Caroler Rehearsals

Some pics from this morning’s rehearsal with our carolers for the opening number:

Images

Some great pics from the last few weeks.

at WestShore Plaza’s Magical Night of Giving, with Hearth (Meredith McDermott) and Figgy (Aaron Washington)

Rehearsals at the Jaeb:

Broadway Family Night at the Straz Center with Hearth, Tinsel (Amy Quijano), Frankie (Dax Quijano) and elves Annie Devaux and DeQuan Mitchell:

Cast Recording session:

Alyssa Esposito (Ivy)

Dax Quijano

A brief rehearsal

Santa Fest in downtown Tampa:

With our friends from the Straz Center

What a beautiful day it was…we are lucky to be in a beautiful town!

We have many more to bring you from our last week of rehearsals as preparations continue for next week’s opening night!

Apologies, dear readers!

Just a quick note to say sorry for the lack of updates on the blog recently. Our staff is quite small and we have been busy covering rehearsals and promotional events in addition to the regular marketing. We will have a comprehensive update very soon. Thank you all for your patience!

You can still catch our real-time updates on Facebook and Twitter, in the mean time.

Meet the Team: Meredith McDermott

This week, our “Meet the Team” series continues with our musical director and the actor behind Hearth Tannenbaum, Meredith McDermott.

Meredith has been performing, either as an actor or musician, since she was a child. Her primary musical training is as a percussionist, and she has spent many years performing with bands and orchestras and, for a time, in drum corps. She has always had a passion for acting, and as a freshman in college she began pursuing musical theatre alongside her studies as a television production and percussion performance student at the University of South Florida. Some of her stage credits include Ragtime, The Prince and the Pauper, Broadway Gone MAD, Once Upon A Mattress, and White Hot Broadway.

In 2007, while working on the board for a local theatre group, Meredith became reacquainted with Jonathan Van Dyke, whom she had briefly performed with in a local production. It was at that time that she was cast in his ’80s musical, Totally Electric, playing the role of the eccentric show choir singer Grapenut Brown. She has been working on the show ever since and has either appeared in, or musical directed, six different productions of the musical to date. Overall, Holiday Inc. marks their eleventh theatrical collaboration.

On creating the role of Hearth Tannenbaum, Meredith likes to say she’s “a little Mrs. Potts, a little Mrs. Doubtfire, and a little of myself.” She feels extremely privileged to have worked on this production, especially with such a bright future ahead of it, and with so many talented friends and colleagues in the cast and creative team.

Meredith is also an accomplished director and musical director. In addition to Holiday Inc, some of her credits include the aforementioned Totally Electric, as well as Van Dyke’s horror-movie spoof The Class of RIP, The Wiz, Taboo, Miss Polly’s Institute…Puts On A Show!, Dinner With the MacGuffins and Boy Meets Girl.

In addition to her stage work, she also works as a private vocal and acting coach and as a theatre arts teacher in Tampa, FL. She also does work in marketing and public relations and web/graphic design for theatrical groups.

Meredith would like to thank Jonathan for his continued support and friendship; Dorene Collier and the ESP Theatricals team for all their hard work; her family and friends Simo and Marlee; and her students.

Be sure to check back next week for another installment in our blog series. Also, we will be posting content from our latest promotional events and rehearsals. Don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss a thing!

Meet the Team: Jonathan Van Dyke

Welcome to the first installment in our blog series, “Meet the Team”. In this series, you will get the opportunity to meet the people behind Holiday Inc.-the cast, creative team, and crew who have spent so many hours bringing our show to life.

This week, we bring you Jonathan Van Dyke, writer and director of Holiday Inc and the actor behind Elfton John, the workshop’s “head elf.”

Jonathan is a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. He got his start in the entertainment business at Walt Disney World, playing “fur” characters in parades and shows, a “dancing scarecrow” and more. He has acted in over 50 theatrical productions over the years, traveling to all 50 states in the process! Some of his favorite regional and touring roles include: Albert in the national tour of Bye Bye Birdie, Jamie in The Last Five Years, Jerry in The Full Monty, Billy Earle in No No Nanette, Phil Davis in White Christmas, and Harold Hill in The Music Man. He also appeared with Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo) in The Wizard of Oz and toured in Oh, Calcutta! with Gennifer Flowers. He has also starred in the films Prime Of Your Life and The Glass Window.

