Tara Rosling’s annual Christmas performance may not be for the faint of heart.

The veteran stage and TV actress says a woman fainted during her performance of “The Mistletoe Bride” at Silversmith Brewery in 2022.

“I actually stopped asked if she was OK, because I was worried,” the Niagara-on-the-Lake resident said.

She wasn’t sure why the woman fainted, saying the subject of the story could trigger some people, but the woman may also have had a medical condition. 

Peter Hinton, whose directorial talents are often seen on the stage at the Shaw Festival, adapted “The Mistletoe Bride” from Jeanette Winterson’s short story of the same name.

Rosling, well-known for her role as President T’Rina in” Star Trek: Discovery,” frequently collaborates with Hinton, most recently performing in his adaptation of Edith Wharton’s “The Shadow of a Doubt.”

“We just wanted to work on something together. So he brought this to me and then we created it together.”

Winterson’s “The Mistletoe Bride” tells the story of a bride who becomes trapped in a chest while playing hide and seek with her groom on her wedding night.

From the confines of her chest, she spies her groom committing adultery.

Unable to escape, the bride suffocates and is found years later as a skeleton in a bride’s dress.

Rosling will be doing a dramatic reading of the bride’s harrowing experience at Silversmith Brewery Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. and again at Ironwood Cider House Dec. 21, also at 7 p.m.

“I love that it’s become an annual tradition. Like people have already contacted me this year asking when it’s going to happen,” she said.

This is her first time at Ironwood, but she hopes it’ll be another packed show.

In 2022, alongside her performance at the Silversmith Brewery on Dec. 22, she performed at the Irish Harp before a packed dining room on Dec. 11.

“It was much too hard to try to contend with all the traffic coming through the kitchen,” she said.

After those two shows, she performed virtually over Zoom on Dec. 22.

“I prefer to do it live.”

“It’s a very bizarre sensation performing to a computer screen,” she added.

Tickets are pay what you can and all proceeds go to Gillian’s Place, which shelters families from domestic abuse.

In her nine years of performing the show, she estimates it’s raised about $20,000 for the shelter and hopes she can crack another $3,000 this year.

People who like a spooky Christmas stories can get tickets to the Ironwood show via Eventbrite.com, by looking up “Mistletoe Bride Performance” in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

People should call Silversmith directly at 905-468-8447 for tickets to that show.