“AST Rocks!!!”
-Brian Breed | Director, Purdue Musical Organizations
The PMO Christmas Show is the only show of its kind in the country in which a brand new production is mounted every year. Since 1933, the Purdue Musical Organizations has produced an annual original Christmas show.
AST was brought in to raise the level of technical production as well as to increase the collaboration between the creative team and the client PMO. The shows were produced at Elliott Hall in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Elliott Hall is a gigantic 6,000 seat art deco facility that opened in 1933, the year that the first Christmas Show was produced. The theater’s 100 foot wide proscenium arch and enormous cast of over 300 presented many challenges. We worked closely with PMO throughout the year to design and then build the show at our facility in Orlando.
We then brought our production team to Indiana to install and then mount the show.
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- The Children’s Choir lends its voice to the Christmas Cantata beneath gigantic boughs of holly.
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- For the Cantata portion of the show Town Hall opens up like a Christmas Card to reveal the Cathedral.
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- The shows were produced at Elliott Hall in West Lafayette, Indiana.
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- The dazzling colors, choreography and applause of Act 1 stood in stark contrast to the somber reverence of the hymns of Act 2.
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- As the show progresses, the Town Square gradually appears more and more decorated for the Holidays.
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- The theater’s 100 foot wide proscenium arch and enormous cast of over 300 presented many challenges.
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- The Heart & Soul Ensemble perform in front of a trumpeting pair of 12 foot tall angels.
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- We worked closely with PMO throughout the year to design and then build the show at our facility in Orlando.
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- The design of this particular set pays tribute to the architectural style of Mary Blair.
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- Every year Santa arrives in a different way. This particular year he flew in on a giant snowflake.
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- Elliott Hall is a gigantic 6,000 seat art deco facility that opened in 1933, the year that the first Christmas Show was produced.
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- Every show ends with Silent Night
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- Indiana’s December average air temperature of 35 degrees makes the audience much more receptive to “warm” colors.
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- AST was brought in to raise the level of technical production
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- The Town Square is just one of the many elaborate sets designed for the Purdue Music Organization’s Annual Christmas Show.