Jordan and Jeanette Pidde and five-month-old daughter Lorelei are cast as Joseph, Mary and the Baby Jesus in the 2014 Springfield Nativity Pageant.

Nativity Pageant to perform for 29th Season

“It’s exciting,” to have a role in the Springfield Nativity Pageant says Jeanette Pidde, who with husband Jordan and their daughter Lorelei are cast as Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus in this season’s performances this weekend.

Jeanette and Jordan are interested in music and theatre and both have had major roles in local stage productions and they sing in their church choir.   They will sing a lullaby at the manger during the pageant Friday and Saturday evenings.

The lullaby is titled “Joseph Dearest,” or “Song of the Crib.”  The original words were sung as a lullaby by the Virgin Mary in a mystery play that flourished around Leipzig, Germany, in the early 1500s. Before it was affiliated with "Joseph, Dearest" the tune was attached to a well-known Latin carol from the thirteenth- or fourteenth-century Germany, "Resonet in laudibus," “Let Our Praises Resound.” The tune was been incorporated into other, modern musical compositions.

The lullaby will be one of several new pieces of music in this year’s pageant.   It is a wonderful way to add something “new” to the wonderful old story.  Joyce Schwarzrock is music director.   Jeff Krueger and Jodi Dalsgaard provide instrumental accompaniment.

The pageant has special significance to Jeanette. She was born the first night of the Springfield Nativity Pageant.

Jeanette’s father, Paul Muske, recalls that his wife, Jo, was experiences beginning stages of labor the evening of December 18, 1986. He took their three sons, Michael, Matthew and Jonathan, downtown and they sat on the curb on North Marshall Avenue and watched that first performance.

Jeanette was born at 3 a.m. December 19.

“I’ll always know when the pageant started,” said Jeanette.

The first year, the Springfield Nativity Pageant was performed the evenings of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Jan. 18, 19 and 20, with two performances each evening. Several years later, the number of performances was reduced to four, and then several more years later it was reduced to two performances each season.

Springfield Advance-Press

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