Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Holiday on Stage

I'm a Twin Cities transplant, so I have no attachment to the Guthrie's "venerable" production of A Christmas Carol. In fact, I haven't attended many Christmas shows at all in my 23 years here.

That said, here are the upcoming holiday shows I'll be watching for and (I hope) attending:

Theatrical Klingons battling on stage
For the first time, Commedia Beauregard is staging its Klingon Christmas Carol for multiple shows. Starting on Friday, November 27, the show will run through December 13 at the Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis's West Bank neighborhood. Tickets are $18 for adults, $14 for students and seniors. (The show on Monday, December 7, is $5 off if you bring one can of food to donate; bring three and you'll get in free.) Here's my past post on this fun show.

Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, starring Jim Lichtscheidl, December 3 - 20 at Park Square Theatre. Tickets are $36, or $15 for people under 30. I know, I know, another Christmas Carol rendition -- but Jim Lichtscheidl is amazing to watch, so I want to see it anyway (and I'll still have the energy to watch Mr. Magoo's A Christmas Carol). I saw Lichtscheidl play Seymour in Ten Thousand Things' Little Shop of Horrors, and it was among the top three performances of my life.

Switching gears, the last show I'm thinking about is All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 at the downtown Pantages Theater. I've been a sucker for this story since I first heard the John McKutcheon's song "Christmas in the Trenches." In case you don't know it, it's a true story from the Western Front during World War I. On Christmas Eve, German and British soldiers sang carols and played soccer in the No Man’s Land between their trenches. The choral group Cantus, Theater LattĂ© Da and Hennepin Theatre Trust staged it for the first time last year (I missed it) and it's back again this year December 17 - 20. Tickets $27.50 - $35.00

2 comments:

Ms Sparrow said...

Klingon Christmas Carol? Wow, that sounds fantastic! What a Hoot!

Carmella said...

Funny. I have lived in the Twin Cities all my life and have never been to the Guthrie's "A Christmas Carol". And just last night, we got tickets! It will also be our first time to the new space.

I think the boys will have a great time. The play we went to last weekend, "SHE: Immortal Witch-Queen of a Lost World" was very low-budget and completely prop-free (which was handled with a wonderful sense of humor). So they have never seen stage-magic. I think old Scrooge will deliver.

If you ever want company going to plays, count me in! And I would love to see the Klingon Christmas Carol and I have a strange shortage of sci-fi fan friends.