Red Mountain Theatre celebrates the season with 15th year of ‘Spectacular’

Red Mountain Theatre Company wasn’t even Red Mountain Theatre Company when Keith Cromwell first started planning the theater’s now-annual holiday show.

Cromwell came on board in 2003 as executive director of what was then Summerfest Musical Theatre, and he drew on his experience performing in Radio City Music Hall’s “Christmas Spectacular” when he dreamed of his own similar show in Birmingham.

“When I first got here, I thought, ‘Let’s create a spectacular!’” Cromwell recalled. “I thought I could somehow pull the entire community together to bring ballet and opera and classical music and include live animals from the zoo and, of course, include theater to create an amazing production that the entire community could unite behind.”

There have been no live animals, yet, but the “Holiday Spectacular,” which launched in 2005, has become an annual event at the theater that was renamed Red Mountain Theatre Company in 2007. The 15th installment this season will, as always, feature the members of RMTC’s Conservatory, including 78 performers from ages 9-18, and some guest performers, too.

“It really gets me in the holiday spirit and gets me excited about Christmas,” said Tess Patton, a senior at Mountain Brook High School who will be performing in her eighth “Holiday Spectacular.” Tess is 17, and her younger sisters, 15-year-old Sadie and 13-year-old Ivey, will also be on stage as Conservatory members.

Though RMTC veterans will guest star in the show, the focal point is always the young Conservatory members.

“Our audiences get to watch our kids grow up in our program and enjoy their growth and maturity as artists while at the same time enjoying a holiday tradition,” Cromwell said. “Very often, I have a patron tell me they recognize one of the younger kids who was a star or played Mary or Joseph in the finale and are now in the elder group performing beautifully, and that’s one of the most exciting aspects of my job.”

The “Holiday Spectacular” includes seasonal standards, but it’s a new show every year, and Cromwell and company make sure it has new, original material each year, too.

The original material, which Abe Reybold helped create, has included a “We Three Kings” parody about Alabama’s “American Idol” stars: Ruben Studdard, Taylor Hicks and Bo Bice; sketches and songs about the Kardashian and “Duck Dynasty” families; and the song “Santa Got Stuck on 280.” This year, Cromwell said audiences can expect some material about the highway construction going on in and around downtown Birmingham.

Some material changes year after year, but one thing that hasn’t is the stirring finale. For that, Cromwell drew from his days as director of off-Broadway’s “A Christmas Survival Guide.” The finale of that show was “Take a Walk Through Bethlehem,” a song sung by Trisha Yearwood, and Cromwell chose it as the basis for the RMTC holiday show finale, too.

“Our ‘Take a Walk Through Bethlehem’ includes so many beautiful and popular secular and non-secular songs delivered by a cast of close to 100 from the ages of 9 through our adult professional company,” Cromwell said. “There’s nothing that can bring the holidays into the warm center of your heart like watching our finale.”

Cromwell hasn’t finished evolving the “Holiday Spectacular.” In fact, he hasn’t given up on his original idea, so the zoo better watch out.

“I am still interested in expanding this idea into something larger, most definitely including live animals,” he said with a laugh.

This year’s “Holiday Spectaclar” will run Dec. 6-22 at RMTC, 301 19th St. N. in Birmingham. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit redmountaintheatre.org.