Dear Santa,

I know it’s been a few years since I last wrote you a letter, but there’s a sense of fear and anxiety permeating the world right now about what the New Year will bring and the possibility that by the end of 2025 you’ll be in jail for not giving Donald the landslide he demanded of you this year.

Many people – including myself – don’t have a whole lot of hope for the future and have real concerns about the well-being of their families, their friends, their neighbors, their communities, the communities that surround them and, quite frankly, themselves.

Many take refuge in the arts, but that’s getting more difficult as audiences dissipate, costs escalate, and funding dries up.

I took refuge in the arts today. I saw a show today, a good show, and it gave me an idea. 

First, let me tell you about the show. It’s called All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914. It tells the story of one Christmas during World War I when the guns went silent and enemies became friends. Drinks were shared, games were played, and songs were sung, if only for a few hours before the cannons roared again.

Peter Rothstein used letters written by soldiers who participated and Erick Lichte and Timothy C. Takach wrote vocal arrangements of songs of the era to tell the story in 70 uninterrupted minutes.  

The Spreckels Theatre Company in Rohnert Park is doing a one-weekend-only run of it with the final show tomorrow, Sunday December 15 at 2:00 pm. It’s only one weekend because the Codding Theater is usually rented over the holiday season but one weekend opened up when a regular renter dropped out.

It’s a simply staged show. Ten music stands, ten chairs, some lights, some projections, minimal costuming, a prop or two, and ten performers (eleven with music director Lucas Sherman in the pit) to tell the tale through song and spoken word.  Sheri Lee Miller handled the stage direction.

Lorenzo Alviso, Michael Arbitter, Drew Bolander, Andrew Cedeño, Ron Lam, Sean O’Brien, Marc Rudlin, Tim Setzer, Ted Smith, and Noah Vondralee-Sternhill give voice to the individual soldiers and military leaders through their letters and official correspondence, and join together as an a capella choir to bring the music to life.   

The music is a mixture of reverent Christmas classics like “O Tannenbaum”, “Angels We Have Heard on High”, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”, and “Stille Nacht (Silent Night)” with war songs of the era like “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” and “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag”. Some English, German, French, Flemish, and Scottish songs also make it into the mix. 

They are all sung beautifully by the ensemble. The audience was asked, and rightly so, to hold their applause till the end of the show at which time the performers were amply rewarded with the audience’s appreciation for their work. 

This simple, 70-minute show served as a reminder that it is rarely the decision makers, the so-called “leaders” of the world – the  political, religious, and business leaders – that feel the loss and the pain of war. It’s the people on the front lines and their families that have always paid the horrible, horrible price.

As our country is about to embark on a journey under the callous leadership of a petty, vengeful, and selfish man, we must try, as best as we can, to not let our leaders strip us of our better, more humane nature. We need to remind ourselves and those around us of the need to stick together while those in power try to divide us. 

So, Santa, with that in mind, I have a request for you. 

Sheri Lee Miller has expressed an interest in mounting this production annually. I think by the end of 2025 we’ll need it again, but on a much larger scale. 

Santa, my Christmas wish is for all the Sonoma County theatre companies to come together to mount this production (or a variation of it) in their communities next year – from Monte Rio to Sonoma, from Petaluma to Cloverdale, from Santa Rosa to Healdsburg, and anywhere else that will have it. 

I’d love for the cast to remain intact, but perhaps a performer or two from each company can be substituted. I know the logistics will be daunting, but if ever there were a show that could travel, this is it. 

Imagine, every theater company in the area hosting the same show over a period of time, giving every community the opportunity to see this wonderful work. One or two weeknights or a weekend in one community, the next night or weekend in another. Performers working in spaces they’ve never worked before. Audiences hearing about the show and waiting for it to come to their town, or people traveling to theaters they’ve never attended before.

Oh, I can hear the naysayers already. “It’ll never work… What about our show?… It’s not for our audience… Too many conflicts… But we wanted X to be in our cast…” etc. etc. etc.

Here’s where you come in, Santa. You may be the only person in the world to get everyone together to pull this off. Thank the artistic directors for the cookies and milk they set out for you this year but leave them a note asking them to hold the cookies next year and instead do this for you and their communities.

If they do, it may be the definitive proof of the existence of Santa Claus. 

Merry Christmas.

There is one final performance of ‘All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914’ on Sunday, December 15, at 2:00 pm at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center in Rohnert Park. www.spreckelsonline.com