‘CHRISTMAS GLORY’ : A HOLIDAY DRAMA IS UNVEILED

This weekend, Melodyland Christian Center, an Anaheim-based religious complex, is staging its first holiday musical spectacular. Not unlike the Crystal Cathedral’s lavish “Glory of Christmas” now playing in Garden Grove, Melodyland’s ambitious extravaganza--called “Christmas Glory”--features a living Nativity with actors, a menagerie of livestock, traditional and contemporary Christmas music and more. The narration has been taped by actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

Written by composer Phil Barfoot (and now commercially available in book and on record), “Christmas Glory” will also be performed for the first time this year in 1,400 churches around the country, as well as in Canada. At Melodyland, a 3,500-seat theater-in-the-round built in the 1960s and located across from Disneyland, the program is combined with a new drama by Debbi Dabney and will be taped for the Santa Ana-based Trinity Broadcasting Network, Channel 40, to be shown in 45 states later in the season.

Local performers make up a musical cast of 150, including a hand-bell choir, chorus and a 40-piece professional orchestra, the Melodyland Festival Orchestra. Gospel singer Steve Archer is featured as guest soloist.

Natalie Gregory, star of the upcoming CBS mini-series “Alice in Wonderland,” will be on hand to introduce the show.

Dabney’s drama is set in a small 1880s Midwestern town. On Melodyland’s stage there will be ice skaters, angels, falling snow, horses pulling wagons and other live animals. (“We had to can the dog,” Barfoot said. “He kept missing his cues.”

The Christmas story will be interwoven into a drama about a father’s regaining of faith after he has become embittered over the loss of his wife and grown distant from his young son. Trinity Broadcasting Network talk show host Jim McClellan plays the father and Matthew Cowan, who with his family presents TBN’s weekly series “Kids Praise the Lord,” is featured as the son.

According to Barfoot, Melodyland’s “Christmas Glory” is not intended to compete with Crystal Cathedral’s annual event, which opened this year on Nov. 29 and continues through Dec. 21.

“As a matter of fact,” Barfoot said, “the Crystal Cathedral’s high school and college choir presented the music portion of our show last Sunday night in the Youth Center Auditorium.

“Besides, the ‘Glory of Christmas’ runs the whole month; our production is only on for two days and is quite different. Ours is a drama that focuses on a family’s struggle to overcome hardship, rather than a straight telling of the Christmas story.” Barfoot added that it was possible the show would be expanded next year to run two or three weekends.

Performances at Melodyland, 400 W. Freedman Way, will run on Saturday at 5:30 and 8 p.m., Sunday at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $6. For reservations and information, call (714) 991-8740 or (714) 635-6391.