SPRING VALLEY – The Spring Valley Stagehands and Director Ann Turner bring the 2025 theatre season to conclusion with the hilarious play “Christmas Belles,’ a southern-fried yuletide comedy about the delightfully zany Futrelle sisters: Frankie, Twink and Honey Raye, and their families.

After returning to her hometown of Fayro, Texas and hoping for people to think better of her than when she left, Honey Raye (Lori Peterson) takes on directing the Tabernacle of the Lamb’s annual Christmas program. Not content with the traditional program, Honey Raye aims to put on a dazzling, innovative (and very non-traditional) Christmas nativity show. Honey Raye notes it’s going to be like seeing Baby Jesus born on Broadway! Can Honey Raye actually pull this off? How will the arrival of the Christmas program’s former director Geneva (Saskia Nichols) get in the way of Honey Raye’s intentions?

Sister Frankie (Kyndra Gagne) is supportive and cautiously optimistic about the program’s potential success even as she is challenged by being the mother of a twenty-something daughter and in the very late stages of being pregnant with twins. Frankie, the peacemaker of the family, holds a potentially disruptive family secret – but when to spill the beans, and when will those babies arrive? Frankie’s husband Dub (Gregg Schmitt) is supporting the family in part by moonlighting as Santa at the Super Smart Mart, but he becomes besieged by a pending medical emergency.

Frankie’s new friend Rhonda Lynn (Emily Keeler) is seemingly everywhere the family is – what does she want? Frankie’s daughter Gina Joe (Danielle Nyhus) is trying to fend off the attentions of interim Pastor Justin (Merrick Johnson); but why, when she obviously loves him?

Sister Twink (Edria Nyhus) had a very bitter end to a prior relationship with Wiley Hicks, and her aims at retribution have landed her in the McTwayne County Jail. A former volunteer bookkeeper for the Food Pantry and driving the kidney caravan to the dialysis center every Wednesday, she now finds herself in a chain gang picking up trash from the side of the road. Will Twink finally be able to put her revenge aspirations aside? What role might that hunky deputy sheriff John Curtis (Christopher Donyes) play in Twink moving on from Wiley Hicks?

And then there’s wealthy socialite Patsy Price (Sarah Erickson), who’s always had it in for the Futrelles. After buying off the Deacons to secure a spot in the program, will she play nice or tank the Christmas show? Perhaps that sweet young man Raynerd Chisum (Mason Johnson) and his red wagon will save the day?

In true Futrelle family fashion, the sisters try to hold each other and the show together. Hilarity ensures. Performance dates are Dec. 12 and 13 (Friday, Saturday) at 7 p.m. and Dec. 14 (Sunday) at 2 p.m. All performances will be held at the Spring Valley Theatre. Tickets can be reserved online at svstagehands.org or be purchased as available at the door on performance dates. Come and celebrate the holidays with us!

Submitted by Lori Peterson, Spring Valley Stagehands