SANTA.COM - THE MUSICAL
By John Kallas and Tom Ferriter
Santa.Com - The Musical is the story of the corruption of Christmas by the forces of technology and the intrusions of government, leading to the early retirement of Santa Claus and the down-sizing of his workshop. Faced with a budget crisis and growing national debt of gargantuan proportions, the President and his economic advisers decide to intervene in the traditions of Christmas in order to exploit the efficiencies and conveniences of internet shopping and reap huge tax revenues to reduce the budget deficit. As part of their plan, Santa Claus is forced into retirement and his workshop is modernized, resulting in the layoff of his loyal, and long-term, workforce - a.k.a., Santa's elves - most of whom are replaced by ultra-fast computers capable of instantaneous communication with parents via the internet. The President's eight year-old daughter, upon learning of the plight of Santa and his workers, enlists the aid of a corps of unseen gremlins - those ever present phenomena that interfere with modern technology - who freeze the computers, crash their programs, and otherwise gum up the works. In the ensuing chaos of unfilled orders, Santa's elves persuade their former employer to come out of enforced retirement and resume his role as master gift-giver to children the world over.
Santa.Com - The Musical is a new musical play for families that addresses, thematically, the need for healthy fantasy in the world of children, as well as in the adult world, and the need for imagination and simplicity in our everyday lives to use as a coping force as we struggle to exist in a world that has become too complex and too complicated for both children and adults.
Santa.Com - The Musical emphasizes the need to maintain and foster traditional values associated with family, love, Christmas, Santa Claus and the world of mythical and spiritual legends. The story suggests that not everything in the world need be high tech or computerized; that human beings do not have to depersonalize the simpler things in life, like Santa Claus and other stories and fables associated with Christmas, in order to be sophisticated and functional in their advanced societies.
Santa.Com – The Musical carries an easy-to-follow plot through a simple, yet compelling story of good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, truth vs. falsehood. It also presents a metaphor for today’s high speed/high tech society: through its example of the over-commercialization of life and the over-complicated, if not overwhelming, events that take us further and further away from the simplicity and intrinsic values of those events. At the same time, the play is not a manifesto against progress; it is a story that “opposes” the loss of the soul, human warmth and the spiritual connections that are destroyed in the rush to capitalize on and exploit the benefits of newly developed technologies.
In the end, Santa.Com – The Musical, is a musical play about spirit and spirituality as the bedrock foundation of people’s lives; it is a message communicated through words and music about where our spirituality comes from and how easy it can be lost.
In a musical format, Santa.Com – The Musical presents the opportunity for creating original material to articulate thought-provoking and universal themes in a contemporary story to a large and traditionally-seasonal theatre-going audience – families and their children – who return to their local theatres year after year to experience the annual Christmas production of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol.
Santa.Com – The Musical presents an alternative for programming that includes a story to which most audience members can readily identify, containing characters with which they can easily relate, and humor, music and songs that can capture their imagination, hold their attention and remain within their memories.
