TRADITION

er,”

1816 story of a girl who visits a magical kingdom on a snowy Christmas Eve. The Memphis Symphony Orchestra, under music director Mei-Ann Chen, performs Tchaikovsky’s expansive and memorable score.

For the past 35 years, Theatre Memphis has had a lockdown on Dickens’ classic

and for 12 of those years (including the first in 1978), the beloved local stage actor Barry Fuller, now age 83, has been getting his soul saved five times a week as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge. A highly successful remount of the show two years ago by director Jason Spitzer keeps the show’s old gothic heart beating with renewed vitality.

An updated version of Scrooge’s journey is the subject of Ekundayo Bandele’s play

which is becoming an annual event at Hattiloo Theatre. In this musical tale, Eb Scroo has forgone his racial identity to become a wealthy man in a

Christmas Carol,”

“A

“If Scrooge Was a Broth-

community that now despises him.

The stage adaptation of the hugely popular 1971 children’s book

“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”

is Germantown Community Theatre’s perennial choice of holiday fare, featuring actual kids in the starring roles.

Kids are also in full force in Playhouse on the Square’s current production of For those who live south of the border, DeSoto Family Theatre is also doing the show. Though not a “Christmas” show per se, it does conclude with a big musical number, “New Deal for Christmas,” complete with lots of presents being doled out by Daddy Warbucks.

Across the street at Circuit Playhouse, kids might also appreciate the smaller scale

“Annie.” “Twas the Night Before Christmas,”

a silly story about a mouse who saves Christmas, which can be seen at Saturday and Sunday matinees. In the theater’s Memphian room, adults can return at night to see actor David Foster perform his ballyhooed turn as the snarky Crumpet the Elf in David Sedaris’

“The Santaland Diaries.”

Next weekend, New Ballet Ensemble’s at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre puts multiculturalism at the forefront of this extravaganza by young dancers “remixing” the “Nutcracker” using traditional dance forms from around the world, including ballet, Flamenco, Hip-hop and authentic African dance.

Nostalgia for Frank Capra’s film about a man who gets to see what life were like if he’d never been born will draw folks to Tennessee Shakespeare Company’s

“Nut Re-Mix”

“It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,”

which takes the script and re-imagines it being done by a handful of actors in the Golden Age of radio.

A tradition in the making,

“Sister Myotis’s Karaoke Smackdown III”

at Theatre South, raises money for theater company Voices of the South by encouraging holiday karaoke while a godly church woman (played by actor Steve Swift) weighs in on the quality of the singing.

The hard part isn’t finding entertainment to satisfy those holiday cravings — it’s deciding which show to watch. town, is eagerly anticipating this engagement. “I jumped at the opportunity, because having a symphony backing you is amazing; it’s a dream and I’m going to have a blast.”

She’ll be performing four songs, including “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” made popular by Mariah Carey; “This Christmas,” done by Donny Hathaway; “Little Drummer Boy” (with the Memphis Symphony Chorus); and “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” as a tribute to Andy Williams. For something a little different,

is presenting its on Dec. 10 at at Grace-St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, featuring works by Henry Purcell and Ralph Vaughan-Williams. The concert, while not specifically holiday themed, will have something of an advent: the premiere of a work by 14-year-old composer Max Friedman, a White Station High School ninth-grader. His work is titled “Mnemiopsis,” which, he says, “is a jellyfishlike creature also known as the warty comb jelly or sea walnut.”

Luna Nova Concert

Winter

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