A Message From Michael
After the Forgotten Carols tour last year Lynne and I took our annual recoup vacation where it’s sunny and warm and there’s lots of beach. However, while there, I wasn’t having a good time. I felt awful, and said to Lynne one morning after a rough night’s sleep, “I think I’m dying!” She gets me and she’s sort of right about me and the drama thing. But, then it turns out I wouldn’t up in the hospital and stayed longer than I expected to, and we discovered that had I not arrived when I did, someone else would be playing Uncle John tonight and you all would be singing “Together Forever Someday to ME! I share this for the obvious reasons: to get your sympathy and to possibly get this response, “Well, for a dying guy, he did pretty well tonight.”
The whole health scare after our last tour has now changed the way I have rehearsed this part that I’ve been doing for 27 years. I’ve been wondering how someone like John, who’s lived for over two thousand years and never faced his own death, feels about those of us who do face it. And, of course, I’ve been thinking how lucky I am to be with you tonight, for this evening’s show that will be ours alone. I love theater because it’s something we share, in the moment, and it will never be duplicated. It’s the gift of our connection through this story, and these characters, and these “forgotten carols,” that reminds us why Christmas, at its purest, brings such tidings for great joy. And through these songs from all the different people who experienced Jesus and His message in different ways, we get to see ourselves and feel a connection that goes beyond being in the theatre tonight; we get to feel, deep down, that we are absolutely not alone. At least, that’s my hope.
Merry Christmas,
Michael McLean