Christmas With the SAC Pack, various artists (Striving Artists Theatre Company)

Striving Artists is, obviously, a theater company based in Massachusetts that puts on live plays for the public. They have a tradition of doing holiday musical revues, and for 2012 they decided to take the next step and record their holiday work for wider dissemination. They must have been working on this for a long time, as there are 51 separate tunes on this album -- Sufjan Stevens, call your service. Producer Greg Luzitano especially has been a busy guy, as he's also the main artist or co-performer on 13 of these tunes -- enough for his own album, in addition to producing the whole collection. The artistic choices are fairly eclectic, but almost all in the pop-rock realm. The producer calls this "an indie album" with "a lot of energy," but don't confuse it with indie rock; these are theater performers, so there's a lot of live theater technique in regard to the singing, as well as a lot of the kind of piano you hear when people are auditioning for a musical. That said, there's still a fair number of interesting moments in this collection, starting with the choice of the a capella "Our Prayer" from the Beach Boys' Smile as the opening cut and the first attempt I've heard to cover Paul Simon's recent "Getting Ready For Christmas Day," which filters out the sampled preacher of the original in favor of a verse of "Silent Night." My other favorites from the collection include Carol Grossi Smolinsky doing "Do You Hear What I Hear" to the Bo Diddley beat, Johnbarry Green's reimagining of "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch" via ZZ Top, Luzitano's cover of Barenaked Ladies' "Elf's Lament" and his sprightly version of "O Come All Ye Faithful," Greg and Stacy Geer's choice to rock up "Baby It's Cold Outside," Ron & Amy Cook's extension of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" as done by Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan into a medley of "We 3 Kings" and "Go Tell It On the Mountain," Shannon Baker's choice of Paul McCartney's "Footprints," Jeff Desautels' ukelele rendition of "The First Noel," a nod to the Iz Kamakwiwo'ole version of "Over the Rainbow," Savanah and Abigail Shaughnessy's syncopated "Jingle Bells," and Madeleine Carbonneau's tropical-sounding "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." The length of this collection is probably the worst thing about it, but there's lots of listenable music on here. It's for sale as a double CD or download, and there are previews posted on their website.