Chapter 21 - The Christmas Operetta

1950 - 1957

     Harnessing the anticipation and excitement for the weeks leading up to The Christmas Play must have been a huge challenge for the teachers, the parents, and most of all, for Mrs. Needham, our music teacher. I’m guessing she was responsible for selecting the program, deciding which grades would play which parts in said program, and then choosing the soloists and other roles for the students in each grade. The Christmas Play was a major production staged in the Henry Ford Museum Theater on the last day of school before Christmas break. Costumes were handmade, either by the mothers or by seamstresses hired by the mothers who wouldn’t or couldn’t sew (my mother).

     In various years, we wore (1) tutus (mine was red with a white top); (2) Chinese pajamas for the Nutcracker’s “Chinese Dance”; (3) all-white tutus with sparkly silver stars as snowflakes in the Nutcracker; and (4) Japanese kimonos (mine was red, white and turquoise). Costumes were part of the magic. I can’t tell you the depths of my disappointment when, in our last year at the Village, we had no costume in The Christmas Play -- we dressed in navy bottoms, white tops & huge bows. We sang the words to “The Night Before Christmas” as a chorus.

     My brother and my cousin were among those who sang solos but luckily my musical talents did not rise to the level of a starring performance. Thus my memories of The Christmas Play are of happy anticipation rather than stage fright. The two years in which we wore oriental costumes were the best. I can still hear the words “I run away as fast as day” in my head whenever “The Chinese Dance” in the Nutcracker Suite is played. We practiced our dance steps often – it was a great routine that took us all over the stage. I vividly remember on Performance Night how our carefully rehearsed dance-trot picked up speed with our excitement, and eventually we hurdled across the stage in what I’d call a run-chase scene. It was marvelous.

     The next year, we wore kimonos and it was another great year. The costumes were beautiful and so was the accentuating make-up. Yes, we were herded two-by-two into a backstage wing where our faces, lit up by bright lights, were painted with special make-up, and it was the only time I remember being readied for a stage by a make-up artist.

     We rehearsed in the theater but nothing prepared us for the frenetic excitement of Opening Night (actually it was the Only Night). For one thing, it was night; it was dark out, and we were accustomed to daylight. For another, we arrived with our families by car, not on a bus. Our parents shuffled us inside the Henry Ford Museum, which was closed by that time, and many of the lights were out, adding to the strange delight. We met up with our teacher and classmates at an assigned gathering place by the wooden benches not far from the theater. Make-up was applied to our little faces (we hadn’t practiced with make-up) and we were all very silly and scared. There was a lot of waiting around. With all our excited, adrenalin-filled, laughing, frightened little selves, there must have been trouble. We had the entire museum to ourselves and the adults were distracted and busy. I’m quite sure that’s when I learned that the wooden display horses’ tails were removable. By the way, the horses, stationed in front of display carriages and sleighs, were located on the far side of the museum, quite a long way from our assigned wooden benches.

     Our teachers must have dreaded The Christmas Play.