LTO’s holiday comedy opens Dec. 3

What’s better than watching a great holiday show this season? Watching every holiday show at once.
The Little Theatre of Owatonna’s play “Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some)”is a holiday comedy with a unique twist. When a trio of actors find themselves putting on “A Christmas Carol” two of them become bored with the annual classic and soon begin to spice things up with a little extra helping of additional holiday stories.
Zackery Knapton takes up the director’s helm for the new play with actors Matt Jessop, Jeffrey Jackson, and David Phillips playing the three characters. “This is my second time directing which is pretty exciting,” Knapton said.
“Although there are some musical numbers it is technically not a musical, it is a straight play with some musical elements sprinkled throughout,” Knapton said. “It is a very, very comical show. The show starts off with them planning on doing ‘A Christmas Carol’ and one of the characters decides he doesn’t want to do it because every theatre does it every Christmas and so he wants to break tradition and do something new.”
Of course, things are not as simple as that with a trio of egos at play. “They decide to do every Christmas story they can think of,” Knapton said. “Pretty much any story you can think of they take part in in some way or another.”
“One of the great things about this show is that it recommends you use the actors’ real names, so the characters are originally Jim, John, and Michael,” Knapton said. “We have now changed it to Jeffrey, Matt, and David.”
While the three careen through each holiday story, there’s a still a bit of conflict, albeit comedically so. “Jeffrey’s character, he’s the only one of the group that just wants to stick to tradition and keep doing ‘A Christmas Carol’ and keep things on track and the other two don’t want to do that at all,” Knapton said. “So, he continuously tries to go back to ‘A Christmas Carol’ throughout without any avail.”
“My character is a curmudgeon, he wants to do ‘A Christmas Carol’ and he starts off addressing the audience telling them he’s going to do ‘A Christmas Carol’,” Jackson said. “These two guys don’t want to do ‘A Christmas Carol’ so he is a fussbudget throughout and pushes them continuously and instead we do just about everything but ‘A Christmas Carol’.”
Phillips plays the doe-eyed comic relief who instigates the group to begin their trip through the many holiday stories. “He’s like a big kid at Christmas and I’m kind of Jeffrey’s rival and while he’s a stick in the mud ,I want to do all the classic stories,” Phillips said.
“My character is kind of in-between the two, he has some of Jeffrey’s character’s bitterness but also some of the enthusiasm David’s character feels for the season too,” Jessop, who rounds out the cast, said. “He meets them right in the middle.”
The play might be a comedy but there will be so much more as with each stop down memory lane the trio learns more and more about the tradition of Christmas and what it means. “As soon as I started reading the script I could not stop laughing and I felt like it would be the perfect show for the holiday season,” Knapton said. “If you like Christmas or any of these stories there’s going to be one of these that you enjoy.”
“I’m not always a huge Christmas fan, Halloween is definitely my favorite holiday, but for this show being able to encompass every show you can think of and try to do all the Christmas shows and be very inclusive I think that it’s a lot of fun and with COVID and every thing else going on I think that’s needed during Christmas time just to lighten the hearts of the community,” Knapton said.
“Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some)” will premiere on Friday, Dec. 3 with additional shows on Dec. 4, 5, 10,11, and 12. Check out Little Theatre of Owatonna’s website for times and tickets.