CHAMPAIGN – Irving Berlin’s White Christmas opens tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Parkland College in Champaign. Morning Edition host Kimberly Schofield spoke with the musical’s director, Chelsea Collier, about bringing the classic holiday movie to the stage.
SCHOFIELD: Chelsea, I have to be honest with you, there are a lot of Christmas things that exist in the world, especially movies. I confuse White Christmas and Holiday Inn. Can you tell me what the basic plot is of White Christmas? Perhaps other people also blend them together. They’re both Irving Berlin?
COLLIER: It is Irving Berlin. The basic plot is, you’ve got these two soldiers, Wallace and Davis, in World War II. They become friends and become showmen, famous producers They get a call to go look at a sister act, and they meet the Haynes sisters, Betty and Judy, and they’re instantly smitten. Betty and Judy have an engagement in Vermont for the holidays. So the guys decide, ‘let’s go to Vermont with the Haynes sisters.’ When they get there, they are surprised to find that their general from the army is the proprietor of the inn. The inn is not really making a go of it. Wallace and Davis decide, ‘let’s get our whole show out here to Vermont, and we’ll put on a Wallace and Davis show at this tiny Inn in Vermont.’ So it’s like their Christmas gift to General Waverly to try to help him out.
SCHOFIELD: And White Christmas has a lot of music that people are familiar with. What are some of the songs that we get to hear?
COLLIER: Well, there’s of course the title song, “White Christmas.” It’s kind of interesting because even the movie, there’s not a lot of what you think of as Christmas music, Christmas carols. There are a lot of pieces that were kind of standards at the time. If you’re familiar with the film, the song “Snow” appears in the stage show as well. The stage show took the opportunity to bring in a lot of other Irving Berlin songs that were not originally in the film and add them in. So there’s things like, “I’ve Got My Love to Keep me Warm.” There’s a number called “I Love a Piano,” which might be my favorite number in the show.
SCHOFIELD: Chelsea, in the movie, White Christmas, at least in the original film, there was a song called, “I’d Rather See a Minstrel Show.” Is that in this musical?
COLLIER: No, it has been excised from the script, I think rightfully so. The song just doesn’t have a place anymore. They have rightfully removed it from the stage show.
SCHOFIELD: What do you like about this show and what can the audience look forward to seeing?
COLLIER: My closest friends and I, about 10 years ago, went and saw White Christmas on the big screen, and it was the first time some of us had seen it, and for others, we were revisiting it for the first time, and it’s just so lush. The costumes are so iconic and the dance numbers are incredible, and we all fell in love with it, so now it is our tradition to get together at Christmas time and watch White Christmas. So for me, the opportunity to recreate so many of those moments with my friends from here in town has been just a magical opportunity. The whole story is about connection, right? And it’s about old friends and new loves and family, and the script does such a great job of underscoring that. I can sit there and watch those dance sequences all day and I’ll find myself humming the songs when I’m out and about. We had that beautiful sunshiny day and I was just walking around outside, just singing, “Blue Skies.”
So I think what the audience can expect is a nice show to enjoy with the people that you love, with beautiful costumes, big, beautiful musical numbers. And also a lot of really small, intimate moments between characters that kind of remind you what it’s all about, right? You know, doing good things for others and taking care of the people that you love and letting them know that you love them.
White Christmas runs through next weekend, December 15.