Acadiana Christian School hosted their 3rd annual Christmas play, “Four Tickets to Christmas” at Our Savior’s Church Friday, Dec. 8.

The performers and crew are all members of Joy Broussard’s 4th and 7th period choir class. Broussard serves as ACS Creative Ministry Arts and director of the play. Starting in September, they practiced three days a week, for an hour a day, to prepare for the show. When the time of the performance neared, they added an additional two-hour Sunday practice, which allowed the two class periods to practice together for six weeks.

According to Broussard, ACS established the Creative Ministry Arts program to empower kids with the skills necessary to return to their own churches and help with productions there. Broussard said her personal goal was to create another “her”.

“The whole goal here is to reproduce myself, you know? I want to work myself out of a job eventually. We’re hoping to have these kids who are doing lights, sound and production, go back and do that at their church,” Broussard said.

According to Broussard, the musical serves as a way to fulfill the goals of the Creative Ministry Arts Program. The Creative Ministry Arts Program is built on four pillars, which Broussard utilized when choosing the show. These pillars include communication, worship and music, graphic designs and production.

SImilar to their chapel services, the entire production was student-led and produced from sound and mixing, to transitions, to the choreography. Two of Broussard’s students and longtime dancers choreographed the show.

The show featured a full age-spectrum of students ranging from 6th grade all the way up to seniors. Seniors Peyton LeBouf and Allison Mahoney played the two lead roles of a father-and- mother-duo, Henry and Lucille.

The first show Broussard put on at ACS was titled, “Christmas at the Diner”, an original show that she wrote. The second year, she bought a compilation of music and wrote a script to accompany it. This year was slightly different, as Broussard utilized the fully-licensed “Four Tickets to Christmas”.

The play covered several thought-provoking topics like family reconciliation and rebuilding broken connections caused by misunderstanding and mistrust, which Broussard said helped the entire audience connect more deeply with the show.

“Everybody has some issues with their family, so I think there wasn’t one person in the audience that couldn’t relate to someone on that stage,” Broussard said.

Unlike past productions, which lasted roughly an hour, this show ran an extra 30 minutes. Broussard said she thought this would be the perfect time to introduce a longer, more complicated play.

“When I first started there, I don’t think they would have been ready for the show we did this year. Those shows were a little bit shorter, a little bit easier, the parts were simpler to play, but it was cute and fun and upbeat. This one had some dramatic flair and some deep moments, so there were more in-depth characters that they had to play, and they would not have been able to do that their first year,” Broussard concluded.