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THE COMMUNITY REVELS CREATES through performance and song is so welcome. We need more of it!” 2019 AUDIENCE MEMBER REVEL WITH US YEAR-ROUND! LEARN MORE AT REVELS.ORG THE CHRISTMAS REVELS CELEBRATING 50 YEARS! RECORDED LIVE AT SANDERS THEATRE 5ODIRECTED BY GEORGE EMLEN THE CHRISTMAS REVELS— CELEBRATING 50 YEARS! BY GEORGE EMLEN Welcome to this live-from-the-stage retrospective, capturing five decades of Christmas Revels productions and the adven- turous spirit and flavor of these truly magical performances. eginning with our first show in Revels an indispensable tradition for B 1971, we have created an enduring their holiday season. Listen for their community tradition not only in the voices on several of these tracks— greater Boston area but also in eight a powerful testament to the creation other cities across the country. Revels of community through group singing. productions are rich smorgasbords The selections on this recording are of choral and solo singing, traditional sequenced according to musical folk dances, and stories, children’s connections rather than by nationality songs and games, and a brilliant brass or time period. A Russian nonsense ensemble. Every year we “travel” to a song segues easily into an Appalachian different part of the world and weave hoedown, a 14th-century French art together the songs, stories, dances and song into a 20th-century Cajun rituals of that culture into a lively and toe-tapper. It is our way of illustrating vibrant tapestry of sound and color. how vocal and instrumental styles— At the heart of every production is and the range of human experience an auditioned chorus of community expressed through music—transcend members, adults and children, who geopolitical boundaries and find represent the “village” of the featured common ground in unexpected places. culture. Together with professional It has been such a pleasure for me, musicians and actors, they bring the as Revels’ music director for most of story of this culture to life through the shows represented here, to music, dance and drama. assemble this retrospective. I hope you Our multigenerational audiences will delight in this exploration of the are also essential ingredients in the deep Revels archive as much as I have, Revels recipe. People come prepared and that through the music you will to sing carols and rounds with us, and be captivated by the power and magic sing they do! Countless families return of the Revels experience. each year, making The Christmas REVELS AT 50: THE BIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA REVELS EXEMPLIFIES BY SCOTT ALARIK THE POWER OF GOOD IDEAS NOT CONTAINED! At fi rst, the Christmas Revels idea seems as simple as a song: an ancient community is theatrically recreated as it gathers to By creating its own annual custom, celebrate midwinter. They share songs, dances, stories, rituals, Revels has found a unique way and merrymaking—lots of merrymaking. They lament the to celebrate the seasonal rituals dying of the old year and celebrate the turning of the world of the world… To my family, back toward spring and life. the celebration has become tradition wrapped in tradition.” ut as we all know, the best songs everyone is celebrating together. Bare never as simple as they seem, “Revels is not essentially a musical YO-YO MA, CELLIST and neither is the Revels idea. Steeped event—rich in music as it is—but a in tradition, brimming with wonderfully congregational event,” said former staged recreations of how diff erent music director George Emlen in the cultures celebrated midwinter, 1990 Cambridge Revels program. cherished old songs, mischievous folk To be sure, Revels shows are also plays, dances, and children’s games, professional performances. But the the annual Christmas Revels produc- intent is always to invite the audience tions in Cambridge, Massachusetts, into the celebration. and eight other cities have created a The Christmas Revels has become new and revolutionary theatrical form. a tradition for thousands of families So unique, in fact, that the National all across the country. Over 50,000 Endowment for the Arts found it people attend annually in Cambridge; impossible to place Revels within the Boulder, Colorado; Lebanon, existing boundaries of performing arts. New Hampshire; Houston, Texas; It was, they concluded, an entirely new Oakland, California; Portland, Oregon; form of music theater. Santa Barbara, California; Tacoma, The Revels idea is also about much Washington; and Washington, D.C. more than Christmas. It has blossomed Nearly two million people have into many inventive ways to help attended nationwide, and an astonishing people celebrate our rich multicultural 75 percent return every year. world—as an active part of that Revels has also released over 35 celebration, not merely as observers. recordings, featuring over 900 The heart of the Revels idea is the traditional songs, along with song- creation of theatrical events in which