A Celtic Christmas cast photo by A Taste of Ireland.
Presented by Pace Live: A Taste of Ireland
Dancers on Dec. 11, 2025, 7 PM:
Principal Dancers – Brittany Pymm, Gavin Shevlin
Soloists – Cian Walsh
Understudies – Meagan Urbanek, Isaac Loxley
Ensemble members – Fiona Shanley, Natalie Wagner, Jess Miller, Catilin Ward, Colleen McCarthy, Hannah Cunniffe, Dillon D’Amore, Michael Roberson, Enda Keane, Ciaran Bagley
Band:
Megan McGinley – Fiddle
Joel Libed – Vocalist
Aaron O’Grady – Guitarist
Simon Lace – Guitarist/Banjo
Dec. 2-14, 2025
Boston Center for the Arts
Calderwood Pavilion
527 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02116
Critique by Kitty Drexel
2 hours with one intermission
BOSTON — A Taste of Ireland presents a pepperminty-fresh holiday Irish dance concert, A Celtic Christmas, now at the Boston Center for the Arts. It’s a perfect treat for the avid dancer enthusiast and hobbyist alike. Tickets are available for this touring production’s Boston stop through Dec. 14.
Direct from its Off-Broadway season, A Taste of Ireland brings A Celtic Christmas to Boston for the first time. It features Irish dance competition champions and stars from Lord of the Dance and Riverdance. Frankly, the stamina, flexibility and athleticism of these dancers is remarkable. These performers dance for two hours with only the briefest of pauses for costume changes with a live band that meets them halfway. While the show’s loose plot relies heavily on hetero-normative gender roles to push its narrative, the dancers’ impressive skill is a heartbeat keeping the audience focused on the stage. Even if Irish dance isn’t your idea of fun, one can’t deny how impressive their artistic labor is.
Boston has a thriving Irish dance community. I hope its community members make the pilgrimage and see A Celtic Christmas. To those folks, I offer two helpful hints about attending a show at the Boston Center for the Arts:
- The BCA’s bathrooms are gender neutral; the BCA welcomes folks across the gender spectrum to use the facilities that most align with their identity. I met several folks inside and outside the stalls-only restroom who were confused by the modern signage (I’m nosy, and the BCA is one of my happy places). After explaining the distinction between the two options (stalls only or stalls and urinals), I said that bathrooms were meant for nothing more nefarious than peeing after all. Choose your own adventure, but please check in with BCA staff if you have questions.
- It is impolite to use your cell phone during the performance to take photos or reply to texts. Believe it or not, the performers can see you using your phone from the stage. They are too polite, too busy, and working too hard to tell you to turn it off. But I’m not. The Calderwood Pavilion is not the barn your father raised you in. Save your phone for after the show*.
We had a fine time at A Celtic Christmas. The ensemble is truly exceptional. Soloists Brittany Pymm and Gavin Shevlin are dancing wonders. Pymm made her footwork look easy – it is not. Shevlin’s crowd work is as charming as it is playful.
Our toes were tapping; we hooted and hollered with the rest of the audience. Our voices joined in unison to carol with the cast as invited, but no one in the cast, crew or audience had as brilliant a time as guitarist Aaron O’Grady. O’Grady was having the time of his life playing and dancing with the band, a sincere smile stretched across his face at all times. There is a new standard for holiday joy, and O’Grady is it.
*There is one exception to this, because A Celtic Christmas is a family show. A family may put a young child on a device so the rest of the family can watch the show in peace. This is completely acceptable as long as the child has soundproof headphones, knows to be quiet and the family has seats in the back, away from other ticket buyers who found babysitters. Fully grown adults have no excuse.
