As Tara Rosling celebrates the 10th anniversary of The Mistletoe Bride, it will be a collaboration with Silversmith Brewing Company, which hosted her first theatrical reading and has continued to offer it every holiday season since.
This year’s anniversary performance offers something different — tickets will be sold to two dinner seatings, the meal offered by Silversmith at cost to allow for a maximum donation to Gillian’s Place, another tradition of the annual reading.
Rosling has never charged for her Mistletoe Bride performances, instead passing the hat for Gillian’s Place, which provides safe refuge and support programs for victims of domestic violence.
There are thematic elements of abuse in the story that make Gillian’s Place the appropriate place to receive the proceeds, Rosling explains. “There is a sexual assault poetically embedded in the story.”
And the story, she says, of a woman who finds safety in the end, could be considered “a beautiful parallel to Gillian's Place.”
She estimates over the years to have donated about $15,000 to Gillian’s Place as a result of Mistletoe Bride readings.
The 2014 debut in the historic church proved more popular than Rosling had expected. So many people showed up at the door that a decision was quickly made to add a second performance that same night.
Her readings of the dark tale of Mistletoe Bride, in the Silversmith church setting with the lights off, building tension as the story unfolds, have people coming back year after year.
“This is the home and native land of Mistletoe Bride,” she says of “the beautiful space” that is Silversmith, a community-minded business that just won Business of the Year in the annual Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce awards.
“It has been our home since the beginning. They close the doors, turn the power off, and do everything they can to make the evening very special. There couldn’t be a more perfect venue than Silversmith. That’s why I keep coming back.”
This year, for Mistletoe Bride’s milestone anniversary, they have come up with a three-course meal menu that includes white bean soup, paprika chicken breast with acorn sauce (with a vegetarian option), and sticky toffee pudding for dessert. It also includes one beer of choice.
Tickets are $100, and $80 of that goes straight to Gillian’s Place, $20 toward the cost of the meal.
Tickets go on sale Tuesday, Nov. 26 on the Silversmith website, or people can call the church and specify if it’s a 5 p.m. reservation or for the second seating, with dinner at 7:30 p.m., says Rosling.
And of course keeping in mind that the performance is all about helping those who benefit from the many programs Gillian’s Place offers, donations will also be accepted, she says.
The dark tale of The Mistletoe Bride has become a local holiday tradition since Rosling first worked with veteran theatre director Peter Hinton to bring his adaptation of author Jeanette Winterson’s haunting short story to life.
There was one year missed due to COVID, recalls Rosling, and another when there was a virtual reading.
British author Winterson’s version of the folk tale was first published in her collection Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days. It’s the story of a bride who hides in a chest from her groom on their wedding night. Unable to escape from her confines, she is doomed to bear witness as he carries on with another woman.
The story is believed to have originated in the early 1800s. The saga provided the inspiration for a Charles Somerset play, stories by Henry James and Susan E. Wallace, and the plot of the 1948 Alfred Hitchcock film Rope, starring James Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger.
Though the subject matter is indeed dark, Rosling says ultimately the story is positive, explaining it’s about rebirth, “a metamorphosis from the dark to the light,” with the Mistletoe Bride finding freedom in the end.
And in some ways, not unlike A Christmas Carol, it could be considered a ghost story, although it’s left up to the imagination of the audience to decide if the bride is a ghost.
In fact, Rosling jokes, “maybe the Mistletoe Bride’s new haunt is right here,” her arm sweeping around the 140-year-old church. Or maybe she isn’t joking.
For tickets to the reading at Silversmith, 1523 Niagara Stone Rd. In Virgil, go to www.silversmithbrewing.com, beginning Nov. 26, or call 905-468-8447.
