Real Christmas

Coming soon, to a city near you. Maybe. It’s the famed Radio City Christmas Spectacular.

Madison Square Garden Entertainment’s plan to launch a touring arena version of its Radio City Christmas Spectacular is the latest move in an increasingly aggressive strategy that will see the company launch other tours in the next few years.

The Spectacular tour marks the most ambitious national project for MSGE, a division of Cablevision that owns and operates New York’s Madison Square Garden, the WaMu Theatre at MSG, the Beacon Theatre and Radio City Music Hall — and which recently completed a transaction to acquire the Chicago Theatre.

The Spectacular production will play 18 cities across the Midwest and South, beginning November 8-9 at the Brown County Arena in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The plan is to hit more than 60 markets in the next three years and then repeat the cycle. Marciano projects that between 650,000 and 700,000 tickets will be sold the first year.

The touring Spectacular will boast all the elements of the much-heralded 75th edition of the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City in 2007, when MSGE simultaneously launched “Wintuk.” In a 10-week span, the two shows were attended by more than 2.4 million people and grossed more than $150 million.

The Spectacular has enjoyed theater residencies in some 30 markets since 1994 (including as many as nine in 2008), the upcoming tour is unique in that it is a multimillion-dollar production conceived specifically to travel to venues in the 7,000-12,000 capacity range.

“If we’re successful in the U.S., we’ll start to think about it in the context of international opportunities,” Marciano says.

The arena tour has been in the works for two years, he says, with the 75th production serving as a springboard for the idea to take the Spectacular on the road. “The limitations of most theaters didn’t allow for presenting the Christmas Spectacular on a scale that we do at Radio City,” he says. “We turned to the arenas, which allowed us to provide a family show the size of which has never been seen outside of Radio City Music Hall.”

The production is bigger than many major rock tours, involving 30 trucks and 16 buses, a massive LED screen, with a cast of 56, including the famous Rockettes.

The top ticket price will be $65-$75, with the average in the low $50s, according to Marciano. That ticket price is higher than most family shows, but well below Broadway show tickets, Marciano notes.

FRANKENMUTH, Mich. — Wally Bronner, whose Christmas retail empire made Frankenmuth one of Michigan’s most popular tourist destinations, has died. He was 81.

On Easter Sunday, March 24, Bronner announced to his staff he had inoperable cancer. In the letter he wrote, “our loving Lord and Savior, the Christ of Christmas, is ready to receive me into His heavenly kingdom where all believers in the creator God will be with Him forever and ever.”

Bronner turned over the day-to-day operations of the family business to the second generation in 1998 but had remained active in the business.

Shoppers from all over the country have come for years to Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland to take in what is touted as the world’s largest Christmas store.

Despite its standing as a must-see locale, Bronner always strove to keep his store’s focus on the Nativity and Christian tradition.

He was born on March 9, 1927, in Frankenmuth and leaves behind a wife, Irene, son Wayne and his wife Lorene, daughter Carla and her husband Bob, son Randy, daughter Maria Sutorik and her husband Christopher, and five grandsons: Dietrich and Garrett Bronner; and Ryan, Paul and Greg Spletzer.

“Of course it’s difficult because everyone misses Wally,” said Bronner’s spokesperson Lori Libka. “But Wally had a strong faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and is with him now.”

In lieu of flowers, the family requests are that memorials be made to St. Lorenz Lutheran Church Foundation, the Salvation Army, the Gideons, or the City of Frankenmuth Beautification Fund.

Funeral arrangements will be made by Cederberg Funeral Home, 590 N. Franklin in Frankenmuth.

Country star Trace Adkins will make a ghostly appearance opposite Kelsey Grammer in David Zucker’s indie Christmas comedy “American Carol.”

Jon Voight, Leslie Nielsen and Dennis Hopper have cameos in the takeoff on Charles Dickens’ classic holiday tale. The singer will play the Spirit of Christmas Future (a.k.a. the Grim Reaper), who uses his musical abilities to help Scrooge (Grammer) avoid a tragic end.

Adkins made his screen debut in this year’s Slamdance entry “Trailer Park of Terror,” recently came in second on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice” and wrote the 2007 book “A Personal Stand: Observations and Opinions From a Freethinking Roughneck.” His new single, “You’re Gonna Miss This,” just hit No. 1 on the Billboard country singles chart.

The film is shooting in Los Angeles through April 15.

Financed by Mississippi magnate and philanthropist Richard Headrick, and marking the feature film directorial debut of TV writer and author Darrel Campbell, An Ounce of Courage is destined to ruffle some feathers. At least that’s the expectation of Campbell, who begins shooting the drama on Monday in Paola, Kansas.

“What we’re tackling is the mindset that you have to say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas,’” he explains in an interview with the Kansas City Star. “Without really hammering the religious implications, it’s a story about freedom and its loss. You could make this movie about any number of freedoms. I’m sure the controversy will be there … there are people who intimidate school boards and city councils for things which are really within the legal rights of free speech and expression.”

