The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - Beth Bradley
Wikipedia defines the fourth wall as a “performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes, the actors act as if they cannot”. At BYPC we train our actors at an early age about the fourth wall and in our more advanced classes our actors learn methods and techniques to use the fourth wall to enhance their storytelling.
Rule number one - you never break the fourth wall. Unless, of course, you are the narrator. Beth Bradley is a narrator. Over the years I have discovered the power of the role of Beth in my development of BYPC actors. She is definitely one of those break through characters.
The role of Beth Bradley is uniquely challenging because she starts the show by reminiscing with her audience about her experience as a part of the town’s Christmas pageant. From her very first utterance she needs to grab the attention of each audience member to set the tone of the relationship that each of our cast of storytellers will rely upon. She needs to be relaxed, conversational, charming, relatable and at the same time - compelling. Not an easy task.
But it gets even tougher because she moves from narrating about the story to being a character within the story. She definitely needs a score card to know when, what, and just who she is at any given moment. She is simply our story’s glue.
Our past Beth Bradleys have gone onto many storied careers in their adult lives including Kaleigh Cronin who has earned herself a successful Broadway career. A few years back I saw Kaleigh in “Cabaret” on Broadway and had visions of her in a Beth Bradley velvet dress with her red hair pulled back in a bow - a memory that she and I shared backstage after the show. For her it sparked a love of performing casting her on a magnificent journey of performing leaving an enduring legacy at BYPC.
Fulfilling Kaleigh’s legacy are some of our current actors who have taken on the challenge of bringing Beth
Bradley onto the stage. Here’s what they have learned from the endearing character of Beth.