In 2000, Jonathan embarked on the second phase of his entertainment career when he began writing his debut musical, Totally Electric. Set in the 1980s, the show is loosely based on his experiences at East Lake High School in Tarpon Springs, FL. With a soundtrack filled with ’80s pop favorites and an endearing cast of characters, Totally Electric follows a misfit choral group, the Syncopated Sensations, as they struggle to be recognized among their peers in the last days of high school. The show premiered at the Duplex in Greenwich Village in 2007 and played to sold-out audiences during its run. He was then asked to re-mount the show in Tampa several months later, and Totally Electric became the first show to open in Ybor City’s Ritz Theater after its renovation. Again playing to sold-out crowds during its Tampa run in summer 2007, the show then had subsequent runs in New Orleans, Louisiana; Sarasota and Riverview, FL; and Denver, Colorado, and an encore cabaret performance in New York.

Dorene Collier, president and founder of Event Show Productions, approached Jonathan in 2009 about penning a new kind of holiday musical. Thus, Holiday Inc. was born. Taking his inspiration from both classic musicals and popular music, he created the show with a broad audience in mind, while maintaining the humor and poignancy that became his trademark in Totally Electric.

Jonathan has also written numerous scripts for events and galas, as well as two other full-length productions: The Class of RIP: The Final Prom, a tribute to 1950s and 1960s-era B- horror movies and girl-group music that premiered in Tampa in 2009; and Spring at the Willowbrook Inn, a dramatic play which will have its premiere in Fort Lauderdale, Florida this winter. Jonathan has been a member of the Dramatists Guild since 2008.

In addition to his own creative work, Jonathan has directed youth productions of Seussical, The Wiz, and West Side Story, and has taught master classes in acting and musical theatre from Tampa to New Orleans. He is currently directing I Love a Piano for Broward Stage Door Theater, and is the Associate Director of Boeing-Boeing at the Straz Center next spring.

Jonathan wishes to thank Dorene for this amazing opportunity, as well as his cast and creative team, his family, and friends for their support.

Each week we will be bringing you a new installment in this series. Be sure to subscribe to our feed!

Announcing: The Cast & Creative Team

Hello, dear readers!

ESP Theatricals is proud to announce the cast and creative team of Holiday Inc.!

CAST

Elfton John …………………….. JONATHAN VAN DYKE
Sgt. Chestnut ……………………………. KERI SULLIVAN
Ivy ……………………………………… ALYSSA ESPOSITO
Tinsel Garland …………………………….. AMY QUIJANO
Hearth Tannenbaum …….. MEREDITH McDERMOTT
Figgy Von Nogg ………………. AARON WASHINGTON
Frankie Feliz ………………………………… DAX QUIJANO
Angel Divine ………………. EILEEN LYMUS-SANDERS
MariBoo …………………………….. HEATHER KRUEGER

Ensemble: ABBY BORZEWSKI, ANNIE DEVAUX, DEMARIO HENRY, DEQUAN MITCHELL, ROBERT SANANIKONE, PRIYA SINGH, ERICKA WOMACK-BROWN

CREATIVE TEAM:

Written and Directed by
JONATHAN VAN DYKE

Musical Direction
MEREDITH McDERMOTT
MICHAEL RAABE

Technical Design
AJ LEBLANC

Executive Producer
DORENE COLLIER/ESP THEATRICALS

Produced by
DOUGLAS C. EVANS

For more information about our cast and team, including bios, visit our website.

There’s much more to come here, so don’t forget to subscribe!

Progress

Hello dear readers,

It has been a month since our last post, but a busy month nonetheless. Our creative and marketing teams have been hard at work putting the last bits in place before rehearsals begin. Things will not be quiet around here much longer, we promise. We will be bringing you exclusive behind-the-scenes photos and blogs, interviews with our creative team and cast and some special surprises for our loyal readers. We will be announcing here FIRST, so if you follow us on Facebook or Twitter, we will post links there as well.

Thanks for your patience and continued readership. We can’t wait to share the excitement with you.

New promotional posters

We are hard at work on advertising and marketing for the show, and wanted to give our blog readers a sneak peek at our first promotional poster!

Remember, tickets are on sale NOW at bit.ly/holidayinctheshow

Tickets now available!

Tickets for the show are now available from the Straz Center box office. Call (813)229-STAR or buy online from the Straz…we made it easy to find at bit.ly/buyholidayinctix

You can also share your attendance with us and your friends on Facebook…visit Facebook.com/holidayinctheshow and click on Events to see the listing.

Things are moving quickly on our end so stay tuned for the latest developments!

Website relaunch

Last night we officially relaunched our website, holidayinctheshow.com. In fact, many of you probably reached this blog through our web links. We are eager to hear your thoughts and comments about the new site, including ways we can make the browsing experience better for you (FYI: we are working on a mobile-friendly version and some other enhancements already!)

If you’d like to contribute, leave your comments in the section below.

Thanks for your support!