books, children’s books, DVDs, and AN IDEA SLOWLY BORN School, a student wrote in the school he story begins on Christmas Eve, paper, “Mr. Langstaff could make an T1920, in a large, comfortably onion sing.” cluttered home in Brooklyn Heights, Jack also wanted to fi nd ways to New York. A very pregnant woman introduce modern audiences to was climbing up and down stairs, traditional midwinter music, dance and pushing furniture, hopping around, rituals. He understood that these anything to induce labor. Because traditions were not created for this baby simply had to be a Christmas professionals to dazzle us, but for communities to do together. THE GREAT baby. The Langstaff s had planned In 1957, he produced a “Christmas it that way, because Christmas was SUCCESS OF Jack with his brothers Ken and David, Masque of Traditional Revels” at New a Very Big Deal in their home. on Christmas Eve, 1927; courtesty of the York’s Town Hall and Washington, THE REVELS Langstaff Family Their Christmas Eve parties were D.C.’s Lisner Auditorium. It was a famous, planned for months, the is that while it refers theatrical pageant set in medieval family preparing songs, skits, rituals to ancient tradition, kits to help churches, community England, structured to create a shared centers, and families produce their own and recitations. celebration with the audience—the the program itself has Revels-like shows. They’ve also created Perhaps being a dutiful son, posters even said, “With Audience become a living tradition.” vibrant educational projects aimed at perhaps curious about this Christmas Participation.” THE NEW YORK TIMES helping children celebrate their fuss, or perhaps simply tired of being In her colorful Langstaff biography, cultures in merrily Revels-ian ways. bounced around, John “Jack” Langstaff The Magic Maker: A Portrait of John Perhaps the best way to understand was born that very Christmas Eve. Langstaff , Susan Cooper described it this unique phenomenon is to see how Jack loved those Christmas parties as “a theatrical performance that was the Revels idea was built, brick by and loved to sing, a mix of classical also a community event…a great big brick, its founders keeping a keen eye and folk music. He became an public carol party with Jack as master on bringing cast and audience acclaimed baritone, bringing new of ceremonies.” together in what they call “a village respect for traditional music in a In 1966, NBC asked him to recreate within a village.” classical world that still largely the Masque as a television special. “Revels has developed in ways… dismissed it as “peasant fare.” In the Playing the dragon in the traditional I certainly couldn’t have planned,” 1950s and early 1960s, he recorded a “St. George and the Dragon” founder John Langstaff wrote in an series of infl uential folk recordings for Mummers’ Play was a struggling young essay for the book About Revels EMI, produced by legendary “5th actor named Dustin Hoff man, who by longtime California Revels director Beatle” George Martin at Abbey Road later thanked Jack for “jump-starting” Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer. “And that, Studios in England, and hosted his career. after all, is how it should be. That’s children’s programs for BBC and In 1970, Jack was teaching at Shady how folk tradition grows: organically, American television. Hill School in Cambridge. He and his unpredictably, drawing people Jack was increasingly drawn to daughter Carol Langstaff , who’d sung together in powerful celebration of teaching children—especially getting in the 1957 Masque, talked about their shared humanity.” them to sing. He would say he was not reviving it. And thereby, as the Bard would say, there to sing to them, but to make By then, Jack had a better idea of hangs a tale. How did this Revels idea music with them. And they adored him what he wanted. As he told Sing Out! come to be? for it. While teaching at the Potomac The Folk Music Magazine, “We could “CHILDREN, GO TO YOUR FAMILIES.” within a village. When Jack’s nephew be traumatic. show how this music and ritual ack and Carol created a chorus David Langstaff, a veteran of early “I had to learn to suck it up,” she connected to people’s lives in those Jof amateurs from the community. Cambridge productions, founded the said. “Friends came to see me, and I days, but we were also our own little It became a building block of the Houston Revels with his wife Cyndie, said, ‘You know, being a cow is cool’.” community on stage. The way Carol Revels idea. he wanted as few professionals as The children’s chorus always steals and I developed it, that community “The chorus was key to Jack’s possible, because if the singing was too the show, precisely because they have became a larger community through whole vision…it was the link between polished, the audience wouldn’t see not been coached in the theatrical art connecting with the audience in performers and audience,” Susan themselves being part of it.

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