Richard Thomas performs with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Sq. and Orchestra at Temple Sq. throughout a Christmas live performance on the Convention Heart in Salt Lake Metropolis on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. Thomas returns to Utah to painting Atticus Finch in Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Information
Richard Thomas has been on the highway for about six months now, taking over the function of Atticus Finch in a more recent adaptation of Harper Lee’s basic “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
The tour brings him to Salt Lake Metropolis this week, and forward of the manufacturing — which runs Sept. 6-11 on the Eccles Theater — Thomas mirrored on his final go to to Utah, when he served as narrator for the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Sq.’s annual Christmas live performance.
It’s been virtually three years since Thomas — well-known for his Emmy-winning function as John-Boy in “The Waltons” — recited Pearl S. Buck’s “Christmas Day within the Morning” to a packed crowd within the Convention Heart. However he hasn’t forgotten the joys of all of it.
“Studying that textual content with that choir behind me, it would not get higher than that,” Thomas just lately advised the Deseret Information. “It was an awesome expertise, as it's for everyone who does it. It’s a really cool gig, I liked doing it.”
However for Thomas, one of the best a part of the Tabernacle Choir’s 2019 Christmas live performance was the entire behind-the-scenes effort that went into producing the “colossal spectacle.”
“My favourite a part of it was to observe all that volunteerism in motion, all people contributing their finest,” he stated. “The entire concept that the factor was finished on a volunteer foundation for the neighborhood was probably the most thrilling a part of that for me.
“It’s an awesome occasion and it’s distinctive,” he continued. “I don’t assume it’s like another live performance occasion within the nation — perhaps anyplace.”
That 2019 Tabernacle Choir Christmas live performance, that includes Thomas and Broadway star and actress Kelli O’Hara, marked the final Christmas live performance earlier than the pandemic.
In 2021, the group put collectively a TV particular celebrating “20 Years of Christmas with the Tabernacle Choir,” that includes highlights from 20 years value of live shows, the Deseret Information reported. That program additionally touched on the live performance’s volunteer efforts that impressed Thomas a lot.
“The tough half was deciding on what needs to be included, given the wealth of fabric we needed to work with,” Mack Wilberg, the choir’s music director, stated in a assertion on the time. “We additionally wished to offer the attention-grabbing story of how the Christmas live performance has been put collectively, that includes not solely the military of volunteer performers from the choir group, but in addition the various world-class visitor artists now we have had the privilege of working with over the previous 20 years.”
In December 2021, visitor artists Megan Hilty and Neal McDonough — backed by the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Sq. and Bells at Temple Sq. — placed on a Celtic-themed manufacturing for an viewers of about 4,000 on the Convention Heart. That efficiency will air on PBS and BYUtv later this 12 months, the Deseret Information reported.