Photo by Scott Treadway, Treadshots
All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 Returns to Stage Lane December 7-23
North Carolina Stage Company is excited to restage last season’s holiday hit, All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914. The production will return to 15 Stage Lane in downtown Asheville December 7–23. Performance times are Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m., select Saturdays at 2 p.m., and Tuesday, December 20, at 7:30 p.m.
This captivating story relives a poignant moment during WWI history when Allied and German soldiers laid down their arms to celebrate the holiday together. The dramatic presentation incorporates traditional patriotic and holiday songs from both sides of the Western Front and is interspersed with text read from soldiers’ letters and journals as well as interviews with those who lived the experience.
Director Charlie Flynn-McIver first heard the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 at a John McCutcheon concert in 1995. “It wasn’t until the advance of digital music and the internet as we know it today that I was able to rediscover his song, Christmas In The Trenches, and rekindle my fascination with this unlikely camaraderie between the warring sides of WWI,” he says. “How excited I was to find a stage version of this story which used music as part of its narrative. And of course music must be involved to tell the story, not only because that’s what actually happened, but because music transcends language and the spoken word—music that tells a universal story of peace and good will.”
As the story unfolds, a lone figure standing atop the German lines singing Silent Night was the catalyst for these men—who, just a few days earlier, were killing each other in the most horrifying manners of war—to lay down their weapons and wage peace. “The story speaks for itself in the performance and only takes a little over an hour,” Flynn-McIver says. “But the feeling of hope and possibility lingers throughout the year as you remember that, even in war, there are moments of humanity.” The final lyrics of McCutcheon’s Christmas In The Trenches sum up the play’s theme: ‘The ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame, and on each side of the rifle we’re the same.’
According to the play’s author Peter Rothstein, “The re-telling of this miracle recounts the words of men whom history may have overlooked. Most of these men’s names never appeared in history books or major newspapers, but they are indeed heroes, and this is my humble attempt to have their names go down in history.”
See ncstage.org for current ticket prices and to purchase, or call 828.239.0263 for tickets or more information.
