Documentary on Church Farm School’s Renowned Christmas Pageant to Premiere on YouTube on Friday

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For 95 years, the sound of chimes ringing through Church Farm School’s Chapel of the Atonement has accompanied Little Brother’s humble gift of a coin for the Christ Child as part of the annual Christmas Pageant. Preceded by an array of characters – knights, artists, kings, queens, and misers among them – who believe abundance will cause the church’s long-silent chimes to ring, it is instead Little Brother’s altruistic present, on behalf of his older sibling Pedro, that most represents the spirit of the season.

In 1924, Church Farm School’s founder, the Rev. Charles Wesley Shreiner, adapted Raymond MacDonald Alden’s popular 1909 story, “Why the Chimes Rang,” for the school’s own Christmas Pageant. Pageant, as it is simply known, is performed as a pantomime with students adorned in period dress as both male and female characters. The Headmaster serves as narrator, with faculty and staff toiling for months behind the scenes as directors, set decorators, costumers, organists, and choir conductors.

Guests of Pageant – many who have attended for generations with their families – play the part of a church congregation, participating in the recitation of prayers and the singing of hymns and holiday music. A local highlight of the Christmas season, Pageant draws hundreds of friends, alumni, and current and former faculty each year over its December weekend run.

Church Farm School, founded in 1918 and located on 150 bucolic acres in Exton, serves approximately 180 young men in grades 9-12 each year through its college preparatory boarding and day program. The second weekend in December would typically serve as “Pageant Weekend,” with performances on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. Due to the pandemic, CFS instead is releasing a new, 30-minute documentary entitled Why the Chimes Rang: A History of the CFS Christmas Pageant on its YouTube channel on Friday, Dec. 11 at 8 PM. Viewers can comment and share their own Pageant memories in real time. After the YouTube premiere, the documentary will be available to watch any time on-demand.

This “love letter” to Pageant is Church Farm School’s way of honoring the many people who have brought Alden’s narrative to life for the past 95 years, as well as the legion of supporters of the school who, like the procession of characters in the story, give gifts both large and small that help sustain CFS’s mission of providing an exemplary education at a reasonable cost to deserving young men.

Leading up to the premiere, watch past Pageant performances and outtakes from the documentary, plus join the school’s 96 Hours of Giving campaign that provides critical student scholarships, by clicking here.

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