The Madrigals holiday performance will return this year on Dec. 5 and 6 featuring many singers from the school choir, led by Nathan Rancatore.
The Madrigals is a singing performance performed during the holidays.
“Madrigals here at Plainfield Central is a choral group. It’s one of the top extracurricular groups of the school,” Mitchel Countryman, senior, said.
“We have our performances in December; All the music featured is like old Renaissance period that would normally be sung around the holiday season.”
The Madrigals performance has become a holiday tradition for the school, but the event did not originate here.
“We started in 1978. This year we are in our 47th year.” Rancatore said. “There was a thing in the 70s, it actually stemmed from Illinois State University, where this whole idea of a dinner theater production started, probably before renaissance fairs were popular.”
The performance is described as a renaissance fair; singers dress up in renaissance-style costumes and become a character such as the king or court jester.
“Everyone has different roles, like a character—it can be whatever you’d like it to be,” June Coffindaffer, junior, said.
The singers go to great lengths to provide the unique experience Madrigals is known for.
“We decorate the auditorium; make it look like a medieval castle and in the back we have a long dining table,” Countryman said.
Although there is a role-playing aspect to the performance, the singers undergo rigorous practice to ensure a good performance.
“Madrigals is our top extracurricular ensemble. It shows me that it’s not easy to just show up and be good, you have to put in the effort,” Blake Zabinski, senior, said.