Review: ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS TIME at Southwest Florida Theatre Company

Clearly, Maestro Andrew Kurtz is a master delegator. He got the idea of a Christmas show featuring fairy tale characters and promptly handed it off to his musical director Julie Beardon Carver. She took the idea and ran with it.

The result is an original musical, Once Upon a Christmas Time presented by the Southwest Florida Theatre Company at the Music & Arts Community Center.

The play begins with a rather complicated prologue by an off stage narrator. But the backstory is necessary to explain how Hansel and Gretel end up friends with Rapunzel. The three characters are portrayed by Matt Michael, Natalie Brouwer, and Reba Hartman respectively, and three more gorgeous voices would be hard to find.

Carver has created a delightful pastiche of a show, weaving a host of familiar holiday songs together. Plotwise, it’s Brothers Grimm meet O Henry.

Brouwer does double duty as she succumbs to the evil emanating from Snow White’s mirror and becomes a dark queen figure. Her rendition of “Winter Wonderland” set by Carver in a minor key is chilling and sinister.  

Michael and Hartman make a cute couple. Both give off sweet, wholesome vibes. Actually, that can be said of the entire show. Ultimately, it’s about all the things that make Christmas so wonderful: love, friendship, and family.