Local dancers preparing for spectacular fairytale inspired holiday performance

By Erin Rose

A group of fairytale characters will need to hurry to save Christmas in a new holiday dance production, Christmas at the Castle, premiering on Saturday, Dec. 20.

Adrienne Pelletier leads dancers from the Maine Dance Center
as they rehearse in Raymond for a production of 'Christmas
at the Castle' to be performed on Saturday, Dec. 20 in Auburn.
SUBMITTED PHOTO 

The new 90-minute show will have a single performance at 4 p.m. at the Donald M. Gay Performing Arts Center, located at Edward Little High School, 77 Harris St. in Auburn.

Dancers of all ages from the Maine Dance Company and the Maine Dance Center, located on Roosevelt Trail in Raymond, will take the stage to help the Sugar Plum Fairy retrieve her lost wand to ensure Christmas magic will carry Santa Claus across the globe.

“If Sugarplum Fairy doesn’t have her wand, Christmas is in jeopardy,” said Adrienne Pelletier, one of the two authors of the show’s storyline, when detailing the adventures the cast will face.

After gathering at the Sugar Plum Fairy’s Palace to celebrate the season, a mischievous Elks on the Shelf named Tinsel takes the wand before being summoned back to the North Pole. A group of friends then journey through various realms, including the Candy Cane Woods and the Chocolate Falls, to reach the North Pole and retrieve the wand, allowing Sugar Plum Fairy to empower Santa’s sleigh and host of reindeer with magic for their Christmas Eve journey. On the journey, the group will encounter familiar characters, including Rapunzel, Belle and Ariel, along with another unnamed princess who controls the winter winds.

Pelletier, along with her sister and co-author, Rhiannon Pelletier-Guerrette, worked to develop the show for almost two years, after a performance at Windham’s Summerfest in 2023.

“It was the first time we had combined play acting with the dance industry that we were already a part of, and that kind of stuck the idea,” said Pelletier-Guerrette. “We said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this show. What if we turned it into a holiday thing?’”

Once the duo founded the company in 2024, they realized they had talented dancers to fill the roles and develop a full performance. They began writing in January of that year, and spent almost two years in completing a script and patching the music together.

“I searched the bowels of the internet to find all these different, random songs that somehow worked together to tell a story,” Pelletier-Guerrette added.

In addition to a varied musical score, the show also will feature multiple dance styles, from classical ballet to musical theatre and jazz, and even includes acrobatic tricks.

“The Candy Cane dance has all the crazy acrobatic skills, the tumbling, and lifts,” Pelletier said. “That one is very exciting.”

“We work with so many students who are not just ballerinas”, Pelletier-Guerrette said. “They train in many different styles of dance, so we wanted to put together a show that felt like The Nutcracker, in that it is all the themes of Christmas and the holidays, but incorporates those styles of dance that our students spend so much time training in.”

The Nutcracker is a tale both Pelletier and Pelletier-Guerrette are very familiar with, as they are each principal dancers with the Maine State Ballet. Pelletier will be performing in the play again this year, in addition to directing the new show for the company.

The different dance styles will also help those who are unfamiliar with ballet or hesitant to attend a ballet performance become more comfortable with all types of dance.

“Part of our goal with this show is to soft launch into ballet,” Pelletier-Guerrette said. “There is a lot of serious dancing in this show, of a very high caliber, but it’s interspersed with moments of play acting where these characters you know come out and talk and narrate the story.

“What we’re seeing that it’s very approachable,” she said. “Anyone can go see this show and enjoy it and not necessarily need to be in the arts community to get it.”

The show will also hopefully help connect new people to the expression that is found through dancing.

“I think it’s [dance] something that’s human, something that in my opinion is one of the most genuine forms of self-expression,” Pelletier added. “It’s a way of connecting with people and human nature and storytelling that we don’t get in other forms of art.”

The cast of 60 dancers will range in age from four to professional adults, with the duo pulling from the Center’s students to complete the cast. Previous performances have been smaller, but this show has opened the opportunity to involve more children, including Pelletier-Guerrette’s own son as the youngest performer.

Family is very close to the pair, as the sisters work with their mother, Beth, to run both the company and the center.

“This is a family effort,” Pelletier said, explaining how the sisters are able to take care of their personal lives while depending on the other to run the business, something especially helpful as Pelletier-Guerrette is expecting her third child in early spring.

“It’s a constant balance between the two of us, making it all work,” she said. “If she needs someone to lean on, I can be that person, and I know when it is my turn, she’ll be there for me as well.”

