Tag Archives: Christopher Parks

If You Loved the Clunky TV Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, You’ll Adore the Children’s Theatre Musical

December 4, 2025TheatreAlex Manley, Allison Snow Rhinehardt, Brandon J. Johns, Carlos Nieto, Christopher Parks, Ericka Ross, John DeMicco, Johnny Marks, Julia Straley, Kahei Shum McRae, Richard Edward III, Robert L. May, Tilly McDaniel, Vance Rileyperryt77

Review: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer at ImaginOn

By Perry Tannenbaum

November 22, 2025, Charlotte, NC – Okay, so Christmas erudition isn’t my thing. Thanks to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, my familiarity with the biography of Jesus, from the Anunciation to the Resurrection, is sufficiently sketched out, though not nearly as complete as my knowledge of Moses and Joseph. My familiarity with Christmas and the Nativity comes mostly from network TV, the annual inundation of all media, neighborhoods, and supermarkets with the holiday spirit when the season comes around, various musical and movie masterworks such as Messiah and The Christmas Carol, and very infrequent visits to Christians’ homes when their trees were decorated.

All of this is to say that, until a couple of days ago, my ignorance of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was quite profound. Silly me, I thought “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was simply a hit song recorded by singing cowboy Gene Autry that has haunted the airwaves and shopping malls since 1949. It wasn’t until Children’s Theatre of Charlotte premiered this past weekend at McColl Family Theatre in ImaginOn that I found out that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was also a well-known story – and has been since the original song by Johnny Marks and story by Robert L. May was adapted for an animated TV special by Marks and scriptwriter Robert Penola in 1964.

Sam the Snowman, Hermey the elf, Mrs. Donner, Clarice the doe, Yukon Cornelius, snow monster Bumble, Boss Elf, Coach Comet, and the Misfit Toys were all new to me as the Children’s Theatre Rudolph unfolded. Only later was I informed that my own stepchildren had grown up on all of them. Maybe my daughter, too! Sadly, all this nostalgic family info arrived too late to sway my affections toward what I had just seen onstage. As much as I’ve always adored the Rudolph song – or perhaps because of that longtime adoration – I found that I disliked this precious and sugary musical.

Let’s begin with the costume designs by Kahei Shum McRae, so lovingly faithful to the original TV art. That’s a huge problem for me. Since cartoons and animation were defined for me in my childhood by what they delivered, ranging from Snow White and Batman to Bugs Bunny, Bullwinkle, and Hanna-Barbera, the advent of Claymation, Animagic, and stop-motion – whatever you call it – seemed like a clumsy step backward to me. Sure, the small-scale props and dolls cast 3D-like shadows, but they were as immobile and expressionless as dolls or puppets, plopping you awkwardly back into the real world.

Though McRae successfully recreates the feel of the old TV evergreen, he is hamstrung by that objective and all its cuddly clunkiness. Sam the Snowman seems to truly roll across the McColl stage inside his snowy skirt and plaid vest, and the puppeteers who team up to form Bumble are barely more terrifying than a jellyfish of similar size. To the rescue come youth and adult actors who can visibly inhabit McCrae’s costumes and give them energy and spontaneity.

Woke objections that have been raised against the tale didn’t faze me, though they likely dulled the edginess that director Christopher Parks could have brought to this production if he had defied them. Au contraire: Amp up Santa’s rejection of Rudolph’s shiny nose, the other reindeer’s bullying, Donner’s male chauvinism, and the fearsomeness of Bumble (a name change might also help) so that our hero’s sufferings are more in line with those we find in our favorite fairy tales.

Politically correct or not, triumphs over mighty evils are more satisfying than triumphs over muted evils that fade away as soon as they’re opposed. Forbidden to associate with his sweetheart Clarice and banished from his reindeer team and their games, Rudolph runs away instead with Hermey, the misfit elf who would rather become a dentist than build toys. Vance Riley has the perfect elfin look as Hermey, with a resemblance to Will Ferrell that plays well into the misfit’s wackiness.

But it’s Tilly McDaniel as Rudolph who best models why this live theatre Red-Nosed Reindeer, vapid as it may be,is so much finer to me than the TV travesty. Under her adorable reindeer jumpsuit, McDaniel is recognizably human – or venison – rather than clay. When the lovely Julia Straley, as Clarice, comes on to him with praises galore, Rudolph’s reaction is a cosmic blush: Rudolph’s nose suddenly glows, and McDaniel flies up into the air. There’s genuine emotion here, notwithstanding the slaughterhouse hoist..

On the other hand, I subjected myself to all of the Animagic version I could find on this side of the $8.99 paywall. Everything I saw struck me as painfully primeval and lifeless – you’d have to pay me far more than nine bucks to watch it all. Only a few snippets of Santa can be found in the clips and trailer I sampled, enough to firm my conviction that John DeMicco as Santa and Allison Snow Rhinehardt as Mrs. Claus are far more rewarding than their Claymation counterparts. Rhinehardt even adds some grace notes that give the impression that Mrs. C is pushing back against Santa’s grumpiness and prejudice.

Likewise, Carlos Nieto and Ericka Ross convince us that Rudolph’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Donner, have real souls instead of clay molds. You can feel that they’re genuinely worried about their cute little oddball offspring. Our host and narrator, Brandon J. Johns as Sam the Snowman, was geniality itself, establishing a fine rapport with the matinee audience and delivering “A Holly Jolly Christmas” with nearly as much avuncular jollity as its originator, Burl Ives.

