Come Home for Christmas: A Wonderfully Complicated Adventure!

Well, we've done it! We've had our first rehearsals for Come Home for Christmas, and I couldn't be more excited about this cast!

There's something especially wonderful about bringing old Stage Left friends together with new faces, watching friendships pick up right where they left off, and hearing Christmas music fill the Historic Trinity Playhouse once again.

Now comes the fun part: figuring out how to get everyone onstage at the right time!

On paper, Come Home for Christmas is a pretty simple idea. Kevin and Renee Schreffler settle in for a cozy holiday evening, and before they know it, Christmas characters and musical memories begin taking over their living room. Simple, right? HA!

With a cast this large, a collection of musical ensembles, familiar holiday characters, and all the moving pieces that make an original Stage Left production come to life, I've spent a good bit of time sorting out who sings what, who appears where, and how on earth we're going to rehearse it all! And here's something we've already accepted: We will probably never have every single cast member at every rehearsal—or even all together at once before the performances!

That's the holidays for you! Families have celebrations, kids have school activities, churches have programs, people have jobs, and life keeps right on happening. We'll work with the people we have, rehearse in smaller groups, and trust that all those individual pieces will eventually fit together.

That's part of the beauty of community theatre. We aren't professional performers who can put everything else on hold. We're friends, neighbors, parents, grandparents, students, and working people who make room in our busy lives to create something together.

I've finally worked my way through the Act One ensembles, and our next two weeks of rehearsals are taking shape. Cast members can find the rehearsal calendar and ensemble breakdown below. Please check both carefully, save the images, and let me know about any conflicts.

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To our cast, thank you for your patience while I figure out this wonderfully simple, incredibly complicated show! Your enthusiasm, flexibility, and willingness to jump into the Christmas craziness make it all worthwhile.

And to our audiences, just wait until you see what this remarkable group of people is putting together! There's a lot of laughter ahead, plenty of music, and more than a little Christmas magic.

We're coming home for Christmas—and there's always room for one more! ❤️🎄

Come Home for Christmas

December 4–13, 2026

Historic Trinity Playhouse | Lisbon, Ohio