Epcot: How Disney adjusted to relight Candlelight Processional

[Disney4me]

Epcot’s Candlelight Processional is at Walt Disney World with hundreds of cast members filling in for community choir musicians.

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Cast members perform in the choir for Candlelight Processional, a holiday offering at Epcot. The nightly performances continue through Dec. 30. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)

Epcot’s Candlelight Processional is back at Walt Disney World after a one-year pandemic-prompted absence. It looks a little different, and it sounds a little different, but the long-running holiday celebration has returned.

“This kind of music was kind of just ripped out from underneath us, and now we have it back and there’s this just overwhelming sense of gratitude and urge to do this,” said Clay Price, a producer with Disney Live Entertainment and one of this year’s conductors.

One visible change is fewer singers on stage. It was decided to bring back Candlelight without recruiting community-choir members. Instead, all vocal participants are Disney World employees, aka cast members.

“Because of health and safety … and because of the unique nature of the show, we knew that everyone would need to be fully vaccinated. And that’s not something that we expect from our community-based choirs,” Aaron Rowe, general manager of Epcot entertainment, said. Ordinarily, hundreds of non-Disney singers would stream through the theme park for rehearsals and performances nightly.

With that decision began rehearsals and rearrangements. The 50-piece orchestra remains front and center, and the celebrity narrator is elevated and behind those musicians.

Walt Disney World cast members (and narrator Chita Rivera) perform during Epcot's Candlelight Processional. The event was not held in 2020 but has returned this year with only Disney employees in the choir and Voice of Liberty taking the center 'tree' position. (Dewayne Bevil / Orlando Sentinel)

In previous years, the narrator was adjacent to eight members of Voices of Liberty, Epcot’s year-round a cappella group. But this year, 16 members of Voices are in each Candlelight performance, and they each stand in the rounded, tiered platform that resembles a Christmas tree, the previous spot for 48 volunteer cast members.

The cast members stand in rows that flank the central “tree” this year, and there are more of them. The group is not as large as when the community choirs participate; there will be about 170 singers there for performances, held three times nightly between Thanksgiving and Dec. 30, Price said. Some people sing in two or three processionals in one night, and some people are in as many as 30 processionals during the holiday season.

“Some people would do it every night,” Price said.

Candlelight Processional’s format includes the choir carrying (battery-powered) candles and streaming into Epcot’s America Gardens Theater. The narrator retells the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth, interspersed with traditional carols and holiday music.

About 2,000 cast members auditioned for the slots, and those selected were required to attend 10 rehearsals that last about two hours apiece.

“We’ve been able to really work with them more one-on-one because we’ve added more rehearsals this year,” Davis said.

This year, there are about 1,200 cast members in Candlelight, up from about 700.

Having twice as many Voices of Liberty members there, each armed with handheld microphones, presented opportunities.

“Most of it looks the same. What’s really different is having the Voices in that tree, because they’re such a focal point,” Price said.

“In ‘Silent Night,’ we added an extra little harmony there … because we can,” he said. “When you have two first sopranos that can just hit these beautiful, unearthly notes, you use it,” he said.

The relocation of Voices led to additional rethinking. Having singers hold both a mic and a candle would be awkward, so, instead, more candles were added to the curved railings in front of them.

“Because of the different staging there were some other behind-the-scenes changes from a costuming and a lighting design perspective,” Rowe said. “So, with the different robe colors, you have to look at the lighting. … It’s not necessarily a rinse and repeat from what we’ve done in the past.”

Candlelight Processional predates Walt Disney World. Walt Disney introduced the event at Disneyland in California in 1958. It was produced at Magic Kingdom starting in 1971, that theme park’s first holiday season, and it has been at Epcot since 1994. Price said he remembers seeing it at Disney World as a youngster on a family vacation.

“We have cast that grew up coming to Walt Disney World and seeing Candlelight. They work here, and now they’re able to sing in Candlelight,” Rowe said. “It’s very, very personal for a lot of people.”

The audience is responding, too, he said.

“One of the things that I love the most is just to stand there as the guests are exiting and to hear what they’re saying,” Rowe said. “We had so many guests who were generous enough to stop and say, ‘Thank you. Thank you for bringing this back.’”

 

Dewayne Bevil

Orlando Sentinel