Moonlighting from multiple puppeteer exploits, including the bodacious Bumble, Alex Manley gets his face time as the Boss Elf, so sunny that you never believe he really opposes Hermey’s dentist dreams in his heart of hearts. Richard Edward III drew two chauvinist bucks to portray: Coach Comet, Clarice’s intimidating dad, and Yukon, the flamboyantly superfluous gold-digger that Rudolph and Hermey meet in their travels. Kids of all ages seemed to delight every time Edward wielded his prospector’s pick-axe, particularly when we learned – or at least I did – that he wasn’t hunting for gold.

Wizards of Winging It

Theatre Review: Journey to Oz

By Perry Tannenbaum

DONNA BISE

I’m not sure what the guidelines are on picture-taking at the new Children’s Theatre production of Journey to Oz, written and directed by Christopher Parks. Three or four kids in the audience read the pre-show announcements, and I must confess that I was so focused on how well they managed to talk into the microphones planted on the ears of various adult cast members that I didn’t pay much attention to what they were saying.

Whether or not photos are actually banned, I can report that, at last Saturday afternoon’s performance, there was a photo- and movie-taking orgy as the 75-minute fantasy unfolded. And I can’t say that I heard even one discouraging word from the staffers who were ushering. Children and parents were invited onstage to play a wide assortment of characters from L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz: the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and even the Mayor of Munchkinland.

And of course, multiple adorable Dorothys paraded down the aisles of the McColl Family Theatre. Considering that the contours of Tom Burch’s scenic design are the book stacks we might find at a public library – not Baum’s Kansas plains or his rainbow realm of Oz – I’d say that the iPhones gleefully chronicling the misadventures of children, husbands, and moms onstage added to the giddy mix of make-believe.

Oz erudition isn’t what it once was when Judy Garland sang “Over the Rainbow” every year on TV without ever aging. So the kids and parents fetched from the audience are far more likely to wander off script than they would have a couple of decades ago. Cast members eschew the subtle discrimination of asking for volunteers, so shyness and stage fright can also come into play.

Parks has his five-member cast primed for the unexpected, that’s for sure. A kid in the first row was called on to emulate Toto, but he repeatedly emitted a bark that was no louder than a purr. The dad chosen as Mayor couldn’t bother to try a high Munchkin voice or to offer any testimony at Dorothy’s criminal trial at the Witch’s castle. Cast members didn’t skip over these difficulties, persisted in efforts to get things right, but they never mocked the amateurs. We moved right along at just the right moment.

Opportunities for us to participate helped to sustain our goodwill. When the cyclone touched down in Kansas, we were the wind. When Dorothy landed in Oz, we were the Munchkins who welcomed her. And when the hapless Scarecrow was besieged by crows, we were rallied to be their caws. Perhaps the most magical participatory moment was when we arrived in the Emerald City and a mini-battalion of kids converged upon them from the wings, surreptitiously recruited to portray the Ozians.

Journey to Oz isn’t myopically focused on the foundational Wizard narrative. Over and over, the players insert little vignettes about Baum, newspaper reactions to his books, personal anecdotes, and tidbits on his times. It’s a little like an annotated edition. We also get a sense of the breadth of Baum’s Oz series, which Parks deftly keeps unobtrusive. Our only lengthy digression into the greater Oz opus comes when the players point out to us that the adventures invariably begin with a dramatic act-of-God cataclysm. The cyclone of The Wizard gave way to an earthquake to trigger one of the many Oz sequels, then an avalanche, and – weirdest of all – a “hurricane drizzle.”

When we got down to business, the upstage library shelves parted to simulate the prairie and subsequently, our arrivals in Muchkinland and the Emerald City. The bookshelves lining the wings never disappeared, forming the backdrop for the first encounter with the Scarecrow and the witness box for the trial. The Wicked Witch of the West actually entered through a bookcase, framed in appropriately spooky light and smoke, and a few paper-cut props – a beard, a lion’s mane, and Toto – fancifully originated from a large book spread out on a lectern.

The magic is resolutely low–tech here, and the classy costumes by Jennifer Matthews aim in a totally different direction from the last Wizard of Oz produced by Children’s Theatre, when the late Alan Poindexter directed and portrayed a singularly frightful Wicked Witch. This time, the hat worn by Nicia Carla in the same role looks like it was snatched from the Cat in the Hat’s closet.

Carla is spared from extensive emceeing chores, but she does confront a Dorothy or two during the drama, proving quite adept at modulating her menace. Tiffany Bear is vaguely dressed like Dorothy and wields the Toto wicker basket and puppet, but she’s more explicitly Glinda when she’s chaperoning the anklebiter Dorothys onto the stage, a very engaging emcee.

Of the three guys in the cast, Tommy Foster and Dan Brunson pitch in most often on the hosting chores. Chaz Pofahl aligns himself with Carla at the beginning and end of the show, starting out as Uncle Henry opposite her Auntie Em, and ending as her servile Flying Monkey Lawyer at Dorothy’s trial. In between, Pofahl has a nice stint as Scarecrow.

Foster is the most gregarious of the three guys, doing more of the audience interaction and morphing into the Cowardly Lion. Brunson’s fine physical work as the Tin Woodsman steals far more of the show than you usually see. His robotic shtick before and during his therapeutic lube job vies in hilarity with Carla’s melting – under a barrage of confetti water.