Over the weekend we went to see a wonderful play over at the Northern Virginia Community College Annandale Campus called "3 Days 'til Christmas".
This was a spur of the moment decision as I decided the day before to
search for a play to see and found this one in a web search, we read the
description and immediately bought some tickets as a surprise for our
daughter.
The
show, put on by Encore Theatrical Arts
Project (ETAP), was fantastic.The show is an original holiday story.
The singing, acting and dancing were
beautiful and very professional. The performers in the show ranged from
(approximately) 6th to 12th grade with three adult special guest
performers. The show is fun for all ages.
The
opening scene shows some of Santa's
elves at the North Pole sad that all of the kids are on the naughty list, no one is going
to get presents! Reginald, who is in charge, is upset that children are breaking the toys. After starting in the present, the story then flashes
back 3 days to explain the events leading up to the current. In between
is lots of entertainment, many laughs, with a happy ending of course. Did I mention the costumes? These were beautiful too.
We
all really had a great time. What also made it special is there is a
Girl Scout "behind the scenes" tour before the performances. Since there
were not too many kids at the later show, our family was invited to
come along (the kids in this group even got the chance to appear on stage during
song #2). It was neat to learn about what goes on backstage with this
type of show and speak with the producer, the backstage crew and some of
the performers.
Based in Northern Virginia, ETAP,
a nonprofit dedicated to nurturing new talent, is now in its 19th year.
Many of the organization's graduates have gone on to become Radio City
Rockettes, appear on Broadway, perform on various cruise lines and more.
We happened to catch the second to last day for 2014's holiday performance, but ETAP has a new show every year, so if you missed it this year, keep an eye out for next year.
My family was already asking if we could go back and see next year's Christmas show.
My response? "Absolutely!"
(No photos or video allowed during the show, however, Fox News also reported on this and included a video segment of the show).
This sounds wonderful and maybe we should make it one of the things we do next year.
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