Critic’s Choice: ‘Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Motown’ finds its groove in Burbank

It’s hard to believe, but the Troubadour Theater Company has been around for more than 20 years, doing turn-away business at venues around Southern California.

The group’s productions include holiday shows at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank that draw audiences in droves. This year is no exception. “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Motown,” a reprise of a 2004 production, is the group’s typical blend of commedia, improv, rock numbers and nuttiness.

Based on the 1970 Rankin-Bass stop-motion Christmas special, the show blends the back story of how Kris Kringle became Santa Claus with Motown classics such as “Respect,” “It’s Your Thing,” and “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher.”

The source material may be thin, but director Matt Walker and his cast of Troubie regulars, including the delightful Rick Batalla and Beth Kennedy, are all singing, dancing dervishes who go off-script at frequent intervals for a dry aside or a topical quip. However, the performers’ deceptively loosey-goosey attitudes cannot obscure their sheer physical rigor and technique.

Other longtime Troubadour stalwarts Sharon McGunigle (costumes) and Jeremy Pivnick (lighting) join scenic designer Christopher Scott Murillo and sound designer Robert Arturo Ramirez to create the show’s distinctive ambience: a candy-floss wonderland with the effectively rude simplicity of a child’s coloring book. Musical director Eric Heinly, who has helmed the onstage band for 33 productions, wrangles the cast’s disparate voices into a tuneful whole.

If you haven’t yet experienced the Troubies in all their slapstick splendor, you owe it to yourself.

“Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Motown,” Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Burbank. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 4 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Jan. 17. $36.50-$44. (818) 955-8101 or FalconTheatre.com. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.