Family Christmas Play
Saturday, December 14 – 4:00PM
Sunday, December 15 – 10:00AM (during service)
In a progressive So-Cal church, The Christ-mess Story by Kate Anger begins just before curtain on its annual Nativity Play. The director is determined to end his volunteer career on a high note, his assistant wants to prove herself, their new pastor aims to recover from early missteps, and a PhD candidate is “enlightening” the congregation on the Nativity’s origins. Add in missing actors, “Mary” rebelling, and kids being kids—chaos ensues. Will this tangled group’s hopes dissolve in the mess, or can they still reach the heart of the Christmas story?
Kate holds both a BA in Theatre and an MFA in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside. She taught playwriting for nearly 20 years in UCR’s Department of Theatre, Film & Digital Production. Her plays have been produced by UC Riverside, the City of Riverside, Moreno Valley Spotlighters, Los Angeles Theatre Center, Stella Adler Theatre, and Ensemble Studio Theatre in Hollywood. She also had five plays commissioned by the Gluck Foundation, which toured schools. Kate is the author of The Shinnery, a novel published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2022. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in journals including Hip Mama, Faultline, Inlandia, and Cherry Tree.