They met in ‘Wicked.’ Now they’re headlining the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert together

For a few nights each December, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Conference Center stops feeling like a venue and starts feeling like a shared “heartbeat,” as Stephanie J. Block put it — 21,000 people gathered in the dark, letting music do what language can’t.

This year’s Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert, Dec. 11–13 at 8 p.m., leans into that hush-and-wonder space, pairing familiar carols and the Nativity with a cosmic storyline that keeps widening the lens: the “Earthrise” moment, the overview effect, the shock of seeing home as something fragile and bright.

And for the first time, the featured guest artists are a married couple — Block, a Tony Award winner, and Sebastian Arcelus, a Broadway and TV actor — bringing an onstage intimacy that, somehow, makes the room feel even closer.

From ‘Wicked’ to real life — and the work that followed

Block told the Deseret News that she and Arcelus first met while performing in the musical “Wicked” — a story that can sound like a fairy tale from the outside, but she’s careful not to let people confuse “showmance” sparkle for real marriage.

Yes, they fell in love during “Wicked,” she said, but what sustains them now isn’t nostalgia or chemistry under stage lights. It’s “responsibility,” she said — along with “understanding,” “empathy,” “trust,” “communication” and “faith.”

Block even shared one of their favorite, almost-movie-perfect details: One Thursday afternoon, while working on the show, they secretly slipped down to New York City Hall and got married quietly, then returned to work. They performed as Elphaba and Fiyero — now husband and wife — while no one in the company knew.

“So that moment for us, we wanted to keep that as just a treasured secret, and a treasured quiet understanding between he and I,” she said. “And that night that we told that story as husband and wife, it’s part of our story forever.”

‘A hug’ in a 21,000-seat room

Block described stepping into the Conference Center for the first concert as a moment where her nerves didn’t vanish so much as transform.

“I could feel my heartbeat coming out of my chest when I was waiting right offstage,” she said. But when she finally walked out, she said it felt strangely intimate — “like a hug,” she said, calling it “a magic trick” that a room that size can feel so embracing.

Arcelus said the intimacy starts almost immediately — because the first person he sees is his wife.

“It changes the chemistry of the entire evening,” he said. “To be working together, to be living in a moment together, in service of something larger together.”

That “something larger” is, overtly, the birth of Jesus Christ — but the program is designed to speak across belief, too, with the story of astronauts looking back at Earth as a way of talking about unity, perspective and peace.

Faith that travels — and a message that reaches beyond it

Asked how performing in an explicitly religious setting changes the way she approaches her work, Block didn’t hesitate: It doesn’t.

“Our foundation is our faith,” she said, adding: “Regardless if you’re watching me on Broadway, I’m hoping that the light that I’m carrying with me, and that faith and my connection to Christ is being fueled ... by that understanding and that faith.”

Arcelus added that the audience itself becomes part of the proof: People tethered to different worldviews still leave moved — not necessarily in the same ways, but with a shared sense that “something transcendent was really going on.”

“Suddenly, we’re all at the table,” Block said.

Why this year feels different — and why that’s the point

The Tabernacle Choir Christmas concerts are famously high-production, but music director Mack Wilberg said the team tries not to repeat itself.

“The only thing that’s the same every year is our ending,” Wilberg said, noting the traditional reading of the Nativity from Luke 2 and the closing song, “Angels From the Realms of Glory.” Everything else, he said, shifts by design — because audiences come year after year with high expectations, and the concert stays alive by not becoming formulaic.

Wilberg also emphasized the sheer scale of the volunteer effort behind the sound: The choir, orchestra and bells are made up of volunteers who rehearse and perform for a global audience.

And this year’s “family” theme isn’t just conceptual — it’s literal, onstage and off.

Family flying in — and a special Christmas gift

Block told the Deseret News that by Saturday night, the front row will be filled with family and friends.

“Saturday night will be really special,” Block said, describing the small miracle of loved ones from multiple states converging for one shared moment.

Speaking of her 10-year-old daughter, she said, “I hope she still sees Mama and Daddo” — her daughter’s names for them — “amidst the spectacular.”

What matters most, Block said, is that her daughter senses the authenticity: that her parents are doing what they love “in their truest self,” even in gowns and lights and surrounded by 500 musicians.

Arcelus echoed that tenderness to the Deseret News, describing the concert less as a career milestone and more as “a moment in our lives” — something “precious” and “delicate,” especially to share with their daughter.

He called it, simply, “a Christmas gift.”

Vulnerability and love on stage

Both artists said the sacred setting changes the posture of performance — not by making them “more professional,” but by asking them to be more exposed.

On Broadway, Block said, you’re often hidden behind a character. Here, she said, “we stand in our true self,” which can take more vulnerability because “I’m hiding behind nothing.”

Arcelus framed it as shifting from “in service of the story” to “in service of the message.”

And Wilberg, watching them work, said the connection was obvious early on — even over Zoom. “You could tell,” he said, adding, “they were very much connected … very much in love.”

A sing-along that turned the room into a living room

One of the concert’s warm surprises this year is a rare sing-along moment.

Wilberg told the Deseret News the team doesn’t want to do a sing-along every year, because then people would expect it, but enough time had passed since the last one that it felt fresh. Once Block and Arcelus were secured, Wilberg said, it felt like “a great moment” to let them be the catalyst who “leads everyone along.”

Wilberg agreed that it almost feels familial.

Arcelus told the Deseret News the sing-along “humanizes the experience” — “it dresses down the evening,” he said — adding that “it’s not about the pageantry, it’s about the people.”

The wide-angle view — and the quiet Nativity at the center

A key thread this year is the perspective shift that comes from looking down on Earth from space — a theme that resonates especially with Arcelus and Block because, as they said, it’s personal.

Arcelus has studied the Apollo 8 mission extensively, even writing a play about the astronauts. He described the “overview effect” as a change in the soul’s posture — a zooming out that makes petty divisions feel smaller. Block added that when life feels heavy, she and her husband will literally go to a planetarium to reset their sense of scale.

“We are so important because we were created,” she said, “but we’re so small … and it puts things back in perspective.”

That’s the kind of dichotomy the concert keeps returning to: the cosmos and the manger; the sweep of human history and the quiet decision to be gentler; the immensity of God’s creations and the intimacy of a baby in Bethlehem.

Even the guest performers onstage — including Argentine musicians Julián Mansilla and Leandro Curaba — underline the concert’s sense of gathering across borders.

Mansilla told the Deseret News that “when we focus in creating music, it’s interesting how the rest of the differences of language and backgrounds disappear for a moment, for a unique purpose.”

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How to attend — and what comes next

For those who would like to attend, tickets are free but required, with a standby line opening 90 minutes prior to each performance. The guest artists are also scheduled to appear on “Music & the Spoken Word” on Sunday, Dec. 14, when tickets will not be necessary.