Footlighters present 'The Best Christmas Pageant Ever'

Acting group will put on show at various times throughout November.

Nick Graham/Staff photographer Michelle Spille, left, and Parker Mosher rehearse a scene for the Fairfield Footlighter's production of "the Best Christmas Pageant Ever" Monday, Nov. 2, 2009 at the Fairfield Community Arts Center in Fairfield.

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By Eric Robinette, Staff Writer Updated 11:09 AM Friday, November 6, 2009

FAIRFIELD — Just as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story” are movie staples of the holiday season, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” is a theatrical staple — especially for the Fairfield Footlighters.

Their latest production of that show, opening Nov. 13, is the company’s third in four years. It ran in 2005 and 2007, making “Pageant” a biannual tradition of sorts in Fairfield.

That wasn’t the way director John Vanderplough planned it.

“I thought I was going to retire this,” he said, and yet he keeps bringing it back because audiences keep responding to it.

“It’s because it’s Christmas without the commercial end of it. The play within the play is from the book of Luke,” he said, referring to the biblical telling of Christ’s birth.

“Pageant” is the story of the Herdmans, aka “the worst children in the history of the world.” This band of rough children decides to invade the local church and take over its Christmas pageant. Not knowing the biblical story, the children put a unique spin on the Nativity, calling the wise men “a bunch of dirty spies,” for instance. Along the way, of course, a lesson or two is learned. It’s these very antics that draw people to the show, according to Vanderplough.

“They get things misconstrued, which is comical and children seem to respond wonderfully,” he said.

This year’s show features 27 children, most from Hamilton and Fairfield.