Holiday Mayhem: The Herdman kids run wild in Theatre Albany’s ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’

ALBANY — A rambunctious bevy of siblings takes over the annual Sunday school Christmas show — and the stage — in Theatre Albany’s holiday season production “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.”

The curtain rises at 7:30 p.m. Friday for the seven-show run, which includes two Sunday-afternoon matinees.

Based on a story by Barbara Robinson that was first published in a magazine in the early 1970s, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” is a comedy with heart as the most unlikely of youngsters learn an important lesson about Christmas, a lesson that reaches others in the church community that they invade.

“It’s a family called the Herdmans,” Theatre Albany Director Mark Costello said. “There are six of them, and they don’t have any parental control. One of the kids says, ‘The welfare people are at my house every day.’ They haven’t really been brought up in anything.”

How they find the special “something” of Christmas comes from an offhand remark by one of the Herdmans’ many victims at school, Charlie Bradley (played by Cole Reynolds). His sister, Beth (Leslie Bonner), narrates the play, noting that Charlie is frequently picked on by the Herdmans, who take his lunch and desserts away from him.

The Herdman kids are delinquents who, among other things, lie, steal, smoke cigars (including the girls), talk dirty, “cuss their teachers” and take the Lord’s name in vain. They once set fire to a man’s tool shed. They also bully their fellow students at school, appropriating their lunches.

They are the reason one of the characters has found refuge in going to church.

“Charlie says the great thing about church is there are no Herdmans there,” Costello said. “Then one day Leroy Herdman (Wyatt Brown) steals his lunch and he says, ‘That’s OK if you steal my lunch. At church, I get all the desserts I want. I get cake, I get cookies, I get ice cream.’”

Leroy and his siblings get interested in the church treats, especially after they find out the minister provides them free of charge.

“He’s basically given them an incentive to go to church,” Costello said.

Meanwhile, Charlie and Beth’s mom, Grace Bradley (Kelly Mullins), is thrown into the role of directing the church’s annual Sunday school Christmas pageant when the regular director breaks her leg. She runs into a problem her predecessor never had — the Herdman siblings.

“She suddenly has to deal with all the Herdmans, who decided to show up,” Costello said. The Herdmans, in true form, “take over” casting the pageant, declaring the parts they’ll play. “She ends up with all the main characters in the Nativity — Mary, Joseph and the Wise Men and the angel of the Lord — all Herdman kids.”

While Grace tries to get some of the other kids to try out for those parts, children are afraid to go against the tough Herdmans, who learn the Christmas story — and learn to appreciate it.

“They have questions like ‘what’s a manger?’ They tell them that’s where Mary put the baby, and they say, ‘What? In a feed trough?’” Costello said. When Grace tells them there was no room in the inn so Mary and Joseph had to make do with what they had, the Herdmans understand. “They say, yeah, when Gladys (Sarah Kay Bonner) was born, we had to put her in a bureau drawer. We had a bed, but Ollie wouldn’t get out of it.’

“There’s a lot of comedy in it, what the Herdmans do and how they treat their characters.” Gladys, for instance, plays the angel role like she’s a superhero.

“The one who’s most affected is the one who plays Mary, Imogene (Hope Fenner),” Costello said. “When they get to doing the pageant, they get to be more reverent. The way Imogene treats the Baby Jesus, how tender she is, just amazes everybody. So it becomes the best Christmas pageant ever.”

The production has a large cast, with most of the roles, as might be expected, played by kids.

“We’ve got about 33 in the cast,” Costello said. “It’s not entirely a children’s show. All the characters aren’t played by children. It has adults in it, too.”

The cast includes John Owens (Ralph Herdman), Sarah Kay Bonner (Gladys Herdman), Davis Owens (Claude Herdman), Jay Carpenter (Grace’s husband, Bob Bradley), Hope White, Leigh Ann Young, Cathy Morey, Jennifer Bateman and Vickie Lewis.

The play includes some Christmas carols from the choir of angels as part of the pageant. After the Dec. 11 matinee, Santa Claus is scheduled to drop in for a visit and photos with patrons.

After Robinson published the story in McCall’s, it was released as a book in 1971. She then adapted her story into a play that was first professionally performed on Nov. 26, 1982, at the Seattle Children’s Theatre. A year later, Loretta Swit of M*A*S*H fame starred in a TV movie, with the teleplay also adapted by Robinson.

Curtain times for Theatre Albany’s production of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and Dec. 15 through 17, and at 2 p.m. Dec. 11 and 18. The theater is located at 514 Pine Ave. Tickets are $20, adults; $15, seniors; and $10, children and active military. The box office at (229) 439-7141 is open noon-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, noon-2 p.m. Saturday and one hour before curtain.

Also on Dec. 10, Theatre Albany will have a Holiday Tour of Homes from 1 to 4 p.m.

“It’s the second year we’ve done it,” Costello said. “It was very popular and people really liked it last year, so we decided to do it again. We think it’s going to be bigger and better than it was last year.”

The tour includes the homes of Parker and Rob Douglas, Gennie and Scott Marcus, Wanda and Craig Mitchell, and Joy and Robert Pilcher. A fifth home is also expected to be on the tour.

Costello said tour participants “come to the theater first to either pick up or purchase their tickets, and they’ll receive a map. We’ll have refreshments here, also, and the theater will be decorated. Then they can take the map and visit the houses at their leisure.”

The tour cost is $20 in advance and $25 the day of the tour. Tickets can be purchased from the Theatre Albany Box Office during its regular hours of operation or at Kay Fuller Interiors.