Open Eye Figure Theater’s Holiday Pageant

Though you may not be familiar with it as yet, this annual Christmas show has already attained veteran status. This is only the second year it’s been staged publicly, but writer/director Michael Sommers has been putting it on for family and friends for 17 years. Based on medieval passion plays and featuring a set based on illuminated Gothic manuscripts, Open Eye’s pageant retells the Christian nativity story through the eyes of an unusual perspective character: Lucifer. The story goes back and forth between the hardships of Mary and Joseph, the earthy, double-entendre prone shepherds, and the Devil’s arguments with The Other Guy about the proper role of evil. Adding to the near-Shakespearian feel, it’s all told in rhymed verse. Kevin Kling stars as the bewildered Joseph, whose marriage isn’t turning out the way he thought it would. (Still recovering from a nasty motorcycle accident, Kling says working on this show “has been a tonic.”) Southern Theater, (612) 340-1725, www.southerntheater.org