46th annual Virginia Christmas Spectacular this holiday season.

“Jingle in the City,” a musical drama which follows the adventures of a group of young orphans in the city, will be showing at TRBC from Nov. 30 through Dec. 4.

The first showing on Wednesday, Nov. 30 is free for Liberty University students as well as friends and family of cast members.

Producer and Director Lorie Marsh said the church is expecting around 30,000 people to come to the six performances.

“It’s a way for creative people within the church body to be able to do a great Christmas production and also be an outreach to the community,” Marsh said.

Marsh, who is directing the Virginia Christmas Spectacular for the ninth year in a row, wrote “Jingle in the City” in 2009 with stage director and current forensics coordinator at Liberty Denise Thomas. Marsh has been involved with creating dramas and musical productions for churches across the country for about 30 years.

Marsh said producing an original, two-hour show would normally take several years. However, the cast and crew for this production goes through this process almost every year.

“You can’t go out and buy a show like this,” Marsh said. “You can find them for Broadway, but they’re not shows for churches. If we were going to do it, we were going to have to write something original.”

Each year, Marsh and Thomas focus on writing a story that contains themes relevant to the audience. The orphaned main characters in “Jingle in the City” struggle with finding a place where they belong. Marsh believes that theme of belonging will translate to the audience.

“We always try to have our main characters experience a conflict that people sitting out there in the audience struggle with in their own life,” Marsh said. “No matter how much we have, we can still be very lonely. There’s something lacking in our life if we don’t have that relationship with God.”

More than 500 cast and crew members, which includes an onstage cast of 120, are involved in the production.

In addition, the Virginia Christmas Spectacular features the Living Christmas Tree each year. The Living Christmas Tree is a massive part of the set filled with TRBC’s choir members.

“It’s a truly gorgeous set,” Marsh said. “The Living Christmas Tree is 37 feet high, and it has 250,000 lights on it.”

Marsh said about 100 Liberty students are involved with “Jingle in the City.” Members of the Liberty Marching Band along with many dancers, musicians and actors from Liberty will be a part of this year’s production.

The dance cast has especially benefited from the involvement of several students, Marsh said.

“They make up such a large portion of our dance cast particularly,” Marsh said. “The level of excellence in the dance cast has really risen over the last few years.”

However, Marsh hopes that Liberty students and other members of the community will come out to see “Jingle in the City” this year.

“It’s a great way to kick off the Christmas season,” Marsh said. “There is really nothing like (it) anywhere within hundreds of miles.”

Beneath the dazzling lights and Christmas carols, Marsh hopes that audiences will hear the same themes that are preached at TRBC on Sunday mornings.

“What we care about the most is that it has a strong gospel message to it,” Marsh said. “Audiences hear the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in a way that has relevance to their lives today.”

The show will have two matinee performances Dec. 3 and Dec. 4, along with evening performances Dec. 1,
2 and 3.

Ticket costs range from $5 – $15 and can be purchased at virginiachristmasspectacular.com.

COVEY is a feature writer.