Auditionsfor Christmas Belles - Directed by Jenny Forsythe will be Sunday, September 22nd at 3pm at the NBTC rehearsal space located at 1111 N Walnut in New Braunfels. - Secondary auditions and callbacks will be Tuesday, September 24th at 6:30pm Audition Requirements: 1 minute comedic monologue - feel free to use material from the show. For questions or concerns email the director at ChristmasBellesDirector@gmail.com Show Dates: December 6th-14th.
Hill Country Community Theatre, Marble Falls, presents
Christmas Belles November 12 - 22 Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:15 It's Christmas-time in the small town of Fayro, Texas, and the Futrelle Sisters—Frankie, Twink and Honey Raye—are not exactly in a festive mood. A cranky Frankie is weeks overdue with her second set of twins. Twink, recently jilted and bitter about it, is in jail for inadvertently burning down half the town. And hot-flash-suffering Honey Raye is desperately trying to keep the Tabernacle of the Lamb's Christmas Program from spiraling into chaos.
But things are not looking too promising: the ousted director of the previous twenty-seven productions is ruthless in her attempts to take over the show. The celebrity guest Santa Claus, played by Frankie's long-suffering husband, is passing a kidney stone. When Frankie lets slip a family secret that has been carefully guarded for decades, all hope for a successful Christmas program seems lost, even with an Elvis impersonator at the manger. Their hilarious holiday journey through a misadventure-filled Christmas Eve is guaranteed to bring joy to your world! 4003 FM 2147, Marble Falls Order tickets on-line
The goofy holiday comedy Christmas Belles has closed at the Sam Bass Theatre in Round Rock and at the Wimberly Players, but you can still catch it through this weekend at the City Theatre in Austin, one of my favorite venues in town.
Three local versions? Four, in fact, if you’re willing to extend your area of coverage to San Antonio, where the show closed this past weekend at the Harlequin Dinner Theatre.
I reviewed the Sam Bass Community Theatre version on November 27 and the following week I took my spouse out to see the Wimberly Players’ version, staged in their tidy, impeccably finished small theatre. She enjoyed the country drive but she turned to me after the show, “Are you REALLY going to see this show three times??”
I did exactly that, catching the City Theatre version last week.
Christmas Belles is one of a trio of Fayro, Texas plays very recently written by three writers who had escaped from the big business of show business to take refuge in Asheville, North Carolina.
Co-writer Jesse Jones directed the premier of the first play, Dearly Beloved, at the Asheville Community Theatre in 2005. That opener centered around a wedding. Christmas Belles premiered in Asheville in 2006 and uses the device of the rivalries and intrigues around a Christmas pageant. The last of the trilogy, Southern Hospitality, which shows us the townspeople putting together a town festival to impress a visiting VIP, is now in the closing days of its premiere run, again in Asheville.
Christmas Belles is playing all over the place. The three versions here are in Round Rock, Austin and Wimberly. Just the start of an Internet check shows those same belles ringing in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in Port Huron, Michigan, in Macon, Georgia, at the Studio Theatre (Off Off Broadway), in Coshucton, Ohio, in Lindenhurst, New York, at the Kentucky Repertory Theatre, in Raleigh, North Carolina, in San Antonio, in Corbin, Kentucky, and in Lakeville, Minnesota.
In other words, with these “soon-to-be-classic” plays the refugees from Hollywood and New York have succeeded in tapping into a different mother lode.
The Austin Metro Area (if there is such a thing) will have THREE productions of the holiday comedy Christmas Belles, premiering at different companies:
Christmas Belles is the middle piece of a trilogy featuring the Futrelle family of the mythical town of Fayro, Texas. The first play was Dearly Beloved; the last is Southern Hospitality. Judging from the number of times they've been produced on the community theatre circuit across the United States, they must be making a mint for their trio of authors.
Here, courtesy of City Theatre Austin, is a summary of Christmas Belles and a description of the authors:
It's Christmas-time in the small town of Fayro, Texas, and the Futrelle Sisters— Frankie, Twink and Honey Raye - are not exactly in a festive mood. A cranky Frankie is weeks overdue with her second set of twins. Twink, recently jilted and bitter about it, is in jail for inadvertently burning down half the town. And hot-flash-suffering Honey Raye is desperately trying to keep the Tabernacle of the Lamb's Christmas Program from spiraling into chaos. But things are not looking too promising: Miss Geneva, the ousted director of the previous twenty-seven productions, is ruthless in her attempts to take over the show. The celebrity guest Santa Claus—played by Frankie's long-suffering husband, Dub—is passing a kidney stone. One of the shepherds refuses to watch over his flock by night without pulling his little red wagon behind him, the entire cast is dropping like flies due to food poisoning from the Band Boosters' Pancake Supper and, of course, the pageant will be shown live on cable access television for the first time ever. And when Frankie lets slip a family secret that has been carefully guarded for decades, all hope for a successful Christmas program seems lost, even with an Elvis impersonator at the manger. But in true Futrelle fashion, the feuding sisters find a way to pull together in order to present a Christmas program the citizens of Fayro will never forget. Their hilarious holiday journey through a misadventure-filled Christmas Eve is guaranteed to bring joy to your world!
