June 22, 2007 at 7:00 pm
June 23, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Free!
Outdoors at Children's Wharf Park
Boston Children's Museum
300 Congress Street
By T: South Station on the Red Line or Courthouse Station on the Silver Line
Featuring Revels Repertory Company, Revels' 40-member touring ensemble of adults and children; with special guests, David Coffin, Marshall Hughes & Milton Wright

On the edge of Boston's waterfront, Summer Revels returns for its 5th annual outdoor celebration of the first day of summer with a special musical program highlighting Boston's nautical history.

This year the production, A Celebration of the Sea, inhabits the docks of a 19th century New England seacoast town, alive with hawkers selling their wares, children playing games and seamen packing their trunks in preparation for a voyage. After saying goodbye to friends and family, sailors haul anchor and hoist the sails, singing to lighten their work.

On board they play instruments and tell tall tales of their adventures. We'll hear the muscular rhythms of work songs, the lively tunes of the Foc'sle Fufu band, and bitter-sweet ballads which recall sweethearts and homes left behind. African-American sailors, some newly freed slaves and others on their way north to freedom, add their voices in plaintive spirituals and chanteys.

At home, the waiting women manage their homes and children, and run businesses that supply the ships and as the weary sailors return to port, the community gathers to celebrate their successful voyage with music, dance and song.

Revels Rep director Kay Dunlap is music director for this special production; Patrick Swanson is Revels Artistic Director.

Produced in collaboration with the Boston Children's Museum, Summer Revels: A Celebration of the Sea is supported, in part, by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and WBZ NewsRadio 1030; WBUR-FM; Boston Metro; TV38; Friends of Fort Point Channel, Wagner BMW of Shrewsbury; and the Boston Parents' Paper

For more information on Revels, please call 617-972-8300.