Prepare for a couple of new wrinkles in the fabric of the Christmas Revels this weekend.
For openers, Revels North is staging its annual yuletide pageant at Lebanon Opera House, after 43 years at Dartmouth College’s Spaulding Auditorium.
And while these Revels will continue to showcase folk music and dance — this year on the theme of “An English Celebration of the Winter Solstice” — the storyline veers away from cultural mythology and into relatively recent history.
“It’s set in the Industrial Revolution,” Lyme resident and ensemble member Lin Brown said this week. “We are mill workers with an oppressive boss who comes to see the error of his ways. A Scrooge-y type person becomes a new, better person. There are interesting ways they weave in the traditions we know from Revels.”
The way South Royalton resident and Revels North production manager Sharon Trautwein wove those ingredients into a script was interesting and different enough to lure Brown, a rheumatologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, back to the stage after a hiatus of 20 years.
“The last time I was in it, our son, who’s 24 now, was a small child who went across the stage as the New Year,” Brown said. “On the other side he met my husband, who was Father Christmas.”
Rich Brown, who with his wife started performing with the chorus in Revels with their daughter in 1993, kept going back, even after the kids had grown and Lin joined the audience.
“There’s an incredible closeness with everybody involved,” said Rich Brown, proprietor of Loch Lyme Lodge. “They match up the adults with kids, and we have stage families. In the old days, (then-artistic director) David Gay would ask us to figure out who our characters were, what was our relationship to each other. This stage persona turned into a friendship across generations.”
Rich Brown expects those relationships to continue with the change of venue.
“Having never performed after high school, in a theater, I found it rather nice to arrive at Spaulding for rehearsals and see the set they had ready for us,” he said. “We haven’t been rehearsing at the opera house (before this week), but we got a tour a few weeks ago, and it’s totally going to suit our needs. It will be different, but just fine.”
And while the infrastructure is different, “we’re lucky to have people on the technical side as well as the performing side who have a lot of experience working at the opera house,” Revels North Executive Director Brian Cook said.
“Tiger Stanley, our technical director from last year, has done a lot of productions here, and we have other behind-the-scenes technicians from last year who are following us to Lebanon, which is an incredible gift.”
Revels North stages five performances of The Christmas Revels on the theme of “An English Celebration of the Winter Solstice,” from Saturday afternoon through Monday afternoon at Lebanon Opera House. For tickets ($11 to $47) and more information, visit lebanonoperahouse.org or call 603-448-0400.
Home for the holidays from Belmont University in Nashville, Strafford singer-songwriter Iva Wich plays a mix of country and pop music on Thursday night at 6, at the Peyton Place restaurant in Orford, and joins fellow Upper Valley troubadour Jim Yeager at The Public House Pub in Quechee on Friday night at 7.
■Interplay Jazz & Arts makes a holiday party of its final monthly jam session of 2019, on Thursday night at 6:30 at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction. Listeners are welcome as well as instrumentalists and singers, and all are encouraged to bring food, snacks or beverages to share. Musician participation and spectator admission by donation to the scholarship fund for Interplay’s summer-camp program.
■Folk singer-songwriters Harvey Reid and Joyce Andersen perform their annual holiday concert on Thursday night at 8, at Flying Goose Brew Pub & Grill in New London. Admission $25; reservations required.
■Michael Zsoldos directs ensembles of adults and of teens through the BarnArts Center for the Arts’ ninth annual recital of “Winter Carols” on Friday night at 7, at the First Universalist Church of Barnard. Admission free.
■The Upper Valley Music Center hosts a performance of Handel’s Messiah, open to local singers and instrumentalists, at 3:30 on Saturday afternoon at the First Congregational Church of Lebanon. Admission $15 for performers, $10 for audience. To learn more about performing, visit uvmusic.org.
■The World Under Wonder Playhouse in Ascutney stages six performances of Scrooge: The Musical! between next Thursday night and Jan. 4. For tickets ($10) and more information, visit worldunderwonder.org or call 603-381-3344.
The Sound of Music, performances through Jan. 5 at Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction. No shows on Wednesday, Christmas Day. Tickets $17.75 to $57.75.
