Question 1

How did you get into showbiz?

Answer

Lucinda: I took my first dance class when I was in first grade. The instructor let us do cartwheels at the end of class, which sealed the deal! I was born into a family of musicians and music lovers, and I grew up training in dance studios and dreaming of being on stage. When I was in college, a production company held an audition on campus. I landed my first gig, packed my car, and followed the dream. Performing was the only thing I wanted to do. Mario: My mom was a flamenco dancer, and there was always music playing in our house. I started out breakdancing. A local dance teacher saw me and said she needed a guy on her performing team, so I joined them. I also danced on a regional TV show called Jammin- kind of like American Bandstand- with my high school friends. I booked a summer gig right after graduation and had a blast. The shows combined comedy, dancing, and music- all the things I loved.

Question 2

Give us the scoop on you and the company.

Answer

Mario: I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, and married into North Carolina over 20 years ago. Lucinda: I grew up in Taylorsville, North Carolina, in Alexander County. We met and got married in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, while performing at the Alabama Theatre. Lucinda: We were blessed to perform full-time for about 3 decades, much longer than the average professional dancer. 2014 was our last year performing 7 to 12 shows a week. During that season, we started writing shows and paying more attention to the production and marketing end of everything. Mario: We knew that creating and producing our own show was the next step. Our mentors and former directors, Brad & Jennifer Moranz, encouraged us to go for it. They produce shows in Charleston, South Carolina, and they've given us great advice over the years. Our parents and close family and friends weren't surprised that we'd decided to do our own show. They're pretty used to our crazy showbiz life, and they've been supportive since day one. We work in Asheville, we started the company in Asheville, we live in Candler, and we're doing the show in Canton. Our area of North Carolina has always embraced live music and dance, and it feels good to be part of a community that's very supportive of live entertainment.

Question 3

Your musicians really bring down the house. What's the story on the band?

Answer

Mario: Our music director and arranger, Aaron Price, has been in Asheville since 1997. He's fantastic on the keys and has been with us since the first show, along with Kent Spillman our drummer, our guitarist Miguel Cancino, and Ryan Crabtree, our bassist. Kent's an established instructor and performer in Asheville. Ryan lives here, too, and plays with multiple bands locally and across the Southeast. We've known Miguel, our guitarist, for over a decade. He's originally from Santiago, Chile, and is currently doing session work and playing gigs in Nashville, Tennessee. Lucinda's brother Reese Land plays trumpet in the show, and his wife Paola Manrique-Land, who is originally from Guayaquil, Ecuador, plays violin. They live in Louisville, Kentucky, where he's a music professor at the University of Louisville and she teaches strings for the elementary, middle, and high schools in Bardstown, Kentucky. Jonathan Cole, our saxophonist, is based here, too. We're excited to have him with us for the first time this year. Having a great group of musicians on board is a priority for both of us, and we love having them on stage for the entire show! We're fortunate to have a community of phenomenal players here in western North Carolina, and it helps to have family and friends jumping in to play, too! Our audiences love live music. It's a signature element we plan to have in every show.

Question 4

You've got a live band on stage, dancers, kids, and a partridge in a pear tree in this show! How do you put it all together?

Answer

Mario: Well, it's just the 2 of us creating, casting, directing, choreographing, marketing, costuming, and designing everything. Our MD, Aaron, starts working on song arrangements a couple months in advance. We accept performer audition submissions by email, and we have one live audition each year. By the end of October we have our cast, band, and crew under contract. Rehearsals for Christmas start in late October, and we go full-steam until showtime.

Question 5

The theater looks like Christmas morning! That must take a lot of hands.

Answer

Lucinda: In addition to the local crew we hire for the shows, we've got siblings, cousins, nieces and nephews, our parents and aunts and uncles, college buddies, co-workers, friends, neighbors, and our church family pitching in to help us backstage, in the lobby, and anywhere else we need them. Most stick around until load-out is finished at midnight. It's a hard-working village of folks, and we love them all. By the next week, we're back to our day jobs and already dreaming up the next show. It's a happy cycle!

Question 6

A big show like this doesn't come cheap. How do you make it happen?

Answer

Mario: It's not easy! We both work in the healthcare field in Asheville full time, and outside those hours, I'm also a photographer. We judge dance competitions on the weekends in the spring, and we teach master classes and workshops when we have time. We pray a lot, too! Working to pay for our dream, for something we both love, is just part of the story. We hope that ticket sales will cover our expenses each year, but we're going to do the shows anyway. Discovering local talent, and putting all the elements together to make a great show that represents the spirit of Christmas, that's our true joy.

Question 7

What's your favorite part of the process?

Answer

Lucinda: We have several! Calling the new cast members to offer them jobs is way up there. We were on the other side of those calls for years, so we remember that excitement- all the nerves and the joy. It's a wonderful feeling for us, especially with our younger dancers and singers, to be part of their careers and hopefully inspire them to pursue their dreams. Seeing the choreography transition from ideas in my head, then onto the dancers in rehearsal, then to the stage is another favorite. Our dancers have to learn a lot of movement in a very short span of time, but they learn faster with each rehearsal. I love the moment when their muscle memory takes over, so they're dancing full out with feeling! For both of us, just being in the theatre with the audience, our crew, the cast and band, and our family and friends during the finale of the show is overwhelming, but we try to soak it all in. Building shows with a circle of people who believe in us and believe in what we're doing is incredible, and humbling, and a ton of fun. Talking with our audience members after the show is the icing on the cake! We do our best to include a little something for everyone, and it's wonderful to hear that we made folks laugh, or sang their favorite song, or made their Christmas a little more joyful. It really is a dream come true for us.

Lucinda Morin

Mario Morin

Q & A with Mario & Lucinda