Former Kansas City Chief football player turned successful actor Fred Williamson stars as a small town lawyer who takes the mayor (Marshall Teague) to court over the latter’s attempts to sponsor a denominational Christmas celebration. Former Summer of ‘42 star Jennifer O’Neill plays the mayor’s wife. Also starring are Jenna Boyd and Hunter Gomez.

This is actually the second feature film in which Campbell has had a hand. Back in 1991, his book Pistol: Birth of a Legend, about flamboyant 1970’s and 1980’s NBA All-Star Pete Maravich, was turned into a movie with Adam Guier in the lead role.

“A Christmas Story,” the beloved 1983 movie comedy about holiday hopes in a Midwest American setting in the mid-20th century, is being developed into a traditional stage musical by producers Gerald Goehring and Douglas C. Evans.

Goehring and Evans were behind Off-Broadway’s recent Frankenstein, the pop-rock musical, which will start its licensing life in the coming year, and is being developed for a tour in 2009. They told Playbill.com that they’ve been in discussions with theatres to get a production of their musical, A Christmas Story, on its feet as early as the holiday season of 2008.

The project’s collaborators — a lyricist, a librettist and a composer — will be announced shortly. The producers said the script and score can be delivered in five months, in time for rehearsals.

Goehring and Evans exclusively optioned the musical rights — for a first-class, large-cast musical — from the Dramatic Publishing Company, Inc.

A Christmas Story already exists as a non-musical stage show that has been popular in regional markets.

The musical will be based upon the motion picture, “A Christmas Story,” which was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Turner Entertainment Co. and is currently distributed by Warner Bros. The movie was written by Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown and (director) Bob Clark, and was based on “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash,” a novel by late humorist Shepherd (1921-99), who narrated the movie.

The producers characterize the musical project this way: “A Christmas Story is a whimsical, slightly-twisted and beloved tribute to an all-American, nostalgic view of Christmastime. Set in Indiana during the 1940s, a young Ralphie dreams of his ideal gift for Christmas and is waging an all-out campaign to convince his reluctant parents. Ralphie mounts a full-scale, hint-dropping, Santa-begging campaign. He also endures all kids of childhood calamities from his brother’s snowsuit paralysis to the yellow-eyed Scotty Farkus affair to the dreaded tongue-on-a-frozen-flagpole stunt. A triple-dog-dare Christmas classic for the American stage.”

In their upcoming Rare Book auction, Heritage Auction Galleries will offer a scarce first edition, first issue copy of Charles Dickens’ immortal novel, A Christmas Carol, in exceptional condition, estimated to bring $40,000 to $50,000.

“One of the most widely beloved Christmas stories ever written, it would be hard to overstate the importance of this well-known classic,” said James Gannon, Director of Rare Book auctions for Dallas-based Heritage. “Originally released on December 19, 1843, A Christmas Carol was an instant sensation, selling more than 6,000 copies in one week. Since then, the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and his miraculous redemption has been adapted into nearly every media imaginable, making it an inseparable part of our modern Christmas traditions.”

“Although we tend to see the novel as a fairy tale today,” Gannon said, “it was definitely intended as a strongly political work, written by Dickens to forcefully illustrate the ever-widening gap between the rich, as characterized by the miserly and cheerless Scrooge, and the poor, as embodied in the character of the hard-working and loyal Bob Cratchit , in the dark days of the Industrial Revolution. These themes of social injustice and poverty were never far from Dickens’ mind, as seen in a number of his books, including Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, and Hard Times , just to name a few. He is credited with bringing an awareness of these issues to the general public, and using his novels to effect real social and political change.”

“In our upcoming auction, we’re pleased to offer a remarkable copy of the first edition, first issue of this classic book, complete with the hand-colored steel-engraved illustrations by John Leech,” Gannon said. “Part of the incredible H. Barry Morris Collection of Charles Dickens’ First Editions, it is housed in an attractive red morocco conservation case, that has proved effective in preserving this copy, which is in exceptional condition. This is a beautiful, rare, and very desirable copy, one that any book collector will be proud to own.”

This first edition, first issue copy of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, will be offered in Heritage’s upcoming Grand Format Books & Manuscripts Auction, to be held June 3 & 4, 2008 in Dallas, Texas.

FRANKENMUTH, Mich. (AP) — The 81-year-old founder of a year-round Christmas decorations store that is one of Michigan’s best-known retail tourist attractions has inoperable cancer.

Relatives of Wally Bronner, 81, notified employees of Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland on Monday that he was ailing.

Bronner started out painting signs as a teenager and grew that business into the store, which opened in 1945.

Several years ago, he turned over its day-to-day operation to son Wayne Bronner and daughters Carla Spletzer and Maria Sutorik. Their father remained a fixture at Bronner’s, mingling with customers and returning telephone calls, letters and e-mails.

Last year, as he celebrated his 80th birthday by working a 10-hour day greeting visitors to his huge store about 20 miles north of Flint, Bronner said he had no plans to retire, The Saginaw News reported Wednesday.

“You probably know I never work,” he said at the time. “Retirement is for people who work, so they can devote their time to their hobby. I started with my hobby.”

Bronner established a foundation that in 2000 donated $1 million toward the construction of a 500-seat auditorium at Frankenmuth High School.