About the authors.
Jessie Jones co-authored the play Dearly Departed as well as its screen adaptation, Kingdom Come, which was released by Fox Searchlight Films in 2002. She has had several short stories published and has written for television sitcoms and an animated series for Walt Disney Productions. Jessie was also a character actor for many years, performing in New York and numerous regional theaters, as well as in TV (Murphy Brown, Designing Women, and Night Court) and film.
Nicholas Hope won the Texas New Playwrights Festival for his first play, A Friend of the Family. He has written for the TV series For Your Love and Teacher’s Pet. For many years, he was also director of casting for Theatre Communications Group in New York and ABC Television in Los Angeles.
Jamie Wooten has written and produced nearly 400 episodes of network television, including four seasons on the classic series The Golden Girls, as well as on the sitcoms For Your Love and Half & Half. He was a recipient of the Writers Guild of America Award for The Earth Day Special. Jamie is also an award-winning BMI songwriter.
“We are all Southerners,” Jones says. (Both she and Hope are Texans, Wooten is from Fremont, N.C.) “We write about Southern characters. We know what they eat for breakfast.”
In Christmas Belles, they’re careful not to make the characters into clichéd hillbillies, Jones says. “This is something that each of us has run into,” she says. “In New York, I was treated as the family pet because I was Southern. This is not Li’l Abner. We cherish these people.”
CHRISTMAS BELLES - YULETIDE JOY WITH HOLIDAY FAMILY FUN…TEXAS STYLE. STAGE COMEDY PREMIER IN AUSTIN
It’s an exciting honor to be premiering a playwright’s first words onstage in Austin. Christmas Belles will open The City Theatre’s Company’s holiday season running December 4 through December 21.
A soon to be classic southern comedy is authored by Texas residents Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten, a trio of talented writers.
CTC welcomes the Futrelle sisters and it’s Christmas-time in Fayro, Texas. Frankie, Twink, and Honey Raye are not exactly in a festive mood.
Frankie is overdue with her second set of twins, Twink is bitter about a recent jilting which finds her behind bars, and Honey Raye is trying to keep the Tabernacle of the Lamb’s Christmas Pageant from spiraling out of control. Things are not looking promising: the former director is ruthless in her attempts to take over the show, the celebrity Santa is passing a kidney stone, the cast is dropping like flies to food poisoning from the recent pancake supper and a long-kept family secret is revealed.
And on top of everything, the pageant will be shown live on cable access television for the first time ever.
In true Futrelle fashion, the feuding sisters pull together in order to present a Christmas program the citizens of Fayro will never forget.
Christmas Belles will bring joy to your world!
Christmas Belles playwrights have impressive backgrounds: Jessie Jones co-authored the play Dearly Departed, as well as its screen adaptation, Kingdom Come; Nicholas Hope won the Texas New Playwrights’ Festival for his first play, A Friend Of The Family and was Director of Casting for ABC Television; and Jamie Wooten has written and produced nearly four hundred episodes of network television, including four seasons of the classic series, The Golden Girls. All three were born and raised in the South and write about the South they know best.
Produced by The City Theatre Company, the comedy will be directed by Daniel Lefave featuring the cast of Sharon Elmore, Nicole Weber, Bobby DiPasquale, Louise Martin, Rae Peterson, Rosemary Holly, Terri Bennett, Jen Coy, Michael Schnick, Daniel Sawtelle, and Shane Cleveland.
TICKET AND PERFORMANCE INFORMATION December 4 - 21, 2008 Thursday – Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Sunday 5:30 p.m. The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd. – east between Manor Road and 38 ½ St. Reservations 512-524-2870 or info@citytheatreaustin.org. General Seating Tickets $15-20, Guaranteed Reserved Seating $25, Students $12,Thursdays pay what you can. Website: www.citytheatreaustin.org.
New Braunfels Theatre Company auditions 
