WELCOME YULE!

In keeping with its Scandinavian theme, this year’s Midwinter Revels presents a smorgasbord of stories, songs, and dances in Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre. The very foundation of the Revels experience is something of a smorgasbord, in fact. Revels has evolved from the Christmas Revels to the Midwinter Revels since its founding in 1971. A tradition in itself, Revels draws on a variety of traditions and cultural influences for each year’s show. Every year has a different theme, but certain elements are repeated year after year. There are always Morris dancers and the audience always sings “Lord of the Dance” to end Act I and then the round “Dona Nobis Pacem” near the end of Act II. The singing of “Dona Nobis Pacem” is followed by a Mummer’s Play in which the old year is ritually murdered so the new year can be born.

The Pinewoods Morris Men and Joshua Wolf Coleman

Following the Mummer’s Play (which always includes a dragon, this year in combat with Scandinavian gods Odin and Loki), the audience shouts “Welcome Yule!” and then sings the Sussex Mummers Carol, a musical blessing for happiness and prosperity in the year to come.

lydia ievins, Laura Hummel, Sammy Wetstein, and Tom Pixton

The performers who deliver this tasty theatrical glögg (a Swedish wine punch spiked with bourbon or vodka as well as spices and fruits) include professional actors and musicians, a professional creative team, devoted amateurs such as the Pinewoods Morris Men, and dozens of enthusiastic community members of all ages. This year’s actors included Joshua Wolf Coleman as Father, Kristian Espiritu as the Queen, Eliza Fichter as Match Girl and Narrator, and David Keohane as Frederick and Hans Christian Andersen.

David Keohane

A Scandinavian Story was inspired by the story “Matchless” by former Revels chorus member Gregory Maguire (Wicked), who was in the Sanders Theater audience at the performance I attended. “Matchless” was in turn inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl.” Both these stories, along with another Andersen tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” are narrated and acted out against a backdrop of Heidi Hermiller’s spectacular costumes and David Fichter’s charming story board cutouts for “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Kristian Espiritu (in lavender gown and tall white wig)

Debra Wise, interim artistic director of the Revels and all-around theatrical matriarch, wrote and directed this production. David Coffin, the face and the voice of the Revels since 1990, is master of ceremonies, and Elijah Botkin is music director.

David Coffin and The Matchless Children Chorus

All these people and elements come together, along with a devoted audience, to create a community and artistic experience that kindles comfort and joy in the midst of winter’s darkest days. A tradition of exploring traditions offers fresh insights each year into the ways human beings grapple with winter darkness by creating their own light through music, dance, and storytelling.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

photos by Paul Buckley

Midwinter Revels: A Scandinavian Story for Christmas
Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge MA
live performances through December 28, 2023
for tickets ($20–$105), call 617.496.2222 visit Revels
also available streaming December 28, 2025 to January 11, 2026

for more shows, visit Theatre in Boston

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

Eliza Fichter

Lynne Weiss is a member of the Boston Theater Critics Association. Her work has also appeared in Literary Ladies Guide and in The Common, Black Warrior Review, and the Ploughshares Blog. She has an MFA from UMass Amherst and has received residencies from Yaddo, the Millay Colony, and Vermont Studio Center and grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. A lifelong social justice activist, she is at work on a novel set in 1930s Cornwall. Her reviews, travel tales, and progressively optimistic opinions are on her substack.