OLNEY THEATRE ANNOUNCES ENSEMBLE FOR THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR

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Created and directed by Kevin McAllister, cast includes Olney favorites

Olney, MD – November 23, 2022 – Olney Theatre Center announced the quartet of actors performing in The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, a special 90-minute variety show created and directed by Kevin McAllister just for Olney Theatre Center that runs December 16 – December 31, 2022 in its 1938 Original Theatre. The ensemble features Jay Frisby (The Music Man), Kaiyla Gross (Miss You Like Hell), Patricia Hurley (Mary Poppins, Elf), and Nick Lehan (Evita). Christopher Youstra, Olney’s Associate Artistic Director for Music Theatre, leads a five-piece band and serves as the cabaret’s music director and arranger. Headshots are available here with the password: press. The revue runs alongside Olney’s two other holiday offerings currently playing, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Paul Morella’s solo A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab. Press are invited to attend the performance on Friday, December 16 at 7:30 pm. To reserve two tickets to the performance, email sstraub@olneytheatre.org

Said program creator and director Kevin McAllister, “We’ve created the show to demonstrate the similarities across all holidays. Sure, the constructs change depending on history and ancestry but the impulse is shared. Candles, food, and family provide comfort and bring families together in ways that cross communities. We’ll use fun and inventive ways to show those similarities while celebrating what makes each one unique. We’ll have everything from Perry Como hits to the worst of he novelty songs like “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” traditional Chanukah songs like “Ma-O-tzur,” and Mariah’s “All I Want For Christmas.” But working with the performers, we’ll also have songs of personal meaning like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “I Will Survive,” and “Don’t Stop Believing” – songs of modern bonding that unite friends and family at a great party. We’ll have 90 minutes to find common ground that for an evening unites us and sends us back out into the world with a smile and sense of optimism.” Tickets are $30 – $60 and can be purchased at olneytheatre.org or 301-924-3400.

McAllister and Youstra are joined by longtime Olney performer Ashleigh King as Choreographer, with sets by Nadir Bey, costumes by Julie Cray Leong, lights and projections by Sarah Tundermann, and sound by Matt Rowe.

 

Performance Schedule

Friday, December 16 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, December 17 at 1:30 pm
Saturday, December 17 at 7:30 pm
Sunday, December 18 at 1:30 pm
Thursday, December 22 at 1:30 pm
Thursday, December 22 at 7:30 pm
Friday, December 23 at 1:30 pm
Friday, December 23 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, December 24 at 1:30 pm
Wednesday, December 28 at 1:30 pm
Wednesday, December 28 at 7:30 pm
Thursday, December 29 at 7:30 pm
Friday, December 30 at 1:30 pm
Friday, December 30 at 7:30 pm
Saturday, December 31 at 1:30 pm

 

ABOUT OLNEY THEATRE CENTER

Mission

Olney Theatre Center for the Arts produces and curates theatrical performance for the diverse audiences in our community, and educates, learns from, supports and inspires a more inclusive generation of theater-makers.

Vision

We strive to become an arts and culture powerhouse, redefining the American regional theater movement by cultivating and sharing the creativity of our community.

History

Once a summer stock retreat in rural Maryland, Olney Theatre Center is now an award-winning, year-round regional theatre surrounded in a 15-mile radius by 1.6 million people representing three of the most ethnically diverse counties in America. Since our founding in 1938, some of the biggest names in theatre have appeared on our stages: from “Golden Era” stars like Helen Hayes and Tallulah Bankhead to contemporary artists like Sir Ian McKellen, Robin De Jesús, and many others. OTC welcomed Artistic Director Jason Loewith and Managing Director Debbie Ellinghaus in 2013 and 2014, respectively, who established a new artistic strategy to broaden programming with the goal of nurturing a diversity of voices and audiences. Olney Theatre Center now produces musicals and plays under the three rubrics of Classic, Contemporary and Family programming. Since 2013 Olney Theatre Center has twice won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Musical Production, the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play and presented six world premieres. Complementing this work, OTC fulfills its mission as a teaching theater with educational programs like the Our Play program in local 5th grade classrooms, a summer camp and a year-round professional apprentice program. National Players, now in its 72nd Season, is the hallmark outreach program of OTC, a unique ensemble touring innovative theater to communities large and small across the United States.

For more information, please visit olneytheatre.org/history.

Follow Olney Theatre Center on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok @olneytheatre and on Facebook at facebook.com/olneytheatre.

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