Students Place Irreverence in Xmas

This year's tree lighting and yule log ceremonies are over, and, to some, it may seem as though there's no longer anything to look forward to when it comes to celebrating the holidays at Columbia. Luckily for us, there's one more festive event looming around the corner-Xmas! A Secular Spectacular, a new musical written, directed, and produced by Columbia undergrads.

At its core, the show is the result of a collaboration between two Columbia College students-Shruti Kumar, CC '08, who wrote the music, and Caitlin Shure, CC '07 and a Spectator columnist, who wrote the lyrics. Shure is quick not to take all the credit: "We couldn't have done the show without our three amazing writers, Tom Keenan [CC '07], Peter Mende-Siedlecki [CC '07], and Becky Abrams [CC '08]. Shruti and I really loosely drafted where we wanted the plot to go, and they filled it in," she says.

The writers didn't come in until a later portion of the development process, though. Xmas has been evolving for a long time. Shure originally came up with the idea in Nov. 2005, but the production she was envisioning bears little resemblance to the full-blown musical that plays in Roone Arledge Auditorium Tuesday night. As she says, "I originally conceived of it as our friends singing a concert of Christmas songs-it was going to be a really small-scale thing."

Shure put her Christmas show idea on the back burner when she met Kumar through mutual friends. The two decided to pitch a production of Grease to the Columbia Musical Theater Society in which they would act as director (Shure) and music director (Kumar). Their pitch was ultimately rejected, but the situation had a major silver lining, "I had this other cool project I wanted to do, so we decided to write it and make up a show," Shure remembers.

All through the summer, Kumar and Shure e-mailed lyrics back and forth-and, slowly but surely, their little Christmas concert grew in scale. Eventually, according to Kumar, "the person who was supposed to produce Grease, Geo Karapetyan [CC '07], decided to produce the Christmas show for us. That's when we made the decision to pitch it and make it a huge Columbia event. We already have all of these amazing holiday festivities, and we wanted to add this extra element of a fun holiday show."

Adding to Columbia's list of holiday happenings wasn't their only motivation. "It was also bothering us that a lot of the shows here aren't that accessible to people who don't like musical theater. ... The theater community has a reputation for being insular," says Kumar. "We wanted to make something that everyone would want to see, not just the friends of people in the show and campus musical theater enthusiasts."

Xmas' premise is certainly accessible to everyone. "We just took the fun elements of the holidays-Santa, and lights, and holiday Starbucks cups," Shure says.

The show tells the story of what happens when Santa Claus threatens to quit because he feels underappreciated. His friend Jack Frost decides to throw a holiday party to convince St. Nick to stay. Frost invites all sorts of Christmas enthusiasts to his soiree. The guest list includes big names like Clara from The Nutcracker, the Reindeer, and Ebenezer Scrooge. In Kumar's words, "We even have Jesus! And they're all drinking the whole time."

There's also a side plot involving Santa's Jewish agent, whose son and daughter want to see what the deal with Christmas is. After their father leaves for the party, the kids sneak out in hopes of attending it themselves. "As they make their way to the party," says Kumar, "they meet various snow characters-a lot of random all-stars."

The core of Xmas is its many musical numbers. "It's really fresh and different while also being super-accessible," Shure says. Kumar agrees, saying, "We show off very different types of voices. ... It's a melting pot of different styles of theater."

The Secular Spectacular is more than just a simple musical, though; as Kumar says, "The entire show is like an event-it's set at a party, and we're decorating the room like a party so it looks like everyone's there."

"We have to mention Jordy Lievers [CC '07], our art director. She's made the show aesthetically stunning," says Shure. The show also does not utilize a traditional pit orchestra, instead putting the band in the middle of the action so that it's more like a band that would be found at a party.

Xmas should have something for everyone. As Kumar explains, "It isn't for any select group of people-we wanted to give everyone something to get them through the depressing, cold finals period. This is our holiday present to all of Columbia, all religions, straights, gays, girls, boys, professors, students..."

Shure is slightly more cautious: "Well... maybe not those under 12."