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ELISABETH DYERPlant High School choral students serve and sing to more than 500 at the Renaissance-inspired celebrations.
Dressed as Renaissance courtiers, Plant High School choral students performed their ninth annual Madrigal Dinners last weekend in front of record crowds.
The show takes audience members back in time to feasts held in the great baronial halls throughout England during the 12 days of Christmas. The choir sings holiday music while trumpeters announce the royalty.
"It's always different, every year depending on where the crowd takes you," choral director Bruce Yost said.
Yost revived the tradition started at the school in the late 1980s by Deborah Lester, now the University of Tampa's director of academic and operations support.
"It's a wonderful, multiarts experience for the students," said Lester, who kept her costume.
Students sing and act as they serve the audience a three-course dinner of Caesar salad, chicken, corn, new potatoes and desserts donated by Wright's Gourmet House. In preparation, they make costumes, decorations, sets and spiced wassail.
In the production's early years, Lester aimed for authenticity.
"We had a butcher that would save us a pig head and one of the mothers would cook it for us," she said. "We decorated it with holly for the bringing in of the boar's head."
Now, Yost sticks with a boar's head stuffed by a taxidermist and a roast chicken catered by Boston Market.
Members of the audience didn't seem to care. The three shows packed 510 people; others were turned away.
Some of the proceeds will help the choral department with expenses and trips.
- Elisabeth Dyer can be reached at 226-3321 or edyer@sptimes.com