CONWAY — The Conway Women’s Chorus will present its annual Christmas show at 2 p.m. Sunday at Wesley United Methodist Church, 2310 E. Oak St. in Conway.
Joan Hanna, director of the chorus and of the Faulkner Academy of Arts, which sponsors the chorus, said this year’s show is A Dickens Christmas, complete with the sights and sounds of Victorian England.
“It’s going to be fun,” she said, adding the show is “all brand new.”
“We’ve been performing music from the Civil War era, so we already had the costumes. We just decided to wear them for our Christmas show. A lot of people haven’t seen them.”
Hanna said all of the songs that will be performed “would have been heard during the Victorian period, and not all are English, necessarily, but they were popular during the period.”
“For example, ‘Silent Night’ was German, but it crossed over and was a family favorite in Victorian times,” she said.
Hanna said musical selections will include “Joy to the World,” “Deck the Halls” and “Away in the Manger.” Lesser well-known carols “Sussex Carol” and “Wexford Hymn” will complete a program of music one might have heard during the late 19th century.
“We will begin the show by walking in singing ‘Here We Come a Caroling’ and ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas,’” Hanna said. “Those songs were popular in the 1800s.”
The program will also include a reader’s theater rendition of serious and humorous poems and stories, all written in the late 1800s.
“I got the idea for a reader’s theater from a meeting I attended for local theater directors,” Hanna said. “It was for those who might not be able to memorize lines but still wanted to be a part of a dramatic production.
“It was so much fun and so funny, I decided we should do that here. So this will be our first experience with a reader’s theater.”
Hanna said there are no soloists or accompanists for the performance, but there will be two times in the program when the audience will be invited to sing along.
The hour-long concert will conclude with scones and tea for an afternoon English tea.
Chorus members include Liza Allen, Lynn Baker, Elizabeth Barnes, Anita Bayless, Lisa Bouabedi, Judie Burney, Virginia Douglas, B.J. Fox, Kristina Hallock, Nancy
Henderson, Felicia Johnson, Lisha Nation, Kimberly Norris, Kayla Pointer, Sharon Rapp, Cynthia Rogers, Trisha Rogers, Melissa Starkey, Meisha Stewart, Cathy Wester, Dee Woodrum, Jo-Ed Woodward, Teena Woodworth and Kari Yamber.
Admission to the concert is $5. Proceeds will go to fund the chorus throughout the year.
For tickets, contact the Faulkner Academy of Arts at (501) 339-7401 or faulkneraarts@yahoo.com.