At the beginning of the pandemic, while most people in the performing arts were turning to livestreams and drive-ins to make the best of the tough times, Burlington’s Lyric Theatre Company did something totally different.
Starting in March, the Lyric transformed the warehouse it used for rehearsals into a hub for volunteers and material distribution for the city’s mask-making efforts. In just a few weeks, Lyric made 24,000 masks for front-line workers in Chittenden County.
But as the spring became summer, masks became more ubiquitous, so the Lyric team decided they should turn their efforts toward something only they could do — putting on a show. And in the uncertainty of Covid, they decided a Christmas special might be exactly the right fit.
And in that spirit, “Miracle on Green Tree Drive, a Lyric Family Christmas Special” was born.
The show is a 171-member-cast-and-crew monstrosity — intentionally including as many people as possible.
“It turns out that during a pandemic that’s a lot of people that don’t have a lot to do,” said Erin Evarts, executive director of Lyric. “When we put out the audition announcement, we got an overwhelming response.”
But putting on a show with hundreds of performers is no easy task.
In total, the special has 16 scenes, each carefully recorded piece-by-piece with only a small number of actors at a time. No one sang on camera. Instead each performer’s voice was recorded separately and added back after the fact.
In the show’s finale, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” 50 different people recorded their voices separately, then lip synced the number on camera, before all 50 renditions were overlaid for the finished product.
“Intense is the word I’m going to use,” said Serena Magnan O’Connell, who wrote the show. “I don’t believe that many other groups could have achieved what we did.”
The show takes its inspiration from the “Lawrence Welk Show” and the “Dean Martin Christmas Show” — a hodgepodge of sketches, songs and dances, all loosely tied together by the story of a man who wakes up in a dream as the host of a TV variety show. In that role, he meets a woman who’s desperately trying to find her Christmas pickle, which she has lost, and the pair move from scene to scene trying to recover it.
“It’s a loose plot, but it works,” Magnan O’Connell said. Most years, O’Connell writes the tree lighting show for Burlington — an event that was canceled this year because of the pandemic. Instead, she threw her energy into writing the variety show in the span of just a few weeks.
The project was approved by Lyric’s board of directors in August, and a script was finished by late September. Then, the entire show was rehearsed, performed and captured on film in less than two months.
The group also transformed the warehouse they practiced in for the project. The rehearsal room turned into a TV studio, complete with new flooring to make it look like the real deal, while the board room was turned into a sound studio with windows that would be opened for an hour in between each singer to air out any potential for the virus.
“I don’t usually get nervous or stage fright — I’ve been on the Flynn mainstage, I’ve had big roles and small roles, but this looked like a professional movie set, and when I first saw it, I was actually a little intimated,” said Hannah Normandeau, one of the performers.
The production even had a health and safety monitor whose job it was to be on set, making sure masks were worn, distance was kept, and every possible precaution was being taken to keep people from getting sick.
“I think she was a testament to our seriousness about these precautions throughout the process,” Evarts said.
Despite the renovations, the project still cost less to produce than the shows Lyric typically does on the Flynn mainstage — and in the end, is set to at least break even.
Tickets for the virtual show are being sold in two ways: one for individuals watching the show alone ($20), and one for families watching in a group ($45). Evarts said they’ve already sold hundreds of tickets, and they expect even more will be purchased before the show premieres on Sunday.
“I’m going to watch it for the premiere on Sunday with my husband, we’ll do takeout and watch it with everyone, and then I’ll probably watch it again with my parents, with me watching at my house and them watching at their the same time, and then a couple other times too because it’s just so much fun,” Normandeau said.
Evarts said that’s the point. She said she hopes they’ve created a memorable event that the Lyric community can look back on for years to come.
“It’s a little bit of a time capsule for Lyric in 2020,” she said. “It’s a love letter to the community that has supported Lyric for 47 years.”
