All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914

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Eric Schwierske

There is a wonderful, implausible story about a moment on the Western Front during World War I when men who had been fighting each other for months in the trenches of France put their weapons down to celebrate Christmas together. By the end of the spontaneous cease-fire, enlisted men from opposite sides of the world were playing soccer, passing around a bottle, sharing pictures of their families, and greeting each other as what they were: soldiers far from home on Christmas night, missing their loved ones. Four Seasons Theatre presents the Wisconsin premiere of All is Calm, a collection of folk music, patriotic songs and popular music from the time mixed with excerpts from radio broadcasts, letters and journals.

7:30 pm on 12/6-7 & 13-14 and 2 pm, 12/8 & 15 (all sold out); performance added at 4:30 pm on 12/15.

press release: Celebrating 15 years of storytelling through music and theater, Four Seasons Theatre will present the Wisconsin premiere of “All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914,” December 6-15 at The Playhouse. The Drama Desk Award winning show uses music, from patriotic and popular tunes to folk music, and text, drawn from letters, journals, and radio broadcasts, to tell stories of soldiers in World War I.

Written and conceived by Peter Rothstein, graduate of the UW-Madison Department of Theatre & Drama and Co-founder and Artistic Director of Theatre Latté Da, this highly original work features a cappella choral arrangements by Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach. The show premiered at Theatre Latté in Minneapolis, MN in 2007, toured North America with Cantus Vocal Ensemble for several years, and ran off Broadway November-December 2018.

Tickets are $20 and $35, depending on seat location. Student rush are $15 with ID, available in person at the box office starting one hour before show. Subject to availability.