Every holiday season, families gather to watch a select few classic holiday films.

One of those films is the 1954 musical, White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney.

The company that owns the rights to the film recently released a version for the stage, which Steinert High School will be performing for its annual production.

Richard Schneider, musical director, and Stephanie Giunta, production director, both of the school’s music department, decided on the musical for Steinert, which will be performed for three nights this month.

“One of the things you have to take into consideration when you are picking out a production is past performers, leads, how many leads you have, how many are boys, how many are girls and then there’s singing,” said Giunta. “You have to know what the abilities are of the students you have.”

The musical requires four lead and several supporting roles.

“We do one show a year, so we wanted to allow the opportunity for as many students who would like to participate to do so,” said Giunta, who added that Steinert will be one of the first schools to perform the stage version.

One of the school’s familiar faces on stage, senior Sierra Downs, made the decision to play a more behind-the-scenes role in this year’s production because practices fell on the same days as college auditions.

Downs plans to pursue music education in college, meaning she needs to audition gain acceptance into the programs.

On certain days of the week, she works as the production’s assistant musical director under Schneider and helps out any way she can, she said.

White Christmas has four lead roles including Bob Wallace played by Chris Neuman, Phil Davis played by Ian Callahan, and the Haynes sisters, Betty played by Alex Reggi and Judy played by Tara Martin. The production is student directed by Brittany Schmittinger.

Neuman, Callahan and Reggi are all seniors whose involvement in the school’s productions began their freshman year. Martin is a junior and has also been involved since her first year.

Neuman felt the choice to do White Christmas was great, and although he admits some initial fear in playing a role described by many to him as high quality, he said he’s doing all he can to learn from Bing Crosby’s portrayal of the role.

Reggi will play the more mature of the two sisters, describing her character as a mother hen to her little sister. For her performance, she plans to bring a humorous aspect to her character.

Reggi said she goes into what she and her friends call “play mode” in preparation. She gets into her character by trying to be as much like her as possible.

Martin plays the younger sisters and mostly seen together with Phil, Callahan’s character.

“At each performance, you get to know everyone for who they really are; you meet so many new people,” said Reggi. “Everyone becomes a family; that’s what we are.”

Tickets to Steinert’s White Christmas performances are $10 each night and will open Thursday, Feb. 25 and run through Feb 27. Thursday’s performance will begin at 7 p.m. The Friday and Saturday performances will begin at 8 p.m.

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