Casting: Sanders Family Christmas

SANDERS FAMILY CHRISTMAS An Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre's 2025 Theatrical Season Show Genre: Bluegrass Musical Comedy Setting: North Carolina, 1941 Cast: 4m, 3f; Small ensemble cast that doubles as musicians Sanders Family Christmas is an actor-musician production. All cast members perform music live on stage and must be strong singers and confident instrumentalists. About the show: Sanders Family Christmas is a much-loved bluegrass musical comedy set in a rural Southern church in 1941. The Sanders family, a traveling bluegrass gospel group, returns to Mount Pleasant Baptist Church with instruments in hand and personalities in full force for one final Christmas revival before son Dennis ships off to war. What starts as a heartfelt holiday program quickly unravels into a chaotic mix of overly-honest testimonies, off-script confessions, and well-meaning interruptions that send the night hilariously off the rails. Sanders Family Christmas is part old-time revival, part musical comedy, and part barely-contained disaster. The Sanders family includes Burl, the affable and steady father; Vera, the proper and opinionated mother; their 20-year-old twins Dennis, sincere and eager, and Denise, theatrical and spirited; and Burl’s brother Stanley, quiet with a dry wit. June, the family’s eldest daughter, signs with full-body enthusiasm and a charming lack of self-consciousness. The family is joined by Reverend Mervin Oglethorpe, the well-meaning but overwhelmed pastor barely holding the program together. Together, they deliver over two dozen gospel songs with live instruments, tight harmonies, and plenty of off-center Southern charm.