Not your parents' Christmas show

There are your traditional and time-honored Christmas productions like "The Nutcracker" and "A Christmas Carol," and then there is Trans-Siberian Orchestra's holiday offering coming to Cape Girardeau November 17.

A holiday-themed rock show, "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" features an orchestral string section, a full rock band, several vocalists, a narrator, pyrotechnics and a light show.

This definitely isn't Tchaikovsky's Christmas tradition.

Through all of this onstage showmanship, the show also tells a story. It's the story of an angel's visit to Earth 2,000 years after the birth of Jesus and the angel's search for something that best represents Christmas.

This is the first time the Trans-Siberian Orchestra has performed at the Show Me Center. The venue's director, David Roth, said he is ecstatic about being able to bring the show to Cape Girardeau.

"We are extremely fortunate to have a date at all," he said. "We're the smallest city on their tour."

While some in Southeast Missouri may hesitate about traveling to St. Louis to catch a show because of the distance, Susan Evans thinks nothing of traveling seven hours from her home in Point Pleasant, W.Va., to Cape Girardeau in order to catch a concert at the Show Me Center.

But then again, this is no ordinary concert for Evans. This is Trans Siberian Orchestra.

"There's no way I'd miss it," Evans said.

The Nov. 17 show at the Show Me Center will mark the fourth time Evans has seen the Christmas rock opera since she was introduced to it three years ago. She has seen it twice in Ohio and once in Washington, D.C.

She is traveling to Cape Girardeau this year because a surgery will keep her from attending other concerts at a later date.

"You're lucky to get them," she said. "It's just a great Christmas show."

Evans went into her first TSO concert not knowing much about it, but said she was blown away by what she saw and heard, from the blending of traditional and original songs, to a stage dressed in a beautiful light display, to the story of the spirit of Christmas, which is what the concert is ultimately about.

"It has something in it for everyone. For the very young through the very old," she said. "Every year it's been a sell-out show wherever I've been."

Roth saw the show last year in Dallas and St. Louis and was so impressed that he knew he had to try to bring it to the Show Me Center.

"It's absolutely awesome," he said. "It's an all-out assault on the senses."