The family support will be essential as the center expands in a new location in the North Windham Shopping Center, behind Windham Jewelers. The move is expected to be completed in February 2026.

Tickets for Christmas at the Castle can be found at https://events.eventgroove.com/event/Christmas-At-The-Castle-117940. <

Local teens coordinate successful food drive to support the Windham Food Pantry

A group of WHS students shop for goods to
donate to the Windham Food Pantry with funds
raised over the course of two weeks. Front from left,
Layla Pinto, Amelia Richards, Hazel Lundberg,
and Audrey Libby. Back from left,
Madi Valliere and Peyton McLean.
SUBMITTED PHOTO

By Erin Rose 

 A Windham parent enlisted teens and members of the community for a food drive that raised more than $500 to purchase food items for the Windham Food Pantry, along with collecting additional food donations from Windham residents. 

Angela Libby spent a little under two weeks collecting funds and donations, ending up with more than four shopping carts full of food for the food pantry. She assembled a group of teens from Windham High School to help with both collecting donations and with a shopping trip to Market Basket in Westbrook. 
“I wanted to help, and I wanted my youngest daughter to be involved and see that there are people who are less fortunate than us” in the community, she said. “Having the kids hear about how many are in need, how many people come [to the Food Pantry], and what is available was really eye opening for them, which is exactly what I was looking for.” 

Libby added that hearing from a food pantry volunteer that there are 38 families from the Windham Primary School seeking help from the community organization really hit home for the kids. 

“It was an eye opener for them,” she said. “They couldn’t believe it. It’s hard to realize what’s going on in other kids’ homes.”

Upon hearing about recent cuts to SNAP benefits, the mother of three daughters used a group chat from a group of teens who attended Homecoming together to reach out to parents and their kids to see if any would be interested in participating. 

“Everybody of course said yes,” she said. “Some kids came over with boxes of food they had collected, and others collected money.” 

The day off from school to honor Veteran’s Day on Tuesday, November 4 provided a perfect opportunity for the teens to visit the grocery store and pick up items from the donated funds. 

“We had a blast,” Libby said, adding that the kids maintained organized carts to ensure that there was a variety of foods purchased and worked hard to remain under the $500 budget. 

The community has also given to the effort, after a posting on the Windham Maine Community Board on Facebook. More than 15 people commented on the post, 138 liked the post, and it was shared 19 times. 

“People were pretty awesome,” Libby said. “The majority of this community stepped up one way or another, whether it was with us or with another program.” 

Colette Gagnon, who runs the Windham Food Pantry, echoes those sentiments, saying that the residents of Windham have gone above and beyond to help those in the community who are suffering from food instability. 

“They are generous like you can’t believe,” she said. “I wouldn’t be able to serve that many people if the town wasn’t as generous as they have been.” 

“The food drive that Angela did with her daughters was really, really nice. And there are other groups doing things of all kinds,” Gagnon added.  

The Windham Food Pantry serves over 325 families currently, with that number increasing almost daily. 
“I get calls practically every day, saying they don’t have their SNAP benefits and would like to sign up for the food pantry,” Gagnon said. 

-With the holidays speedily approaching, the needs have grown as families look to fill their tables for those special meals. The pantry is working to build Thanksgiving baskets for those in need and has been able to complete baskets for the families who have requested them. Last year, the organization completed 70-75 baskets, while this year, they will be looking to fill “way more than 100,” Gagnon said. 

“We’ve been able to fill all the baskets people have asked for, and I’m sure I will get more,” she added, noting that it is inevitable that more requests will come in as the holiday nears. 

If people from the community are looking to help, the pantry benefits the most from financial donations, as it is a member of the Good Shepherd Food Bank network, which allows participating food banks to purchase food in bulk for discounted rates. 

“Monetary donations would be really, really nice,” Gagnon said. “If we have monetary donations, then we’re able to purchase more food for the buck.”

She also noted another organization, the Windham Clothes Closet, which is located downstairs from the food pantry at 377 Gray Road, is also accepting donations and helps residents in need of clothing. The pantry, which is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. accepts donations and is looking for clean and lightly used or new winter clothes such as hats, gloves, jackets,  boots, socks and ski pants as the weather turns cold.  

Residents seeking food assistance can reach out to 207-892-1931 to schedule an appointment to visit the Food Pantry.

Donations of food and non-food items are accepted Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cash or check donations must be brought to the Town Manager’s Office, Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can also mail checks payable to Windham Food Pantry to 8 School Road, Windham, ME 04062. <