I found the ticket the other day, while trying to organize the study. It was January 2000 when I first saw the Boar's Head Festival at Trinity United Methodist Church. Has it been 12 years? I've spent the past nine of them performing in the festival, first as a Woodsman and then as a Beefeater. This year's festival is next weekend, Jan. 13-15. As ( Read more... )

It's a moment I remember from my first time seeing the Boar's Head Festival, about a decade ago: the end of the ribbon dance, when in sync with the closing note of a wordless phrase the choir sings in The Holly and the Ivy, the maypole is pulled down and the ribbons flutter for a moment in mid-air, before being pulled back to the various corners of ( Read more... )

We beefeaters play pitch downstairs in the makeup room before our call: Six guys in oversized red coats, sitting around a table, playing cards, our halberds (we call them "sticks") leaning against the wall. We're down there for the pre-show, mostly. We are one of the first groups out in the procession. So we get called right around the beginning of ( Read more... )

Once again, it's the weekend of Boars Head Festival at Trinity United Methodist Church in Springfield. And once again, I'm playing the part of a Beefeater. I believe this is my fourth year in that role. L. is playing the flute again, too. Last night was the first of five performances, with matinee and evening shows today and tomorrow ( Read more... )

Channel 22 News sent a cameraman out to Trinity over the weekend and did a short little report on the festival. You can see snippets of video from the festival in it.

It's sleeting in Springfield on Wednesday of Boar's Head week. L. had her musician's rehearsal last night. The festival has sort of snuck up on me this year, as I missed a number of the rehearsals while I was in Houston. I'm scheduled to be a beefeater again. Our red-coated company has a good deal of turnover from last year, with only three of the ( Read more... )

Mom called this morning around 8 a.m. and Dad called around 8:30. Dad said to me, "I know where you were 36 years ago today, because I was there!" Yes, 36 years ago today, I was born in Quincy, Illinois ( Read more... )

As a beefeater in the Boar's Head Festival, I spent the last half of the processional, from King Wenceslaus to "Let All Mortal Flesh," standing at my post. At first, I thought I would hate the hymn "On a Bleak Midwinter," coming as it does, after the three kings sing "Messiah" and before "Let All Mortal Flesh," where I can leave my post and stretch ( Read more... )

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At Barnes & Noble in Holyoke yesterday, I saw that the January issue of Preview Massachusetts magazine is out. My story about the Boar's Head Festival at Trinity is teased on the front cover with a four-page spread inside. It's called "Light Triumphs Over Darkness." Find yourself a copy! Here are the first few paragraphs:Every year for the past ( Read more... )