The 20 minutes or so of this performers’ showcase provides both the intimacy and virtuosity that Flat Rock Playhouse can deliver so perfectly, easily navigating that theatrical knife’s edge between flashy spectacle and sincere feeling.

This (mostly) intimate interlude ends with Jose Luaces’ warm and emotional “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” before the show starts ramping up again to a noisy finale and some welcome audience participation. Then Travis Battle takes over the stage for a delightfully playful “Zat You Santa Claus?” (with Fallon and Maddie Franke helping out at the end), followed by a sweet version of “The Christmas Waltz” delivered as a loving duet by Jason Watson and Kathleen Watson with assistance from the young women of Pat’s School of Dance (terrific, as always).

show All Is Calm or the Ethan Hawke movie A Midnight Clear.) (You may recognize the fact-based story from the NC Stage Co. In its best run of songs, at the beginning of Act II, several of the lead vocalists come out one by one and command the stage for a holiday tune perfectly matched to their vocal talents and onstage personality (at least as cast in this show).Įmily Fallon leads it off with a cheeky “Man With a Bag,” followed by the movingly mountain-specific “That’s the Holidays to Me,” sung by Playhouse regular Scott Treadway (who also serves as the show’s occasional narrator and, briefly, as Frosty the Snowman).Ī highlight of the entire show is Ben Hope’s aching rendition of “Belleao Wood.” With just guitar and vocals, Hope relates the beautiful story of the spontaneous Christmas Eve truce during World War I in a song originally sung and co-written by Garth Brooks. And if the heart is absent, then all the glitz in the world won’t win us over.Ī Flat Rock Playhouse Christmas has plenty of heart. If the performances feel sincere and heartfelt, then nothing else really matters. If there’s one thing an audience values more than anything in a Christmas musical revue, it’s probably heart.

Garth brooks song about christmas truce