On opening night 2022 of the inaugural Holiday Classic, thick snow, incandescent and soft, ticker-taped the steady stream of arriving guests. Attendees shuffled into The Capitol Room tight-shouldered, wrapped in thick coats, but once inside they warmed quickly and thoroughly, body and spirit.
The Holiday Classic, brainchild of musician Colin Scharf and entrepreneur Dan Dinsmore, is aiming to re-create last year’s magic with shows Friday and Saturday this week.
The premise of the show is layered. On the surface it is a dressing-up-encouraged, semi-casual, h’orderves-served, holiday concert. On another level there is a plot, involving the show’s star, a character named Clifford Chestnut, who cannot be found, and may or may not arrive in time to deliver his performance.
All accounts from last year brush many details of the show to the side, nice as they may have been, to drive home the sentiment that, at its core, The Holiday Classic is a stirring and resplendent holiday concert.
Scharf says, “It was such a pair of magical nights. It was a blast to play those songs and see people dancing and having so much fun.”
The crew at the center of the show last year knew they’d go for another year before the second show even ended, as they basked in the fireworks of an on-their-feet audience of new friends and old dancing to revved-up holiday classics, as well as originals written specifically for the show.
Scharf says of this year’s show, “After last year we thought we’d write a script and make this a total theater production with lines and parts and roles and segues and skits and bits, and that just got away from me. So this year’s show is the thing that worked so well last year, great rock and roll music. There’ll still be surprises and skits and bits, too, but for the most part it will be focused on the music.”
Dan Dinsmore, owner of The Capitol Room and The Wine Cafe, has worked with Scharf on other projects. The two have a chemistry of contagious enthusiasm.
“It was our first show last year,” Dinsmore says. “And I didn’t know what to expect, quite honestly. The show was put together in a very short amount of time. Luckily we had so many talented people pull it all together. It really was a triumph.”
“You have this vision in your head of what it’s supposed to look like,” Dinsmore says, “and the beautiful thing is it kinda meanders through that expectation and changes while you’re working on it, almost always for the better. That’s what happens when you get a collaboration going. There are so many great voices in the planning process.”
Last year’s show had an opening with an introduction of the band, followed by Clifford Chestnut’s arrival, which led to a set of songs, after which there was an intermission with music by Dan Duffy and his Orchestra, followed by another set featuring Chestnut and a full band.
This year the show will start with a cocktail hour from 7-8 p.m., soundtracked by EZ Jazz. Then the show will start and continue uninterrupted. Clifford, should he arrive, will be backed by the seven-piece Nutcracker Orchestra.
Local drummer and a key figure at The Mankato Makerspace, Tyler Vaughan contributed to the show last year as drummer for the band as well as wearing a sort of catch-all hat best summed up as stage manager.
Vaughan, like Scharf and Dinsmore, says he is excited to be presenting The Holiday Classic for a second year.
“This year our lineup is different,” Vaughan says. “We have real thick instrumentation, a lot of moving musical parts, and we’re putting Colin and Laura, the two vocalists, right at the center of the audience’s attention. It’s going to be different, but it’s going to be really fun to have them play that leading role and take us through these really wonderful numbers.”
Above and beyond changes to the lineup, the group made some structural changes as well.
“The stage is going to be bigger this year, there’s going to be a couple of tiers,” Vaughan says smiling. “We did a lot of studying over the year, looking at stages and show reviews, and were thinking about how we could make the show even bigger than it was last year. We did our homework and we’re getting everything dialed in so the experience for everyone is really, really great.”
Scharf, in all the group’s efforts, hopes to communicate a levity that sometimes is absent in holiday events.
“You know the holidays can be kind of a stressful time of year,” Scharf says. “I like part of The Holiday Classic being a sort of escape. It’s sort of a surreal parallel universe that you can step into for one or both nights of the show.”
The show is also an opportunity to celebrate within a community of performers by coming together to produce these shows.
Scharf’s character was first a character in a movie he’d participated in making years ago. The experience of making that movie fomented his desire to collaborate on large projects again.
“We were able to pull in so many people to be a part of it,” Scharf says. “My dad had a role, my brother and sister were both in it, we pulled in so many of our friends. It was as much about making the film as it was about getting together and just kind of getting crazy, and having fun, and being weird with everyone. And then everyone who was involved could enjoy the finished product and be proud of it. So I hope we’re translating that energy to The Holiday Classic.”
Vaughan, who like Dinsmore has worked with Scharf on multiple projects, seconds Scharf’s sentiments about collaboration and community.
“Honestly what makes me put all this energy and time into The Holiday Classic is that we’re doing it with our friends,” Vaughan says. “These are people we love to work with, that we love to play music with — everyone that is involved in the process is a member of community that is really important to all of us, so the tight-knit network that we have working on this, is what drives all of us to keep pushing and putting on a great show. That was true last year, and it’s definitely true this year.”