christmas pageant
It’s time to plan the annual First Congregational Church of West Tisbury’s Christmas Eve Pageant which takes place at the Ag Hall on December 24 at 5:00 pm. Our focus is on a positive storytelling experience for the children, working as a team, and having an awareness of the deeper meaning of the pageant - acceptance, and inclusion, welcoming outsiders, and helping those in need. While the Christmas story is a Christian story, people of all faiths or no faith are welcome to participate, and attending the church is not required. The pageant itself is part of a Christmas Eve service. To participate, please attend the first meeting for parents and children, held on Monday, December 14 at 3:30 in the Parish Hall of the church--please use the Music Street entrance. All participants are required to attend this first pageant meeting. In addition, please fill out this brief online questionnaire that will ask you to provide your contact information, names and ages of your children who want to participate, and the role they may like to play. The deadline for registering your child is Monday, December 7.
Attendance is also required for rehearsals, which will be held for small groups of the cast and for the entire ensemble in the week leading up to the Christmas Eve performance. We also require that parents volunteer to help with some rehearsals and/or the night of the performance. Roles are open to children ages 5-12. (Kindergartners and up.) Children younger than 5, or those who are unable to attend rehearsals will be welcome to participate by coming onto the stage to sing the customary finale to the pageant. We will communicate regarding schedules, costumes, and related topics via email and text, and will only call if really necessary. We are all volunteers, so the use of email/text helps us to communicate more efficiently. In prior years, we have also used a private Facebook group so parents could communicate with any member of the cast. We will send invitations to the group once the cast is formed.
Suggestions for Roles
Children ages 5-7: generally best suited to be a sheep or an angel.
Children ages 7-9: could be an angel, a shepherd, or an additional barnyard animal. (Note: many barnyard animals will be crawling on all fours during the performance.)
If your child has experience dancing or singing and is older than 7 please let us know.
Sarah Ream and Molly Conole will be directing the pageant together. (See bios below.) We welcome help with overall pageant administration -- if you are an organizer, please let us know! Plus, we always need more helpers -- stage hands, costume help, etc. Join us!
Please feel free to email us with any questions/concerns. We look forward to having your child(ren) participate in this joyous event. You are welcome to share this with friends who might be interested.
Sarah Ream is a relative newcomer to the Vineyard, but an old hand at Christmas pageants. After working as a theatre director in New York Off-Broadway, in regional theatre, and in the U.K., she raised two children and taught for many years at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. There she began her stint shepherding small children in the annual Christmas pageant at her local Congregational Church. She and her husband Robert are delighted to be part of the FCCOWT community.
Molly Conole is an island musician and theatrical performer who spent many years performing professionally in NYC and Orlando, FL, including at Disney and Universal Studios. As the Choir DIrector for Children & Youth at the First Congregational Church of Winter Park, FL, Molly wrote and shepherded quite a few Christmas Pageants, enjoying the process of sharing the Christmas story through the eyes of children, which she is happy to do again this year with FCCOWT.