Christmas traditions from another land


For the seventh consecutive year, Medford's Craterian Ginger Rogers Theatre will be designated a "farmhouse" for a day around Christmas. This year the neighbors - and, of course, Native Irish storyteller Tomáseen Foley and his Celtic Christmas troupe of musicians and dancers - will gather there on Tuesday, Dec. 21, for two performances: a matinee at 2:30 p.m. and an evening performance at 7:30 p.m.

Ticket prices are $15, $19 and $23 for the matinee, and $19, $23 and $27 for the evening show; ages 12 and under receive a $7 discount, and group rates are available. The Craterian Box Office number is 779-3000.

The show is now a long-established Rogue Valley tradition - so much so that in recent years the City of Medford has allowed patrons free parking in all the adjacent city lots for the afternoon.

Tomáseen Foley's A Celtic Christmas is a loving recreation of a Christmas night in a remote farmhouse in the parish of Teampall an Ghleanntain in West of Ireland - in the days before the motorcar, the television, and the telephone.

Every Christmas in Teampall an Ghleantain - Tomáseen Foley's birthplace - the neighbors gathered at each others farmhouses and brought with them their fiddles, uilleann pipes, penny whistles, and bodhrans (hand-held, goat-skin drum) for a night of music, song, dance and, above all else, storytelling. A Celtic Christmas brings to its audience - its neighbors - a wholesome cultural feast directly from the rich table of communal life in that small and gentle place.

On stage, the spirit of Christmas dances to life and glows brightly when the neighbors gather to grace the long wintry night with the laughter of their stories, their ancient music, and dances they always said they were much too old for.

"Long, long before Riverdance," Tomáseen says, "ordinary country people knocked sparks off the bare flagstone of their neighbors floor with their hob-nailed boots as they danced jigs, reels, and hornpipes, and the rafter rang with the fiery music of the fiddle and the pipes." A Celtic Christmas, he says, brings to life just such a night.

The two shows at the Craterian on Dec. 21 are the culmination of a national tour that begins in Saratoga, California on December 1st and continues on throughout the Midwest, New England and the East Coast.

This year, internationally renowned traditional Irish step-dancer and choreographer Maire Clerkin from Dancing on Dangerous Ground returns with her scintillating movements to the show. Maire will be joined this year by championship award-winning Irish step-dancer Kathleen Keene, who is also a master of the tin-whistle and a virtuoso fiddle player. Kathleen combines her dancing and fiddle-playing to stunning effect. Also new to this year's show is multi-instrumentalist David Brewer. After studying extensively at music schools in Scotland, David now specializes in four types of Irish and Scottish bagpipes as well as the penny whistle. He is also an acclaimed composer with two hundred traditional style tunes to his credit.

Music Director William Coulter is an internationally recognized master of the steel-string guitar. He has been performing and recording traditional Celtic and American folk music for more than 20 years. He has recorded several acclaimed CDs on the Gourd label - most recently, The Crooked Road. Scots/Irish Fiddler Deby Benton-Grosjean combines the precision of classical technique with the freedom of traditional music. She teaches at Alasdair Fraser's renowned Valley of the Moon school and has recorded a critically acclaimed CD on the Anair label, Beyond the Shore.

In 1998 vocalist Moira Smiley won first place for singing Irish songs with English lyrics in the Chicago Fleadh. She has been a soloist with the Theatre of Voices, Sinfonye, Ensemble Alcatraz and Fretwork Consort of Viols in the U.S. and Europe, and has recorded for the BBC and NPR, and she featured in Lincoln Center's Great Performers Series with her vocal group, VIDA. She is also an accomplished accordion player.

Storyteller Tomáseen Foley was born on a small farm in the remote parish of Teampall an Ghleanntain - the source of the show and of his stories. He has recorded two CDs on the Orbital Arts label: Parcel From America and a live recording, The Priest and the Acrobat. A musical developed from his story Parcel from America played to sold-out houses last Christmas for six weeks at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre.

Source: Daily Tidings