Bracebridge Dinner in Yosemite Reply

John Muir Contemplating
Yosemite Valley

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.
– John Muir The Yosemite (1912), page 256.

Ahwahnee Hotel in the Winter

YosemiteNational Park is one of my favorite places on earth. It is a park located in California in the heart of the Sierra Nevada mountains. It is where I spent many summers and where I long to return every time there is a special event. In the summer you have Lee Stetson playing as John Muir in a play at Yosemite Valley  and in the winter you have Bracebridge Dinner at the historic Ahwahnee Hotel.

The Feast

Ansel Adams Portrait
Yosemite Winter

This tradition was started in 1927 in order to attract ‘high society’ visitors to the valley during the snowy winter season. At that time British traditions were in vogue in America so the organizers decided to transform the dining hall into a 17th century English manor house in which Squire Bracebridge, the rich and generous host, invites guests to celebrate a seven-course holiday feast with his family. The great American photographer Ansel Adams directed the Bracebridge Dinner from 1929 to 1973 playing the role of the Major Domo.

Then Eugene and Anna-Marie Fulton directed the show from 1973 to 1978 and then let their daughter, Andrea, take over the responsibility of directing and producing the theatrical production. As well as directing the dinner performance, she now plays the leading role of the Housekeeper. She explains what this theatrical feast means to her, the cast and the guests: