Washington Revels stages celebrations filled with traditional music, dance, stories and drama from around the world, revolving around the cycle of the seasons and the joys of community connections. Revels is for anyone who wants to share common ground through old and new traditions—connecting people across time and cultures. Revels is not something that you just watch—it is an experience.
Welcome
May Day! May Day!
by Elizabeth Fulford Miller May 1, 2012 » Add the second comment.
Happy May 1st to all… how have you spent your May Day so far? I was lucky enough to get up at 6:00 am, travel down the street to the Takoma Park Gazebo, and watch three morris teams do their very best to “bring in the May.” It was raining, but this Read more »
Adventures in Haircutting
by Helen Fields March 7, 2012 » Add the second comment.
Early in the process for the Christmas Revels, everyone in the cast gets the word: No cutting your hair until after the show. That means men, too, although it’s possible to get special permission if you just can’t live with the big hair look. Some people end up with wigs. Read more »
Happy President’s Day – Celebrating Lincoln and Liberty at Ford’s Theatre
by Andrea Jones Blackford February 20, 2012 » Add the first comment.
Hurrah for the choice of the nation! Our chieftan so brave and so true; We’ll go for the great Reformation — For Lincoln and liberty too! —“Lincoln and Liberty,” 1860 The echoes of this campaign song, made famous by songster and abolitionist Jessie Hutchinson, rang the rafters as the Washington Read more »
Happy 194th Birthday, Frederick Douglass!
by Elizabeth Fulford Miller February 18, 2012 » Add the first comment.
February is another month of holidays–Valentine’s Day, and of course, Presidents Day, which celebrates the birthdays of Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. But there is another famous birthday in February–that of the former slave, orator, and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass. In fact, Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Read more »
Reaching for Peace
by Andrea Jones Blackford January 17, 2012 » Add the first comment.
Friday the 13th is a date that’s usually reserved for pessimism and superstition. Nothing could be further from the truth on Friday evening, January 13, when the Washington Revels Jubilee Voices shared in a warm, inspiring commemoration of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This community Read more »
Winter Concert at the Birchmere
by Helen Fields December 27, 2011 » Add the second comment.
Back in the early 90′s, Washington Revels did a few post-Christmas shows at the Birchmere with the local folk-rock band The New St. George. Now the New St. George’s leader, Jennifer Cutting, has a fabulous new band, and we’re reuniting with her to do a show tonight at the Birchmere! Read more »
Marking the Shortest Day of the Year
by Elizabeth Fulford Miller December 21, 2011 » Add the second comment.
This post is a reprint of “The Shortest Day” by Paddy Swanson (Artistic Director, Revels, Inc.). It was published on December 21, 2011 in the Revels Winter Newsletter. In our own time the Winter Solstice is indissolubly linked with the festival of Christmas, though it was not always so. The Read more »
Tarasque Spotted in Wild
by Helen Fields December 15, 2011 » Add the second comment.
Chorus member Terry Winslow e-mailed this photograph of a tarasque to the chorus this week: Here’s proof that the tarasque is a real live piece of Provence’s folk history: a carving on a column at the church of Saint-Trophime in Arles. If I understand the construction history correctly, the oldest Read more »
Goodbye to Andalusia
by Helen Fields December 13, 2011 » Add more comments.
Well, it’s over. Our beautiful Andalusian world has been dismantled. The final step in The Christmas Revels is taking down the set and moving all of our things out of the theater that we’d occupied for the last two weeks. The entire cast helps out with strike. The actual set Read more »
There’s a Wig Under There
by Helen Fields December 11, 2011 » Add more comments.
Most of us get to walk around on stage with our own hair showing, but if your hair is too short or too pink, you have to wear a wig. Yesterday Jane Bloodworth, alto section leader and all-around awesome person, was kind enough to let me take pictures of having Read more »
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