It’s time for another Christmas-themed musical at the Goodspeed Opera House. Just as importantly, it’s time for another musical about people in love putting on a show in a barn. Goodspeed is good at both of these reliable musical theater genres.
On the Christmas side, recent seasons have wrought “A Christmas Story,” “Christmas in Connecticut” and the homegrown “A Connecticut Christmas Carol.” The previous Broadway-in-a-barn bit was “Summer Stock” in 2023, with “Holiday Inn” (which like “White Christmas” is scored entirely with songs by Irving Berlin) happening in 2014 and “Chasing Rainbows” (with its depiction of the ultimate show-in-a-barn screen duo of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney) in 2016. More generally, Goodspeed really digs doing backstage musicals, with “A Chorus Line,” “Dreamgirls,” “42nd Street” and “Gypsy” all done at the opera house since 2022.
The audiences seem to approve. The current run of “White Christmas” has already been extended through Dec. 28.
“White Christmas” is one of those musicals that feels like it was made for the stage (or the backstage) but actually began as a movie with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney in 1954. “White Christmas” was adapted in 2000 by the prolific off-Broadway playwright David Ives (“All in the Timing,” “Venus in Fur”) and writer/producer Paul Blake (who from 1990-2012 was executive producer at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri, where “White Christmas” had its world premiere 25 year ago).
The general shape of the musical is similar to the film, though some big numbers from the movie are gone (good riddance to “I’d Rather See a Minstrel Show”) and several beloved Berlin songs (“Let Me Sing and I’m Happy” and “How Deep is the Ocean” among them) have been added to the already all-Berlin soundtrack.
Clyde Alves as Phil, Jonalyn Saxer as Judy and other members of the cast of “White Christmas” at the Goodspeed Opera House. (Diane Sobolewski)
The story is set in 1944 shortly after the end of World War II. A male song-and-dance duo of Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, is attracted to a female duo, the Haynes Sisters. As romantic relationships blossom and wilt and blossom again between Bob Wallace and Betty Haynes and between Phil Davis and Judy Haynes, the couples find themselves in Vermont plotting to save a rustic inn owned by Bob Wallace and Phil Davis’ former commanding officer in the Army. The inn is suffering due to the likelihood of there not being a “white Christmas” that year. It’s already December, the temperatures are in the 60s and it hasn’t snowed all season.
Not only is the setting and the plot familiar from other Goodspeed productions, so are some of the cast and creative team. Bob Wallace, the show’s key crooner, is played by Omar Lopez-Cepero, who plays in a very different style here than he did as the mysterious moody heartthrob who sang “Some Enchanted Evening” at the Goodspeed last year or as a member of the all-purpose ensemble that performed “A Grand Night for Singing,” the Goodspeed’s first indoor show following the COVID shutdown. The fleet-footed Phil Davis is played by Clyde Alves from “The Drowsy Chaperone” at Goodspeed in 2018.
The familiarity extends to the ensemble. It’s great to see the lithe, lively dancer Keyon Pickett back in the chorus following an equally impressive background turn in “All Shook Up.” (Find a bigger role for this guy already!)
Lauren Nicole Chapman, who was in the workshop of “A Sign of the Times” at the Goodspeed’s Terris Theatre in 2016, will be better remembered by Connecticut audiences from her stand-out performances as Anna in “Disney’s Frozen” when it played The Bushnell, as well in the national tour of “Kinky Boots.” As Betty Hayes, Chapman has an extraordinary singing voice that lifts the whole show and especially its romantic themes to a higher level. She’s also reliable funny in a spunky petulant way.
As Betty’s sister Judy, Jonalyn Saxer (whose Broadway credits include “Back to the Future,” “Mean Girls” and another Irving Berlin musical with the song “White Christmas” in it, “Holiday Inn”) dances divinely with flair and purpose and also nails her parts in the songs “Sisters,” “Snow” and “Falling Out of Love Can Be Fun.”
Omar Lopez-Cepero and the cast of Goodspeed’s “White Christmas” in a lively rendition of “Blue Skies.” (Diane Sobolewski)
The save-the-inn plot, the banter between performing partners and potential lovers and the Broadway/Vermont culture clash overwhelm “White Christmas” so much that there’s not that much room for Christmasness. Except for a cool scene when a long train ride turns magically into a seasonal sleigh ride, the holiday spirit of this show is rather subdued. What we get instead is a lot of old-school vaudeville routines, torch songs and will-they-or-won’t-they subplots.
Still, that’s plenty. The stage direction by Hunter Foster (who keeps the action front and center), the choreography by Kelli Barclay (who reignites the tap-til-you-drop spark that shaped her work in Goodspeed’s “Anything Goes” and “Will Rogers Follies”) and the music direction by Adam Souza (who infuses the Berlin standards with a popping swing band sound) meld together neatly. The shared goal is to keep the energy level high and add oomph event to the slower, talkier bits.
That said, a first impression of this “White Christmas” — from the tacky logo in front of the stage curtain before the show begins to several early scenes where the playing style, tone and tempo is not yet apparent — is that it’s standard old-school song and dance. The twists, dazzle and superb singing by Lopez-Cepero and Chapman come later.
The first Bob Wallace and Phil Davis routine in the show, a romp through the song “Happy Holiday” which takes place when the pair are both still in the Army, comes off as corny and hokey and old-fashioned (even for the 1940s). But you soon warm to these characters. Separately, Lopez-Cepero and Alves bring down the house in the back-to-back showstoppers that bookend the show’s intermission, a soulful rendition of “Blue Skies” and a tap-happy take on “I Love a Piano.”
Bruce Sabath plays Henry Waverly, who owns the inn but whom Bob Wallace and Phil Davis also know as the General. He’s a kindly old coot in both realms which erases some of the expected gags about rigid obedience versus rural bliss, but helps with the drama. Wallace and Davis are helping out the inn because they care, not from some sense of duty.
The full-cast dances aren’t precious and pristine, they can get wild and loose and chaotic. The members of the dance/vocal ensemble aren’t evenly talented across the board, some being better at dancing or comedy or singing than others, which makes for a fun mishmash when they’re all crammed onto a train for a comedy bit or all flitting about for those colorful “Blues Skies” and “White Christmas” spectacles.
There is a grand cinematic quality for much of the show. When Chapman and Saxer have their sisterly arguments, they break into a snippy fast-paced patter familiar from so many Rosalind Russell movies. There’s a subplot about getting onto a TV variety show to spread the word about the big show in Vermont. In the movie, the program is called “The Ed Harrison Show,” but in the stage show it’s the actual “Ed Sullivan Show.” The TV studio scenes place “White Christmas” in the flashy modern showbiz world for a few minutes while the Vermont scenes are accomplished with film fantasy painted backdrops and snow effects.
It may not be especially Christmassy, it may not always make sense, and its looseness will either be very appealing or a little off-putting depending on what you like about Goodspeed shows in general, but “White Christmas” is a touching, often surprising and unexpectedly exhilarating wintertime treat.
“Irving Berlin’s White Christmas” runs through Dec. 31 at the Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main St., East Haddam. Performances are Wednesdays at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 and 6:30 p.m. There are added Tuesday performances on Dec. 23 and 30 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.; 2 p.m. matinees on Dec. 18 and 26. There is no 6:30 p.m. performance on Dec. 21 or 7:30 p.m. performances on Dec. 24 and 31 and no performances on Dec. 25. $35-$91. goodspeed.org.