Circa ’21 Creates Beautifully Arranged, Heartwarming Holiday Special
One of my favorite Christmas presents was not something you can hold in your hand – but sometimes those are the best kind.
It was an online musical revue – Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse’s “Home for the Holidays,” an outstanding, heartwarming and utterly charming
“Christmas Valentine” is performed by Savannah Bay Strandin and Tristan Tapscott (top), Ashley and Bobby Becher (left) and Jeremy Weinstein and Tassy Kirbas.
one-hour variety show with a cast of more than 30 students and adults.
Conceived and produced by the super-talented husband-and-wife team of Bobby and Ashley Becher, the show features some favorite Circa ’21 performers, and some local Rising Stars (the theater’s new children’s program), as they take you into their homes, and onto their favorite home-away-from-home, the Circa ’21 stage.
Available at www.circa21.com, since Dec. 19 through Jan. 2, the professionally produced video includes several well-known Christmas standards, as well as other delightful holiday numbers not as thoroughly trod – such as “Let Me Sing and I’m Happy,” “Christmas Valentine,” “Last Night I Went Out With Santa Claus,” “The Man With the Bag,” and “This Christmas.”
The show is packed with highlights – some awfully poignant, like students singing “Silent Night” from a dark, empty Circa stage (with only a ghost light on), and toward the end the beloved “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” as images from past Circa holiday shows are displayed. The latter ballad was first popular during World War II, and its line “We all will be together, if the fates allow,” takes on aching new meaning.
“Rising Stars” students perform in “Home for the Holidays.”
Most of the students’ songs were filmed together either at the Circa mainstage, or the smaller Speakeasy next door. I thought it was very generous to show three different groups of students performing (separately) through “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree/Jingle Bell Rock” at the Speakeasy, and the jazzy big band tap *number “I Went Out With Santa Claus” was an exuberant, thrilling joy.
Several students also showed lots of spunk and personality in the Zoom-style presentation of “This Christmas,” reflecting the irresistible, upbeat nature of the song. One of my all-time holiday treasures also was covered by the kids, the Peanuts classic “Christmas Time is Here.”
Of the adult numbers, I was most impressed with the harmonies, style and showmanship shown throughout – “Let It Snow,” “Christmas Valentine,” “The Man With the Bag,” and “White Christmas.” The segments that looked like they were filmed at home were lovingly produced, with bountiful holiday decorations.
In addition to the Bechers, Tristan Tapscott, Savannah Bay Strandin, Tassy Kirbas, Jeremy Weinstein, Sarah Hayes and Erica Lee Bigelow
Tassy Kirbas (left), Savannah Bay Strandin and Ashley Becher sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
are all excellent. Playing off a theme of kids reading letters to Santa, Tapscott (a popular Circa veteran) types a bittersweet letter that’s based on a real experience he had about applying for jobs during this pandemic. It is truly heartbreaking.
Appropriately, the holiday special ends with a communal “Auld Lang Syne” with all 34 performers. Owner/producer Denny Hitchcock also offers a Christmas greeting, with his shared wish that we can truly be back together for the 44th season at Circa in 2021.
“When I saw it, I was really, really happy,” Hitchcock said Monday of “Home for the Holidays.” “Bobby and Ashley are very talented people. I was pleased with the editing, with the special effects, the range of songs, the professionalism all around.”
He said the special evolved out of the Bechers’ “Rising Stars” program for local middle-school and high-school kids at Circa, to help the shuttered theater earn some revenue for the year. Since March 14, the mainstage only hosted one eight-week comedy in the fall, “Savannah Sipping Society,” but several events were done in the Speakeasy next door.
Savannah Bay Strandin (left), Erica Lee Bigelow and Sarah Hayes sing “The Man With the Bag.”
“It was so much more than what I expected,” Hitchcock said of the filmed holiday show, which included his 14-year-old granddaughter Kalie. “It was a target market; they looked for kids with experience.”
“Sometimes, in that situation, people just phone it in,” he said of performing and filming from home. “I didn’t think for a minute any of them did that. I was just thrilled when I saw it.”
“We know those aren’t going to pay the real estate bills, not going to cover payroll,” Hitchcock said of online sales. “It’s income we don’t normally have. We’re thrilled so many people were willing to work on the shows and share their talent.”
