It's Beginning ...

To look a lot like Christmas at Silver Dollar City

As far as John Ancona is concerned, Santa Claus was right. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, once chosen to guide the sleigh at night, was the perfect choice to lead the 2014 Christmas parade at Silver Dollar City, too.

Almost two years ago, the Branson, Mo., theme park acquired rights to the reindeer conceived in 1939 by Robert L. May. Deciding how to showcase Rudolph at Silver Dollar City fell to Ancona, who had just transferred from a Herschend Family Entertainment park in southern Georgia to the 1880s Ozark village.

FAQ

‘An Old Time Christmas’

WHEN — Through Dec. 30

WHERE — Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo.

COST — $49-$59

INFO — silverdollarcity.com

He didn't hesitate in his decision. With a new holiday parade in the works, who better than Rudolph to be grand marshal, "so everything kind of spun off from there."

It was no small project, requiring an art director from Orlando, Fla., costume designers from Dallas "and a phenomenal build team here," says Ancona, director of entertainment and events. Work on costumes started in January and building the new floats got under way in March. Finally, actors were trained to bring to life Rudolph and friends like Bumble the Abominable Snow Monster; 10-foot-tall walking, smiling candy canes all lit up in red and white lights; 12-foot-tall rolly-polly elves with stick arms; a 14-foot-tall Christmas moose; soldiers; human snow globes; penguins; and polar bears," Ancona enumerates.

"We fortunately have some folks here that once served as professional mascots, so we said, 'Hire these people and train them,'" he says. "How does each character act? Even if they can't see your face, that just means you've got to become more animated."

The actors, who obviously must fit size requirements, then practiced the parade route, wearing parts of their costumes and finally all of them. Ancona admits the Silver Dollar City hills can be difficult for anyone, "but adding a 20- to 40-pound apparatus on your shoulders adds a whole 'nother layer of challenges. Then you add 'we'd love for you to do this little step or this little turn or this little wave.' There's a lot to think about!"

The resulting parade, which replaces one that was over a decade old, includes twice the lights -- 200,000, says park spokeswoman Martha Hoy Bohner -- and twice the characters -- 33 instead of 18 -- all of them representing family traditions, just as watching "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" on TV is for many families. The floats depict themes such as cooking with Grandma, decorating the tree, Christmas Eve candlelight services and Christmas morning, all seen through the eyes of a child, Ancona says.

That, he admits, was sometimes the hardest part of his job.

"We have a bunch of really talented artists and designers, but we had to keep thinking, 'Look at this through the eyes of a child.'"

Two other family traditions continue at Silver Dollar City this holiday season, adds Brad Schroeder, vice president of entertainment and events, and both of them are his babies. The Broadway-style stage show "A Dickens' Christmas Carol" is now in its 12th year, and "It's a Wonderful Life" is in its third.

"I wrote the adaptation of 'Wonderful Life' with the expectation it would replace 'Christmas Carol,'" he says."I thought our audiences would be saying, 'Seen it, loved it, when are you going to change it?' But nobody wanted us to ever get rid of it. So the only way to get 'Wonderful Life' on stage was to do it in another location."

At home in the Red Gold Heritage Hall, "It's a Wonderful Life" is "somewhat abstract," Schroeder says, when compared with the "extremely literal" "A Dickens' Christmas Carol," "but it actually created a significant difference in the two experiences, and the guests said, 'We love that.' It seemed to differentiate it and gave 'Wonderful Life' its own character.

"I don't see the end of this," he adds. "The success of the show is ultimately based on how good the story is."

And the Christmas story is always a great one.

NAN What's Up on 11/14/2014

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