MILWAUKEE — When Tara Nicole Vinson was a little girl, there was one Christmas movie that stood out above the rest: “Elf.”
Her family made sure to watch it together every year. After all, it was her grandmother’s favorite.
“I used to watch this when I was so small and I didn’t even dream of being an actor at that point. It’s just something that gave me unadulterated joy and reminded me about Christmas spirit and being close with my own family and just a way for us to connect and be together,” she reminisced.
It’s been years since that tradition started. And now, Vinson is playing the role of Jovie in the national tour of “Elf.”
“Now, looking back, little Tara probably couldn’t believe this is where we would have ended up,” she admitted.
The musical rendition of “Elf” stays true to the 2003 movie starring Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel. The major difference is that it’s, well, a musical.
“You’re still gonna have a lot of those great moments that you saw in the movie, but now, a lot of the differences are that you’re gonna have a lot more music numbers [and] really great songs … [that add] a little bit more of that onstage, musical theater pizzazz to it that makes it so much more inviting and welcoming to see,” Vinson said.
For instance, Vinson’s favorite part of the show is a musical number entitled “Nobody Cares About Santa Claus.”
“It’s a song where all of the Santas are hanging out and they’re a little bit downtrodden because they think that nobody cares about Santa anymore and it’s the ginormous, big dance number where all the Santas are just dancing on chairs, on tables. It is so energetic and fantastic to see,” she said.
That’s right: “Elf” has a musical number with multiple Santas.
It seems fitting for a Christmas musical to have multiple actors on stage dawning the iconic red and white suit. After all, everyone involved in the show is just as obsessed with the holiday as you would imagine.
At nearly each stop, the company management team works with the theater it is performing at to deck the backstage from top to bottom. There are little Christmas trees, containers full of Christmas candy and even little Buddys everywhere.
“We’re already in the holiday spirit with the cast and that just helps us be even more energized when you can feed off of that with each other constantly. It only makes a performance better and it makes it such a welcoming positive work environment,” Vinson said.
Likewise, she said she hopes that the audience is able to feed off the cast’s energy.
[Once the audience leaves the theater], Vinson said she hopes “they’re just able to have their own Christmas spirit and that little bit of magic spark back into their life.”
“Buddy, his whole kind of existence … is just that he’s someone who adores Christmas, loves Christmas, and the state of New York kind of loses out on that Christmas magic and that Christmas spirit and when you see the show all of that is just kind of poured into you,” she added. “Our Buddy, Jackson Reagin, does such an amazing job of encapsulating that Christmas spirit and just sharing it out amongst the cast. We feel it on the stage and we hope the audience feels it as well and that by the time that they leave they are ready to get on their Christmas sweater, start putting up their tree and be with their family.”
And in a true, full-circle moment, Vinson said her own family will be in the audience in New Jersey to cheer her on, reprising a role in a story they’ve loved for generations.
“I’m so excited personally just to have them come see something that we always partook in together just watching this movie and now getting the opportunity for them to see me on a stage perform it makes me so happy, so happy,” she said. “Unfortunately, my grandmother — who it was her favorite movie — she won’t be able to get the chance to, but I know she would be super proud and that makes me happy being able to do this. It’s kind of like I’m doing this for them and I’m doing that for her.”
After all, having her family together and being unapologetically joyful, is what Christmas is all about for Vinson.
“To me, Christmas spirit means having positivity when sometimes it doesn’t feel like you’re able to. Being Christmas, especially with my family, there was definitely a time when we couldn’t afford to have presents under the tree and all we really had was each other and that was probably the best Christmases that I’ve has, where Christmas spirit was just the love and positivity that we infused and brought onto each other. That still made it the best holiday that there ever was,” she said.
"Elf" runs at the Marcus Performing Arts Center from Nov. 26 to Dec. 1. Find ticket information, here.
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