Theatrical Greetings: DC Holiday Theater Roundup
D.C. area theaters have taken holiday themes and tweaked them to bring even more joy to the world
Right about now, many area theaters are betting that you really need to laugh. And that you crave a lot of Charles Dickens in your life.
In fact, you can even laugh at Dickens through two separate loosely scripted, mostly improvised satires. Twist Your Dickens is A Christmas Carol parody presented by Second City at the Kennedy Center (12/9-31), while Bah, Humbug! An Improvised Christmas Carol is a presentation by the Baltimore Improv Group in partnership with the two Drafthouse comedy venues (12/9-10, 12/16-17, Drafthouse Comedy; 12/22-23, Arlington Drafthouse). And there’s plenty more where that came from, with at least five local variations on the classic holiday ghost story, including the Ford’s Theatre standard-bearer, which, in Craig Wallace, has a new Ebenezer Scrooge in its 35th year. Other productions have adapted the short story as a one-man show — Paul Morella’s A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas at Olney Theatre Center (Now-12/31) and Laura Connors Hull’s A Christmas Carol Memory at Creative Cauldron, which uses puppets (to 12/20). There’s even Dickens influence in the classic Whoville saga, Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical. The heartwarming show about that mean one debuts in D.C. with a special holiday run at the National Theatre (12/13-31).
In addition to the seasonal satire Nut-cracking Holiday Revue returning for another run at the Arlington Drafthouse (12/9-10, 12/16-18), the famed Chicago-based company Second City offers an even more provocative show at Woolly Mammoth. Black Side of the Moon features an all-African-American cast examining what it means to be black in a post-Obama Trump era (to 1/1). More satirical laughter as medicine is on offer at the Edlavitch DCJCC, with the return of the Kinsey Sicks and its seasonal sendup, Oy Vey in a Manger (12/20-28).
Other companies are going with more serious, reason-for-the-season fare, including Folger’s The Second Shepherds’ Play, a retelling of the Nativity story with medieval English tunes performed live by the celebrated Folger Consort (to 12/21). And Theater Alliance presents its third annual production of the Helen Hayes Award-winning Black Nativity, Langston Hughes’s Afrocentric spin on the Biblical Christmas tale (to 12/31, Anacostia Playhouse). Meanwhile, Washington Stage Guild revives its adaptation of another holiday warhorse, It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (to 12/18, Undercroft Theatre of Mount Vernon United Methodist Church).
Round House presents one of two new, intriguing shows this season, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, set two years after Pride and Prejudice, imagining what might have transpired among Jane Austen’s fictional characters, chiefly middle daughter Mary Bennet (to 12/18). And then there’s Signature Theatre’s gift of Silver Belles (to 12/31). After all, what could be more gay-appealing than a musical centered around a handful of powerhouse female vocalists, including Donna Migliaccio and Nova Y. Payton?
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