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THE CHRISTMAS REVELS 2020 A 50th Anniversary Virtual Celebration!
December 18, 2020 - December 31, 2020
The Christmas Revels 2020: A Virtual Celebration
Directed by Patrick Swanson; George Emlen, music director
Viewing Window: December 18 – 31 (Video-On-Demand)
Wassail Party (12/20) & The Christmas Revels Event Pass, $200/household: On Sale October 26th!
The Christmas Revels Event Pass, $50/household, unlimited access: On Sale November 15th!
Join us for this year’s Christmas Revels featuring some of our favorite artists plus a special performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma!
For the first time in 50 years, the annual Christmas Revels will not be celebrated live in Harvard’s historic Sanders Theatre. The shortest day will come, and the year will die – but as Revels fans across country know, that is never the end of the story!
For this extraordinary year we are creating a unique, virtual Revels – a cornucopia of music, dance, song, and ritual from our richly recorded archives, spanning half a century and half the globe.
This December, a small band of performers will walk into an empty theater to fulfill the promise of …. “people singing, to keep the year alive,” as stipulated in Susan Cooper’s poem, “The Shortest Day.” They will be joined by two stalwart audience members who have been present since the first Christmas Revels in 1971: the marble statues of James Otis (Paula Plum) and Josiah Quincy (Richard Snee). James and Josiah remember every song, every dance, and every “Welcome Yule!” and are quite excited to share their vivid memories with us!
Performers
In a production filled with guest artists galore our “live”
Christmas Revels cast includes:
Yo-Yo Ma, cellist
Paula Plum (James Otis)
Richard Snee (Josiah Quincy)
David Coffin, song leader and Revels’ Artist-in-Residence
Johnny Nichols, Jr., singer and Revels’ Education Director
Carolyn Saxon, singer
and Revels directors Patrick Swanson and George Emlen
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
It’s going to be a very special Christmas Revels this year.