special to the star



Christmas will arrive in hilarious holiday fashion at the Meridian Little Theatre on Thursday with the week long run of “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.”

This wholesome family play was taken from Barbara Robinson’s well known short story and later made into a movie starring Loretta Swit. The Seattle Times stated it is “One of the best family Christmas stories ever – and certainly one of the funniest.”

“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” directed by David Miller with Jimmy Pigford as the executive producer, is about the comic efforts of Grace Bradley (Lisa Sollie) and her husband Bob (Robert Steiskal) to put on the church’s annual Christmas Pageant, despite having to cast the Herdman kids – some of the meanest, nastiest, most inventively awful kids in history. This play is packed full of mayhem and fun with the daughter, Beth Bradley (Sarah Page Sikes) narrating and Charlie Bradley (David Thaggard) playing the typical kid brother.

McCall’s Magazine called this head-on collision with the Herdman kids “An American Classic.” The Herdmans, Ralph (Jesse Seale), Imogene (Blake Barham), Leroy (Wes Presnall), Claude (Hunter Howard), Ollie (Taylor Hosch), and Gladys (Addie Madden) are the worst kids in town and have never even heard of the Christmas story. They volunteer to take on the major roles in the play in hopes of getting free food and proceed to invade the helpless church and take over the pageant.

Colorful characters in the play are Mrs. Armstrong (Michelle Pasha), Mrs. Slocum (Candace Andrews), Mrs. Clark (Candice Keene), Mrs. Clausing (Mary Ann Varela), Mrs. McCarthy (Buffi Crouch) and Reverend Hopkins (David Hosch). Cameo appearances will be made by Tom Sikes and Bill Barham as the Firemen.

The other kids in town who are terrorized by the Herdmans include Alice Wendleken (Rachel Varela), Maxine (Britton McElroy), Elmer (John Thomas Goldman), Hobie (Cooper Thaggard), Darlene (Chloe Johnson), Beverly (Anne Presnall), Juanita (Christina Mogollon), Doris (Grayce Crouch), and Shirley (Emma Rose Maloney).