Shadowbox Live’s Holiday Hoopla returns

Dolly is the flirty, ditzy one. Dorothy is the nerdy, dorky one. And Dixie is the leader, the lounge veteran who makes them go.

They’re the Santa Babies from Shadowbox Live’s Holiday Hoopla. When Hoopla opens this year on Nov. 17 in Shadowbox’s new digs in the Brewery District, it will mark the 20th anniversary of the company’s annual holiday-themed show.

And it will mark the reunion of the original Santa Babies, who’ve made their presence known in each of the 20 iterations of Holiday Hoopla.The original concept, Julie Klein (Dixie) said, was that of a lounge act.

“I’d always liked Bill Murray’s lounge singer bit on Saturday Night Live,” she explained. “We didn’t set out to do a musical revue. The characters were not well-defined.”

They became so over the next 10 years, as audiences ate up what the Babies — Klein, Stacie Boord (Dolly) and Stephanie Shull (Dorothy) — were feeding them. The characters grew from the actors’ own preferences and predilections — Klein’s lounge singer; Boord, a former cheerleader, as the energetic, exuberant (if not-so-smart) Dolly; and Shull …

“I’ve been a dork all my life,” she joked.

When Boord moved to Cincinnati to launch Shadowbox’s Newport, Ky., location, the Babies continued in both cities, with new actors filling out the trio, in new roles/personas, with each actor retaining her character.

The closing of the Newport Shadowbox brought Boord back to Columbus, and Dolly back to complete the original Babies lineup.

“We’re redeveloping the dynamic,” Klein said.

“It’s not like we haven’t been doing these characters,” Boord added, “We just have been doing them apart.”

“And we did them for a decade together before that, so we’re kind of falling right back into it,” Shull added. “We know these characters so well.”

This year, the Santa Babies’ appearance in Holiday Hoopla takes a slightly different twist, as does the entire show. Many audience-favorite sketches and songs will be featured, but for the first time, Hoopla has a storyline woven throughout. The first act features Santa telling how he’s gone broke, and the second is a telethon to raise money to help the jolly old fellow out — a telethon that features “appearances” by Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Keith Richards and more, including, of course, the Santa Babies.

“We’ve got a new finale to the show this year that includes the whole staff,” Klein said. After refusing to elaborate, she said the Babies' sketch this year will include some traditional elements and some new material.

“When we start picking songs, then (the sketch) just starts to evolve,” Boord said, “And things begin to naturally present themselves.”

“The characters drive the content,” Klein said.