Joyful Noise - A New Tradition in Entertainment Unfolds

Quote

Aiken’s Joyful Noise—A New Tradition in Entertainment Unfolds
By Dianne Austin

Ask anyone to make a list of Christmas traditions and they will probably go on and on, ad infinitum. From hanging the mistletoe to baking special holiday cookies and cakes, traditions are countless at Christmas time.

But suggest that they tell you what entertainment is sought for the season, and they’ll name the same five shows time and time again. For my family, it happens to be watching The Nutcracker ballet on any given local stage in our community. And although I like to think I’m a bit of an aficionado, I must admit that right about now, I’m feeling like I’ve seen one too many choreographed renditions of “Waltz of the Flowers.”

There was a time when you didn’t have to get up off of your comfy living room couch during the holidays. When I was growing up, we had hour after hour of TV music specials for a few weeks out of the year entertaining and delighting us. All of the popular performers would have their turn at it and they were all good. Stars like Perry Como, Andy Williams, Dinah Shore, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra; all had weekly or special seasonal shows that uplifted us at holiday time, and we relied on them to do it. Later, we were offered other talented people such as Kenny Rogers, Barry Manilow, Carol Burnett, Tom Jones, and Julie Andrews to deliver our yuletide inspiration.

But today’s TV scheduling does not offer much in the way of holiday fare, unless you want to watch an old version of A Christmas Carol late one night, or spend an early evening with a cup of hot chocolate watching A Charlie Brown Christmas.

What to do? Well, you’ll have to get off that sofa and out of the house, but it’ll be worth it. Check out the schedule at the end of this review for your closest local venue, put on some festive finery, and then go see Clay Aiken’s Joyful Noise 2 Christmas show.

Aiken began Joyful Noise last year with a more conventional concert format, presenting the music he had just recorded on his Merry Christmas With Love album for everyone’s listening (and his “Claymates’” viewing) pleasure. I attended in 2004 and found myself affected and consumed with the spirit of the season.

Clay decided to do something different the second time around. This year, he penned a play with scripted vignettes which are paired with the music of Christmas. It’s a simple story of a precocious little boy and an elderly neighbor who has lost her Christmas spirit due to the circumstances of her life. Trust Clay Aiken to be able to take such a premise and fashion it into an entertaining and engaging holiday production.

It is Aiken’s first attempt at donning a playwright’s hat, and it’s a successful one at that. He was able to accomplish his goal because he followed the first rule of thumb that governs any genre of literary pursuit—write from what you know. As he did with his book Learning to Sing, Clay grabbed the gold ring this time too with a holiday script. By using all of his “Opie from Mayberry” (aka “Clayton from Raleigh, North Carolina”) attitudes, emotions and sensibilities, he produced something for the big stage with the flavor and charm of an every-town, USA Christmas play usually written for a smaller local venue.

Because, it seems to be what many of us are looking for at this time of year—a reminiscence of watching the proverbial annual play at church or local community theater to receive and be inspired by a simple message of love and goodwill; the essence of the yuletide spirit. Clay clinches it with this JN2 presentation.

The other element that makes the show soar is the voice. With Aiken, it will always be the voice. As Clay himself has often said, Christmas holds the music he loves the most, and in this show, it is evident.

Read the rest at EntertainmentWorld.com