Friends – Michael W. Smith

“Though it’s hard to let you go, in the Father’s hands we know
That a lifetime’s not too long to live as friends…”

Hope for the Journey

From Pati and Ken Rader, their “Hope for the Journey” project: “the purpose of the site is to provide you with hope, help and encouragement along your life’s journey.”

Christmas Has Been Officially Renewed

by Jesse Smith – “…from the moment Thanksgiving ended I was able to celebrate everything that Christmas is about and I owe it all to my son, Styer.”
And so begins Jesse Smith’s blog entry. Its topic is so fitting to the Behind the Scenes blog, that I didn’t want his entry to become lost [...]

Top 10 List from “An Evening in December” 2008

And the top 10 best moments from 2008, that the audience never saw:
10. Watching a herd of men deadlift a grand piano off the stage and back up again.
9. The little boys in kids’ choir trying to do a spellout, getting it wrong (“J – E – S – S – aaaah ! “), then [...]

Director inspires cast to give audience our best EFFORT

It all comes down to our EFFORT. If we the cast can remember all those six points, we will be surprised by the level of performance we can achieve. And the audience will be blessed with the experience.

Full cast runthrough Saturday, 22 days to opening night

Lace up the dance shoes, cinch up the truss (you tenors hitting the high notes), and take one last peek at the script. It’s the milestone all cast members anticipate: the first full cast run through!

Get Your Second Wind

he phrase “second wind,” according to American Heritage is defined as “a new surge of energy after a period of mental or physical exhaustion.”
Sunday, I witnessed the tight horn licks, straight up and funky rhythm section and spot-on vocals of “Second Wind” the new surge of energy in its 2008 rebirth of

In memory: Kevin Corrington, 1946-2008

“These notes are so high, we’re all going to need a truss.” Words like those from Kevin Corrington would keep me in stitches during choir rehearsals, any time we opened a song for the first time and spotted unbelievably high tenor parts.
Now, the tenor section in “An Evening in December” will always be one great [...]

Top 10 cast member survival tips

How do we survive ten full-cast run-throughs, back-to-back-to-back shows Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon? Ten performances, two weeks in a row?!

What survival tips do the veterans have for the first-time AEID (An Evening in December) cast member?
I brainstormed all the tips and tricks that I have picked up [...]

candid photos from “An Evening in December 2007″

Lisa and I uploaded a hundred or so of our photos in a Picasa web album. If you’re looking for a photo from an actual show, you’re out of luck; we were on stage almost all of the time. And, we dare not shoot anything on stage, for fear of causing a flash that might [...]