The Bechers’ “Rising Stars” musical theater program was over the summer; they also put together a “Broadway Backwards” cabaret in the Speakeasy a couple times, and did their own show, “Rapunzel in the Wild West” in the Speakeasy.
“Rapunzel” rehearsed just one week and did four performances across two weekends in August. That had a cast of seven – including Bobby
Denny Hitchcock is owner/producer of Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse, Rock Island.
and Ashley, Tapscott and Strandin, Doug and Sara Kutzli and a local high school student, Lillian Cobert.
All their rehearsals, performers were in masks. During performances, the actors were distanced from the audience, and when they entered or exited through the audience, they wore bandanas over their face.
Kids in the Circa “Rising Stars” program perform at the Speakeasy.
At Circa, the Rising Stars program was for students who were serious about theater. At Davenport Junior Theatre, the Bechers worked with students of all skills and abilities – but they saw a need for more advanced curriculum. “We were able to create something only for middle and high-school age students, for students seeking an advanced course of study,” Bobby said this fall.
They did two weeklong camps over the summer, one each for middle and high school students (15 each), and continued classes for an audition boot camp, and musical theater/dance four-week course (10 per week) through the fall, all on the Circa main stage. They’re hoping to do more in the future.
Ashley, a 36-year-old Bettendorf native, directed “Aesop’s Falables: A Rock Musical” at Davenport Junior Theatre in February 2019, when Bobby was sound designer and music director.
The wife-and-husband duo are creators and owners of the New York-based production company WhatFun! Theatre, founded in 2014 to
A variety of student and adult performers make Circa ’21’s “Home for the Holidays” a delightful, satisfying Christmastime treat.
produce theater for youth that’s smart, approachable, artistic and fun. Ashley and Bobby met in 2012 while touring South Korea, performing and leading workshops for youths and families.
Ashley, a 2003 Bettendorf High alumna who’s performed in Music Guild and Countryside Community Theatre shows, moved back to the Q-C in May 2018 to teach dance and theater at DJT, which serves students age 3-18. With Tapscott, they were in the Circa cast of “Holiday Inn” (the Irving Berlin film that made “White Christmas” famous) in summer 2019.
After that, the Bechers moved to Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre in Lancaster, Penn., to do “The Will Rogers Follies” in fall 2019 and “Holiday Inn” again there, last holiday season.
The couple returned to the Q-C, where Bobby was cast in “Saturday Night Fever” (to open in mid-March), and Ashley was scheduled to be in “Beauty and the Beast” at Circa, as well as directing both children’s shows, “Grace for President” and “Seussical.”
Bobby Becher co-conceived, produced, performed in and co-edited the video.
They had their first dress rehearsal for “Saturday Night Fever,” and then things were shut down. “When things got pushed back, they decided to do ‘Seussical’ with the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ cast, give up on “Grace for President’,” Bobby said. Ashley then cast “Seussical” with local people, and that got pushed back again, and she was going to cast it with people from “Winter Wonderland.”
“Winter Wonderland” was to be this year’s holiday show, but the state indoor-dining ban canceled it – the first time Circa was closed for the holidays since opening in 1977. It has been rescheduled for the same time in 2021, and Circa is hoping to reopen this March, and it’s seeking a state reclassification as a
Ashley Becher did the choreography and co-production for the special, as well as performed in several numbers.
restaurant, to allow it to seat more people.
Hitchcock said Illinois’ Phase 3 restrictions don’t allow any theater performances, but if it returns to Phase 4, they would be allowed 50 patrons maximum, in a theater that seats 334. If it was re-classified as a restaurant the dinner theater could seat people more than six feet apart and likely seat about 150, Hitchcock said.
The virtual tickets for “Home for the Holidays” start as low as $10, and streaming is available through Jan. 2. You will receive a link by email to watch the show at a time you choose.
This Thursday night for New Year’s Eve, Circa is offering “Raise Your Glass,” a new virtual cabaret experience. That show will feature the Circa ‘21 Bootleggers, your favorite Circa ‘21 stars and a few special guests. It will include songs and segments from entertainers across the U.S., culminating with a virtual toast at midnight to ring in 2021.
Virtual tickets begin as low as $10, and the show begins at 11 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. The video also will be available starting at 7 p.m. for those who might not be night owls, and the show will be able to stream through Jan. 8.
