During the Middle Ages and continuing well into the Renaissance, the holiday season was a time when guests traveled great distances to the castles of wealthy friends and family members to feast, dance and exchange news in a celebration that lasted several days. After the rigorous fast of the Advent season, elaborate preparations were made to ensure a truly festive event.

The banquet at Christmas, as on other great holidays, was not an isolated meal, but rather a series of celebrations filled with pageantry and circumstance. After prayers in chapel or at the table, trumpet fanfares signaled the service of specific courses and dishes within the feast. Guests danced, told stories, and sang in enthusiastic outbursts of merrymaking.

Since 1983, the annual Madrigal Dinner, produced each December by the Wright State University Student Union with the Department of Music, has provided the greater Dayton community with a musical and dramatic interpretation of these fabulous medieval ceremonial feasts. What began as a single performance has become an established tradition that spans four evenings and entertains over 1,300 guests.

So, come one, come all, and enjoy traditional English fare, amidst the antics of jesters and manorfolk, dancing and revelry, the Puppet Master, and the wonderfully interwoven lines of the madrigal song. See the Student Union Apollo Room transformed into the Great Hall of Wright Manor where guests are treated to the voices of the Wright State Chamber Singers, medieval dances choreographed by the Tudor Rose Performing Troupe, and the music of Wind in the Woods Early Music Ensemble.
Wes Hale!