Photo via Vanguard Milwaukee
All is Calm - Vanguard
'All is Calm' performed by Vanguard
Since 2022, when it was presented as a staged reading in Calvary Presbyterian Church, All is Calm has become the newest Milwaukee theatre holiday tradition—thanks to Vanguard. And this year, in its fourth iteration, Milwaukee Opera Theatre’s artistic director, Jill Anna Ponasik, has stepped into the role of director for the story of the Christmas Truce of World War I.
“It’s a wonderful gift to work on this piece with these people,” Ponasik said. “I have always been deeply intrigued by [the show]’s unique structure and its deep storytelling.”
All is Calm is written for 10 tenor, baritone and bass voices, and performed a cappella. It differs from a traditional musical in how it treats its “ingredients,” as Ponasik called them: “You’re dealing with music, text, and visual images. The piece itself is those ingredients shifting and sharing roles throughout.” And the songs the men onstage sing come from traditional carols, folk songs, and hymns. From “Will ye go to Flanders” to “Stille Nacht” and everything in between.
Multiple Roles
Each actor in the cast plays at least eight different soldiers from the western front, and the play follows pieces of each of their stories: from the days they signed up to fight for their country to the nights when all they could do was hope to make it through to the next morning. And eventually, to the eve of Christmas 1914, when the soldiers in the trenches found a way to come together to stop fighting.
“They are not the names that are in history books,” Ponasik described. “There are not statues of them, they are not in famous pictures.”
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Too often, when looking at wartime history, the foot soldiers are thought of as nameless. Not so, in All is Calm. “Peter Rothstein, the creator, was determined that they remain as people in the play,” Ponasik said. “So, they say their names after their lines, as a way to say: this line was literally written in a letter by this human being who lived and then died two years later in the same war.”
Because this is the story of Western European soldiers, all played by American actors right here in Milwaukee, the cast has been working with a dialect coach in rehearsals, though accents are “only part of it,” as Ponasik expressed. “These are real people who lived in real neighborhoods, and they spoke a certain way, and they came from a certain culture, and they got slaughtered in this war. Equally important is that the artist interpreting them is able to create a full character.”
The songs then add to this mix of character discovery and story-telling an even greater richness—often carrying some of the story on their backs as well! “It’s because of the power of music that the truce happened,” Ponasik said. “We know they had ‘carol contests,’ as we call them. If they hadn’t developed those unseen relationships by sharing songs—the first man who steps over the top to sing ‘Silent Night’ may not have had the courage to do that.”
Ponasik’s final word to audiences is that “All is Calm is quite different from other holiday fare and offers a really touching opportunity for beauty and reflection. Being able to see this piece and hear this piece in a beautiful church that is lit in such a dramatic way—I’m really looking forward to it!”
As am I! Vanguard’s All is Calm will run December 11-22 in Calvary Presbyterian Church, 628 N. 10th St. Get your tickets here. Hope to see you there!
