Good Tidings | Hopeful show aims to celebrate the season

Hope for the Holidays streams online at 6:45 p.m. today. (Submitted photo)
Hope for the Holidays streams online at 6:45 p.m. today. (Submitted photo)

HOPE, Ark. - Staging a production during the COVID-19 pandemic is no easy task, but the partnership between Hempstead Hall and the SWActors will get it done.

On Saturday, the performance venue and acting troupe will team with local band South Down Main to bring "Hope for the Holidays," a production that's part live concert, part pre-recorded play celebrating more than a century of Hope holidays.

The show will stream online, free for anyone who wishes to watch, at 7 p.m. It goes live at 6:45 p.m. on the HempsteadHall.com website.

Additionally, it can be seen at the Hempstead Hall and Southwest Arkansas Arts Council pages on Facebook, as well as the website swarkansasartscouncil.org.

Hempstead Hall Director Amanda Lance said it's been Murphy's Law preparing this production, but they've made it through as they adapted along the way.

"Originally we had talked about having this is as an in-person event and having that as an option, to have people inside the theater and watch this as a completely live production play and concert hybrid," Lance said. "That has not happened. We've had to adjust and make it a virtual event only."

Cast members have gone in and out of quarantine, and organizers managed other COVID-caused changes. Nevertheless, the venue and fledgling acting crew have recorded their scenes for this patchwork production.

The narrative of the play takes viewers through 12 decades of holiday celebrations in Hope and Southwest Arkansas. The show switches back and forth between those vignettes and the music of South Down Main, who will perform as the live portion of this hybrid event.

"The play is completely pre-recorded and will be pre-packaged, but the concert will go on as live," Lance said.

The "Hope for the Holidays" play will start in 1910 and end in 2020. "We tell a little brief story in each decade. A lot of these stories came from a writing working that we did with the Southwest Arkansas Arts Council," Lance said.

Those five workshop sessions gave the community a chance to share what they remember from Christmas during those decades.

"It was just a way to try to engage the community in this virtual world," Lance said.

Hempstead Hall is located at University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana. The play portion of the production brought a cast of about 24 actors to the venue. It felt good to have them at Hempstead Hall, Lance said.

"I will say that part of the college's vision is a commitment to lifelong learning, and this project has embodied that because we have learned something new at every turn along the way," Lance said. "We really wanted to be able to have something for the holidays for our community."

While the production is free to view, a way to donate will be offered during the production.

(For more information, visit Hempsteadhall.com/events/hope-for-the-holidays.)

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