So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
Two Oklahoma Baptist University graduates are bringing a musical retelling of the Christmas story to the Civic Center Music Hall as the holiday season kicks into high gear.
“The Unusual Story of Mary and Joseph’s Baby” is a different take on the lives of two people who Christians consider the most famous parents in the Bible. However, the production still retains the timeless messages from their biblical story.
So said Joshua Peterson, founding artistic director of the Knoxville, Tennessee-based River & Rail Theatre Company, which is bringing the musical to Oklahoma City.
Peterson, a 2002 OBU graduate, said Chris Cragin-Day, a Shawnee native who is also an OBU graduate, co-wrote the musical with recording artist Don Chaffer, of the music group Waterdeep, who wrote the music and lyrics.
He said he initially wondered what fresh insight his friends would find in a beloved story that has been told for more than 2,000 years.
“I was skeptical because it’s a story we’ve all heard before. It’s hard to imagine getting something new out of the story,” he said during a recent telephone interview.
Turns out there was plenty to explore.
“They found such a rich humanity in the story. What would it have been like to be these people? At its heart, it’s the story of two refugees who are trying to find a safe place to bring
their child up in the world. That, unfortunately, is happening in the world. It’s very relatable because it is diverse — it’s everyone’s story.”
Story unfolds
Peterson, 37, attended OBU from 1998 to 2002, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in theater in 2002. He said CraginDay, a 1999 graduate, was a senior when he was a freshman.
Their friendship continued after both began pursuing their dreams after college, and Peterson said he eventually worked as associate director and artistic director for the Firebone theatrical company that Cragin-Day and her husband, Steve Day, established in New York.
When Peterson and his wife, Amelia, made their way to their current home of Knoxville, Cragin-Day and her husband gave them an opportunity to take over Firebone. Peterson said they jumped at the chance to bring a theater company to their new Tennessee home because they felt that Knoxville, like Oklahoma City, was and is undergoing a renaissance of sorts. The couple jokingly refer to the theater company, renamed River & Rail, as “our first child.”
The Petersons commissioned Cragin-Day and Chaffer to prepare a Christmas show, and when they co-wrote “The Unusual Tale,” the couple knew they wanted to bring it to the stage as a River & Rail production. Amelia Peterson serves as the production’s director.
Cragin-Day, 40, said when she and Chaffer began conducting their research on the Jewish people at the time of Jesus’ birth and the politics around that time, they realized that the popular version of the Christmas story is a relatively sanitized version of the events that took place.
“In our imagination, Joseph had been a middle-class shop keeper, and we learned that there was no such thing. There really was no middle class — most of the people were very poor,” she said. “When we got into the story from that mindset, the rest of it just kind of unfolded.”
Cragin-Day said she and Chaffer were both inspired when they realized that Mary and Joseph were outsiders who had been discriminated against.
“That doesn’t mean they didn’t live joyful, but they were discriminated against,” she said.
“We thought it was very special that God chose to put the most precious thing He had into the hands of people who were disempowered, rather than the rich and powerful.”