"Welcome Yule" - the Sun is Returning
2016-12-12 00:30 - 02:00 UTC | Shea Theater, 71 Avenue A in Turners Falls
Although winter doesn't officially start until the winter solstice, the light starts to return, albeit slowly, in the last week of December. This turning point of the year has kept the families who create and perform in "Welcome Yule: A Midwinter Celebration," coming back. for the last 32 years.

The chorus performs some seldom-heard Christmas carols, giving the show a bit of a Christmassy feel, but the appeal of the show reaches a wide audience drawn to a trove of unusual solstice-themed music. There are wassail songs praising the bounty of the harvest and wishing everyone a happy and healthful new year, songs from the shape note choral tradition and a variety of other music celebrating English and Irish traditions.

The show is popular with many families for whom it is the opening event of the winter holiday season. Little ones relate to the children in the cast; parents and grandparents just love the spectacle and enjoy the more complex and subtle parts of the production. It's a feel good show that will leave you smiling and humming tunes both old and new.

This year brings the debut of the first 3rd generation performer, five-year-old Ramona Lamoureaux who joins the children's chorus. She is the daughter of cast member Hattie Adastra who also joined at five years old, and granddaughter of long time cast member Montserrat Archbald. There are 5 children in the children's chorus. Several teens who have performed since they were children have joined the adult chorus of about 30 singers and musicians.

The cast believes that feasting and celebrating with music, dance, songs and stories around the time of the solstice helps to drive the dark away. At the very least, the dark of wintertime is made more bearable by joining with the community and lifting voices in song. The audience leaves with warmth in their hearts and the knowledge that the sun will return again bringing with it the warmth and joy of spring. Performers stage a mummer's play, a timeless English custom depicting the death and rebirth of the seasons, with hilarity and tomfoolery. The show also presents many other traditional dances and songs of the season.

Although the theme of each year's show varies, a few songs and poems appear every year. These central elements of the show include: Susan Cooper's poem The Shortest Day; the Abbotts Bromley Horn Dance; and the songs Furry Day Carol and The King, and the mummers play. Welcome Yule was created by Rose Sheehan, who directed it for many years. After Rose relocated to eastern Massachusetts, cast members and supporters alike decided that the show should go on. Cast members rotate the role of artistic director.
