(Above: Adriana Ripley performs Christmas songs and plays a runaway teenager in Radio Redux’s A Cowboy Christmas; photos by Scott Kelley)
By Randi Bjornstad
There always are lots of versions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol on various performance agendas this time of year, but Radio Redux is bringing back its unique take on the old story of greed and redemption in its version, A Cowboy Christmas.
They call it a “herdful of holiday happiness,” and it’s a chance to offer an homage to old-fashioned radio shows done originally by Roy Rogers and Gene Autrey. Radio Redux sets its show at — where else — Rancho Redux, as the cowhands and other denizens of the Old West gather together around the fire to share their favorite stories and songs of the season.
The show also includes re-creations of episodes from two popular radio westerns of yesteryear, Gunsmoke: Twelfth Night and The Six Shooter: Britt Ponset’s Christmas Carol.
In the Gunsmoke story, Marshal Matt Dillon (played by Ken Hof) unwittingly gets into the middle of a life-threatening hillbilly feud. In The Six Shooter, a runaway teenager (acted by Adriana Ripley) meets the lawman (played by Peter van de Graaff), who tells her a western-style story based on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
The cast also includes Achilles Massahos, Al Villanueva, Bill Barrett, Bill Reid, Don Aday, Judi Weinkauf and Kim Donahey. Radio Redux founder Fred Crafts is writer, director and narrator.
Of course, there have to be cowboy Christmas carols, and in this Radio Redux version, they are performed by the musical trio, The Jewel Tones, made up of Judy Sinnott, Jennifer Sellers, and Debi Noel. They are accompanied by Jim Greenwood on piano, along with the cowboy swing band Western Exposure, with Michael Anderson, Jerry Gleason, Brian Price, Hamilton Mays, and Jim Reinking.
The Jewel Tones also will lead an audience Christmas singalong 10 minutes before each curtain time.
As usual, the Radio Redux show is presented as it would have been on a radio show stage in the 1940s and ’50s, with some actors playing multiple parts by changing voices rather than costumes, and a crew of volunteers providing sound effects.
Radio Redux: A Cowboy Christmas
When: 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 21-22, and 2 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 23
Where: Soreng Theater, Hult Center for the Performing Arts, One Eugene Center (Seventh and Willamette streets in downtown Eugene)
Details: Radio and film historian Patrick Lucanio offers Explore, a behind-the-scenes talk 45 minutes before each show in the Jacobs Community Room on the Hult Center’s lower level; the lobby contains exhibit of historic radio paraphernalia supplied by Lane County History Museum director Bob Hart and Dennis Wright, curator of the Radio Days Theater of the Mind. Museum in Sutherlin. The cast holds a meet-and-greet in the lobby after the performance.
Tickets: $22 adults, $19 senior citizens, $15 students, $16 per person for groups of five or more, available at the Hult Center box office, 541-682-5000, from noon to 5 p.m Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, or online at hultcenter.org (handling fees apply for online purchases)
Information: radioreduxusa.com
