We’ve been busy in the Dance Connection holiday workshop to put together our first ever holiday spectacular! Step Into Christmas will be on stage December 16th at the Noel Ruiz Theater at the CM Performing Arts Center in Oakdale, and a fantastic organization Gavin’s Got Heart will benefit from the proceeds. 

Our fantastic cast of 37 ranges in age from 7 to 61, and they have been working incredibly hard since October to put together a heartwarming and entertaining performance.  Their journey together started with an audition process at the end of September, where all DC dancers were invited to come in and give it their best to learn new choreography for brand new holiday pieces that will debut in this show. The auditions were challenging but everyone had fun learning the Danes and working with our teachers.

Once everyone had been cast, the search for a script to tie all of the holiday pieces together was on, and the studio found a playwright who provided a heartwarming story that is sure to leave our audience in the true spirit of the holidays. Auditions for actors were held, and finally our full cast is off and running like Rudolph to make sure that every transition and every move is as perfect as can be.

Colleen M. Hughes

Playwright

Colleen M. Hughes is a playwright from Somerville, MA. She received her BA in English and Theatre from the College of the Holy Cross and her MFA in Playwriting from Boston University. Colleen’s work has been produced and developed at the Boston Theater Marathon, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Fresh Ink Theatre, New Repertory Theatre, Boston Podcast Players, and the Brazen-Faced Varlets. She was a national semifinalist for the 2011 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival’s Ten-Minute Play Award, an O’Neill semifinalist, a 2011–2012 New Voices Fellow at New Rep, and a 2015–2016 member of Company One’s C1 PlayLab Unit. Colleen spent her childhood at the Mary Flynn Murphy Dance Studio in Somerville, MA, where she was a member of the Mary Flynn Murphy Dance Ensemble under director Kathy Kozul. www.colleenmhughes.com

The organization that will benefit from the proceeds, Gavin’s Got Heart, is a local organization started by DanceConnection alumnus Nicole Mogil, whose son Gavin was born with congenital heart issues that had him hospitalized for quite some time after his birth. Nicole noticed the toll that fighting this battle took on the parents of the little warriors. To help, she started this organization, whose mission is “to provide financial and emotional support for families with children affected by congenital heart defects. GGH helps to subsidize medical bills, travel expenses associated with hospitalizations and medical care, and offset loss of wages for caregiver/parent(s).  To date GGH has donated over $215,000 to 43 local heart families. GGH also provides free heart screenings, and CPR/AED training for the community through a partnership with Northwell Health and provides hospital outreach initiatives for heart families.”

We are thrilled to be able to help such a worthy cause, and hope you will support it too by enjoying some holiday favorites and some all new performances that are guaranteed to add to your Christmas spirit! You can purchase tickets by clicking below, but hurry, there are less than 50 seats remaining! We hope we will see you there!