West Point's New Horizon Community Theatre is bringing back its holiday centerpiece, Once Upon a December, for an 11th year on Dec. 19, with two performances scheduled for 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. ET. The show, written and directed by former Cirque du Soleil vocalist Julia Langley, will once again fill the theatre at 411 W. 8th St. with Christmas music, dance and a live band.
Langley first connected with New Horizon back in 2009, when a college friend asked her to help with a summer camp, according to Valley Times-News. That camp's success led her to help coordinate and direct the very first Once Upon a December, planting the seed for what has become an annual West Point tradition. This year, Langley brings an especially personal element to the production: she will perform alongside her mother, who suffered a hemorrhagic stroke last year, according to the seed reporting by Hannah Barron for the Valley Times-News.
The 2026 storyline follows Santa's trip around the world, tracing a path from the North Pole through Christmas Eve and what the production describes as a sacred Christmas. The show features about 20 singers backed by a live band, drawn from what organizers call an invitation-only, handpicked cast. Langley has said the show is family-oriented and suitable for all ages, and that it supports local students while bringing the community together.
A Decade of Growth, From Showcase to Spectacle
The production has come a long way from its early days. An earlier report on the show's history described it growing from a small showcase of six performers into what was called a 60-performer-and-a-live-band spectacle, per the same account from Valley Times-News. A fifth-annual staging of the show was documented as featuring Langley alongside a live band and more than 25 singers and dancers, according to a separate Valley Times-News report on the production's early run.
Those accounts, paired with this year's roughly 20-singer cast, suggest the show's scale has shifted over the years, though the evidence does not detail exactly how or why the numbers have moved. What has stayed consistent is Langley's hand in writing and directing the piece, and her description of it as a show meant for the whole family.
Scholarship Program Benefits From Ticket Sales
Proceeds from Once Upon a December are set to benefit the New Horizon Community Theatre Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships to high school students pursuing fine arts after graduation, according to the seed reporting. That mirrors a similar description from a separate New Horizon production scheduled for later in the 2026–27 season, in which proceeds were reported to benefit the New Horizon Theatre Scholarship Program, according to lagrangenews.com.
An earlier report on a past staging of the Christmas show, however, described ticket proceeds as benefiting the theatre's Cliff Glover Scholarship Fund, which lagrangenews.com described as awarding scholarships to area high school seniors each year to continue their education.
A Theatre With Deep Scholarship Roots
Whatever the exact name, New Horizon's commitment to scholarships has a long track record. Since 2000, the theater has given over $66,000 in scholarship funds to 83 graduating seniors involved in the theater, according to lagrangenews.com. That same report noted that New Horizon's 2026–27 season is set to include the theatre's 200th production, a milestone that frames this year's holiday show as one piece of a much longer community run.
Earlier this year, on May 12, New Horizon held its annual awards ceremony, where scholarships were awarded to high school seniors Camron Johnson, Robert Reed and Katelyn DeLoach, per lagrangenews.com. Tickets for Once Upon a December are available at nhct.org, with the Dec. 19 performances marking the latest chapter in a holiday tradition Langley helped build from the ground up.
