It’s the Most Wonderful Time

My company is back to making magic this week, filming some pieces for a video on demand offering and optimistically planning for a live holiday show. Fingers and jingle bells crossed, people.

The holidays are where we make a great deal of our annual income, and with the large number of families and corporate events we host, the writing team is always instructed to keep the sketches at around a PG-13 rating. It also means that we do a lot of the same sketches and songs every year, or every other year.
Which is cool. After all, “The Goonies” was PG-13. No one’s saying “The Goonies” was lame. At least, no one cool.

As a younger performer, I was always annoyed by the annual shift. Throughout the rest of the year, our company has built a reputation for irreverence, so why should we do what everyone else does during the holidays and soften the content? Why do we change?

The answer becomes clearer with every passing season: the holidays are a time where we want to remember what was good, and hope for better. And they want to do that by listening to the songs and laughing at the bits that they remember with fondness. It’s what they want. So you give it to them
It’s the artist’s job to hold a mirror up to society so that it can examine and celebrate itself. And sometimes that means you’ve got to put on a Santa Suit and rock the night away.

Thanks for your attention. Y’all can go back to enjoying fall now.

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