When Kitty Mortland takes the stage tonight as part of the weekend production of A Holiday Gift:A Collection of Yuletide Tales in the Christian H. Moe Laboratory Theatre, the audience can rest easy knowing her composure will be well intact.

If I get nervous, it’s the good type of nervous, she said. It’s not like I’m going to vomit or anything.

Mortland has acted in 15 to 20 plays, and she said she has not had a fear of anything from fumbling lines to falling down on stage since an emergency performance in one of her earlier plays.

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I’ve lived an actor’s nightmare of being thrown into a play the night it goes up, with no rehearsal, she said. Between that and my improvisation experience, I know I’ll get through any play.

The play, a collection of three holiday adaptations and one original penned by director Amy Wells, should be entertaining for anyone because Mortland said the entire cast is made up of experienced actors, which she said makes the play run smoothly.

They’re easier to work with because I know if I make a mistake they can cover for me, and if they make a mistake they know I’ll cover for them, she said. It sounds cheesy, but it’s kind of like teamwork.

All the proceeds from the performance are going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation to benefit less fortunate individuals in the area.

I’m a big supporter of the organization, Mortland said. I like the fact that I can do something for them even if it’s in a roundabout way.

Set designer Lee Maples said that when he and department costume designer Vicki Strei decided to put on a Christmas performance, it was important that the proceeds be sent to a viable charity.

He also said that for the play to be successful, it was crucial to have Wells, an SIUC graduate student in theater from Reno, Nev., adapt the stories to the stage as well as direct the play.

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We had the idea, but we needed to have someone who would be able to write it, Maples said. (Wells) can write something dramatic and easily shift gears and write a comedy.

The process of putting on the production then shifted to Maples and Wells actually looking through various collections of Christmas tales to find stories that could be adapted to the stage.

It takes a lot of time looking for a story that would work for the stage as far as interesting characters and narration that we could turn into dialogue, Wells said. A lot of time it’s just creating characters that are already there and making them interesting.

Wells decided it would be easier to write the fourth story instead of choosing another adaptation. She said her story had to follow the formula of the other stories to keep the intended audience interested.

These (original) stories sound really sappy, and are, but I’ve tried to put an edge to it so parents, children and undergraduates won’t get bored, she said. I tried to add a little quirkiness to each story.

Wells reworked the adaptations from the stories The Gift of the Magi and A Christmas Carol and the infamous Yuletide poem Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Riding a wave of festive creativity, Wells’ penned the fourth story, The Gift, specifically for this production.

The four Yuletide stories are sharply intertwined by a fifth story that sporadically appears throughout the play.

All the stories are within the framework of another story. This is a way of connecting all the stories, Maples said. It’s told between grandparents and their grandchildren who are waiting for their parents to get home on Christmas Eve.

The characters will start to tell a story, and then the story will be acted out.

Mortland, a senior in theater from Chicago, said it was Wells’ skills as writer as well as director that got her interested in acting in the production.

I’ve read a lot of her plays in the past, and I love her style of wit. It’s very true, and there is always an element of humor, she said. The characters are really rich and fun to play.

She gives her actors a lot of freedom, but also provides the right performance guidelines.

Performances of A Holiday Gift:A Collection of Yuletide Tales will be at 8 tonight and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets for the play are $5. For tickets, call the theater box office at (618) 453-3001.