Taking Steps, performances of Shaker Bridge Theatre production of Alan Ayckbourn play through Sunday afternoon, at Whitney Hall in Enfield. Tickets $16 to $35.
Sunapee Community CoffeeHouse, folk musician Kathy Lowe’s sing-along of original yuletide carols, Friday night at 7 at Lake Sunapee United Methodist Church. Admission by donation.
■Pianists Daniel Weiser and Philip Liston-Kraft, three weekend performances of four-hand arrangements of Nutcracker Suite, Rhapsody in Blue and several holiday classics, starting Saturday afternoon at 3 at Old South Church in Windsor; admission $18. Subsequent shows scheduled Saturday night at 7:30 at private home in Hanover (reservations required because of limited seating; admission $35), and on Sunday afternoon at 1 at First Congregational Church of Lebanon; admission $13.50 to $18. For tickets and more information, visit classicopia.org or call 603-643-3337.
■Saxophonist Richie Cole, jazz, Sunday afternoon at 4 at the Center at Eastman’s Bistro Nouveau. For tickets ($18 to $20), call 603-763-8732 or visit josajazz.com.
Mad Hazard Band, jazz, bossa nova and blues, Thursday night at 5:30 at the Quechee Club’s Davidson’s Restaurant.
■Singer-songwriter Jason Cann, Thursday night from 6 to 9 at Harpoon Brewery in Windsor.
■The Bubsies, roots-rock, Thursday night at 7 at Windsor Station; Turner Round, rock, Friday night at 9:30; Diamond Special, blues- and country-tinged rock, Saturday night at 9:30.
■Save Room for Pie, jazz, Friday night at 6 at Hotel Coolidge’s Cafe Renee in White River Junction.
■Singer-songwriter Richie Hackett, Friday night at 6 at Big Fatty’s BBQ in White River Junction; singer-songwriter Jim Yeager, Saturday night at 6.
■Automatic Slim, blues, Friday night at 8 at Skunk Hollow Tavern in Hartland Four Corners.
■The Conniption Fits, rock, Ugly Sweater Party on Friday night at 8, at the Sumner House in Charlestown.
■Guitarist Ted Mortimer, Friday night at 8 at Salt hill Pub in West Lebanon; singer-guitarist Wayne Canney, Saturday night at 8.
■Singer-songwriter Ken Macy, Friday and Saturday nights at 9 at Salt hill Pub in Hanover.
■SIRSY, rock, Friday night at 9 at Salt hill Pub in Lebanon; singer-songwriter Amanda McCarthy, Saturday night at 9.
■Singer-guitarist Wayne Canney, Friday night at 9 at Salt hill Pub in Newport.
■ Royalton singer-songwriter, Alison “AliT” Turner, Friday night at 9 at Margaritas in Lebanon, and Monday night at 6 at Trout River Brewing in Springfield, Vt.
■Hip Hop Holiday party, with DJs spinning old-school rap, Friday night at 9 at The Engine Room in White River Junction. Open to ages 21 and up. Cover charge $5.
■Handsome Hound, roots-rock and pop, Saturday night at 7 at The Skinny Pancake in Hanover.
■Singer-songwriter Jim Yeager, Monday night at 6:30 at 506 on the River in Woodstock.
■Enfield-native singer-songwriter Brooks Hubbard plays at Peyton Place restaurant in Orford next Thursday night at 6.
Jim Yeager’s open mic, Thursday night at 7 at ArtisTree Community Arts Center in South Pomfet.
■Alec Currier’s weekly open-mic at Salt hill Pub in Lebanon, Thursday night at 8.
■Tom Masterson’s open mic, Tuesday nights at 7 at Colatina Exit.
Lebanon Opera House is selling tickets to members now and will open ticket sales at 10 a.m. Friday to the general public for the April 15 visit of indie rocker Kurt Vile and Welsh singer-songwriter Cate LeBon. To learn more, visit lebanonoperahouse.org or 603-448-0400.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com or 603-727-3304. Send entertainment news to highlights@vnews.com.