Tuesday, January 22, 2013

My Christmas at Busch Gardens


I celebrated my second Christmas away from home but this time I was working at Busch Garden in Williamsburg, Virginia. The show was called Gloria!, it was the gospel musical retelling of the nativity. It featured arrangements from holiday favorites such as, "The first Noel", "Away in a Manger", "We Three Kings" and "Do You Hear What I Hear". This was my first experience working in an amusement park and I LOVED it. We all had such a good time this winter season it did not bother us we were away for the holidays. I played a shepherdess named Lyzia and was featured in the ensemble aspects of the show. The interesting part about this show was that it was all done on moving platforms, my only fear was that I was going to get vertigo from the motion of things moving under my feet.


Much of the company were returning from last year and they quickly welcomed me into their family. This production was much different from last year in that they brought in Ken Billington , famous for his Broadway lighting designs in Sweeney Todd (1980), Hello Dolly! (1996), Chicago (Present), and most recently Chaplin. His designs made our scenes look so ethereal that it could be mistaken for a movie. Not only did we have Ken come in to help but also Lisa Shiver (B'Way Jesus Christ Superstar and The Story of my Life to mention a couple) returned to stage the show. With such a talent team we put on a spectacular show, many of our performances had waiting lines that wrapped around the park! I look forward to auditioning for Busch Gardens in the future and perhaps returning again during the Christmas season. As I head back to NYC I will certainly miss all of my friends down in Virginia but I have no doubt our paths will cross again.



Reviews from the Busch Gardens Fan site,

"Saw this last night for the first time this year. I thought it was infinitely better than last year. Like, not even close. I actually legitimately enjoyed it. They pretty much resolved every major complaint I had about the show last year"

"Their version of "Do You Hear What I Hear" is one of the best I've every heard. The audience at yesterday's 3:30 performance gave the cast a standing ovation"







Look what I found!

Just happend to be browsing the internet and came across this article from the Richland Area Business Association written by Paul Gobble,


"For the second year in a row, The Barn Theatre will be joining The Richland Independence Day Parade by having one of their gifted vocal talents perform The National Anthem. Last year the Barn Theatre came through after a last minute cancelation to save the parade by sending Miriam Henkel-Moellmann, a recent graduate of Kent State's BFA in Musical Theatre program, to grace the crowds with the National Anthem. Her performance was so popular that we just had to ask the Barn Theatre come back... "


 

Miriam as a wicked step-sister in Cinderella at the Barn Theatre in Michigan