This Week’s Picks! Get Groovy with Lena Hall, Give Thanks with Cheno & More!

Hey, you, fretting over how to make the most of your four-day weekend. Relax! You’re not destined to spend that time in sweatpants drinking cold gravy through a straw. We have plenty of stuff for you to properly kick off the holidays, including a fashionable new comedy, Lena Hall’s “musical memoir” and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! Here come this week’s picks!


Meet Chicago’s New Mama
Begins November 23 at Ambassador Theatre
For the long-running Broadway show, it’s important that your casting news makes the right kind of splash. You want people to be intrigued, not wishing they had brought a magazine. The folks at Chicago have mastered this lesson. Their latest coup: bringing in reality TV star and Cinderella alum NeNe Leakes to play Matron “Mama” Morton (through December 20). So, yeah, leave the periodical at home. Click for tickets!



Witness a Twentieth Century Fashion Disaster
Opens November 23 at Manhattan Theatre Club
Where do fashion trends come from? Nick Jones’s new comedy, Important Hats of the Twentieth Century, introduces an amusing theory when 1930s fashion designer Paul Roms (Matthew Saldivar) starts releasing strange creations like “sweatshirts” and “tracksuits” to a delighted public. But when Roms’ famous rival, Sam Greevy (Carson Elrod), uncovers Roms’ secret, more than “what’s hot” and “what’s not” is at stake. So, that is why people care so much about fashion. Click for tickets!


Give Thanks—for Kick-Ass Parades
November 26 on NBC
Between the constant eating and feigning interest in people you despise, Thanksgiving can be a long, intense day for you---and, later, your therapist. Luckily, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade remains a wonderful constant. It doesn’t mock your lifestyle choices or eat with its mouth open. It’s still stuffed with floats, parades and performances from Broadway shows. This year’s crop includes Fiddler on the Roof, The King and I and Finding Neverland.



See the Beltway Go Broadway
November 26 on TLC
TLC is the home of hoarders, 650-lb virgins or some combination thereof.Tonight, thankfully, the network airs Broadway at the White House, which follows 40 high-school students during an all-day symposium covering careers in theater. It includes master classes, a Q&A panel with Broadway stars and performances from Broadway musicals galore. And there isn’t a Duggar or Gosselin in sight. But there is Michelle Obama—and hosts Kristin Chenoweth and Matthew Morrison!



Relive Lena Hall’s Age of Aquarius
Begins November 28 at Feinstein’s/54 Below
A prayer to the Broadway superstar without a show! (Please don’t let Norm Lewis fold shirts at The Gap. Spare Patti LuPone from working as a bike messenger.) Actually, they’re fine. So is Lena Hall, who has been busy since Hedwig and the Angry Inch. To wit, she’s performing her “musical memoir” of growing up in a hippie household, The Villa Satori Growing up Haight Ashbury, at Feinstein’s/54 Below through December 8. Click for tickets!