Background

Little Town Productions, (a project of St Peter’s Lutheran Church, Loxton) has been producing successful Christmas and Easter productions in Loxton since 1999, with 14 separate productions, 125 performances and seen by over 35,000 people in that time. It has created opportunities for performers, artists, musicians and those interested in technical production, costumes, set production and creating large scale community events to develop their skills and promote our region.  Little Town has also a proud history of providing high quality events, which have attracted thousand of tourists to Loxton and the Riverland region over many years.  Little Town has decided on a slight change in focus in 2021, partly due to Covid-19, but also as an opportunity to look at new ways it can continue to develop talents and support the local community.
This led to the development of a dinner theatre project called ‘Kick off your Boots’, which was held over three nights in mid October in the Lutheran Peace Hall. This will be a night of high quality entertainment and food, focussed on celebrating agriculture and living in a rural community – with an underlying mental health message.  In the initial planning of ‘Kick of your Boots’, we had a vision of lighting up either the Hentschke Silos or the front of Peace Hall as an additional attraction and to help market the event.  We were introduced to Cindi Drennan of Illuminart (www.illuminart.com.au), and soon realised this was too big a project to be directly linked with our dinner theatre project. However we believe it has enormous potential as a stand alone Little Town Christmas project, which could have
major tourism and community development implications for our town.

What is Shine?

Our vision is to create a fully illustrated and animated production, in partnership with Illuminart, which would be projected onto the façade of St Peter’s Lutheran Church in the centre of Loxton.  This production would last for approximately 8-10 minutes in length and be shown on rotation from Friday 17th to Friday 24th December.  Illuminart is among the most professional and highly regarded illumination specialists in Australia, and their involvement in this project ensures a production of the highest calibre. Not only would this unique project draw visitors to the town and region, it would also engage the local arts community to come together and create an animated story celebrating our region. Woven into the narrative will be references to agriculture and horticulture, the economic lifeblood of the

 Riverland, as well as a Christmas nativity message.  Like previous Little Town events, the production will only be part of the experience. Both before and after the Illuminart showing, audience members will be taken on an immersive journey with a marketplace, food stalls and entertainment. In addition, an art exhibition in the neighbouring Loxton Peace Hall will feature the works of local students and artists who have contributed to the final Illuminart product.  Little Town Productions and St Peter’s Lutheran Church congregation will fully manage the project and work to create an iconic event, of which Loxton and the Riverland can be incredibly proud.

The Vision