Movies and Music in Maine

I love living just one block away from the beautiful City Theater in downtown Biddeford, Maine, which runs five excellent shows per season. This year, their Christmas production is Irving Berlin’s musical  Holiday Inn , a stage adaptation of the 1942 film that opened on Broadway back in 2016. Directed by Linda Sturdivant, City Theater’s staging of the musical is a spirited celebration of the holiday season, and of all holiday seasons for that matter, given that the songs are basically a revue of our various holidays themselves. The cast members all ably attend to their roles and to the demanding song & dance routines throughout the performance, the most famous of which is “White Christmas.” It’s remained a Christmastime mainstay in American culture for over 80 years now, although our white Christmases have become less reliable and more nostalgic in the face of climate change, even as far north as Maine. I’ve of...