'Tis the Season for Cats, Carols, Fun Home and More Must-Do Events for the Week of December 16 to 22

Features

by Kathy Henderson • Dec 15, 2019

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas and Hanukkah, with a rush to wrap last-minute gifts and celebrate with family and friends. Enjoy our final list of must-do events for 2019, covering December 16 through 22. We’ll see you at the start of a brand-new decade. Happy holidays!

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16
JOYFUL VOICES
For a jolt of pure holiday happiness, head uptown to Symphony Space for "Seasons of Inspiration," an all-new concert starring 2019 Tony Honoree Michael McElroy and the Broadway Inspirational Voices. The show includes selections from the gospel choir’s Grammy-nominated album Great Joy: A Gospel Christmas and its follow-up, Great Joy II: Around the World. Featuring 50 of Broadway’s best singers, BIV brings its unique mix of gospel and theatricality to traditional holiday songs ("O Holy Night," "Away in a Manger") as well as carols from France, Italy, Ireland and more. We double-dare you to spend an evening with McElroy and company and not emerge brimming with the spirit of the season.
INFO: 7:30PM at Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th Street). Tickets start at $35. For more details, click here.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16
TRIBUTE TO A LEGEND
Given his incomparable resume, Harold Prince’s memorial service on December 16 is sure to be star-packed affair. The 21-time Tony Award winner died on July 31 at age 91. The public is invited to join the celebration of his life and career at Broadway’s Majestic Theatre, home since 1988 to his gorgeous production of The Phantom of the Opera. As a producer and director, Prince’s credits span contemporary musical theater history, including West Side Story, Cabaret, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Company, Sweeney Todd and Evita. This sure-to-be-SRO event will feature tributes from Prince’s loved ones and performances by the actors whose careers he shaped over the course of six decades on Broadway.
INFO: 1:30 PM (doors open at 1PM) at the Majestic Theatre (245 West 44th Street). For more details, click here.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17
NEXT TO NORM
Broadway favorite Norm Lewis excels at super-serious roles—from Javert and the Phantom to his Tony-nominated performance as Porgy. But at Christmastime, Norm uses his beautiful baritone to spread holiday cheer at Feinstein’s/54 Below. His fifth annual holiday concert, "Naughty and Nice," begins on December 17 with a festive mix of show tunes and songs from The Norm Lewis Christmas Album. In a cabaret setting, Lewis bonds with audiences drawn to his warmth and generous spirit. You might even get a slice of bundt cake if you’re in the house the night his cousin Bobby Lewis is the guest artist. Grab a friend and give yourself "The Gift of Love" at Lewis’s fun-filled holiday party.
INFO: 7PM on December 17-22 at 54 Below (254 West 54th Street). Tickets start at $75, plus $25 food and beverage minimum. For more details, click here.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19
FUN HOME IN A FUN HOME
In one of those "Why didn’t we think of that?" scenarios, the Tony-winning musical Fun Home will get a one-night-only reading in an actual funeral home. Tony nominees Will Swenson, Kate Baldwin, Jenn Colella and Caitlin Kinnunen saw the allure of performing a piece about a troubled funeral director and his family, inside the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel funeral home on the Upper West Side. It’s a win-win for the actors, who get to tackle Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s Tony-winning score, and the audience, who gets to hear four perfectly cast Broadway stars tell Alison Bechdel’s moving coming-of-age story. Daniella Caggiano of the enterprising Quintessence of Dust Theatre Company will direct, with musical direction by Georgia Stitt.
INFO: 8PM on December 19 at the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel (630 Amsterdam Avenue at West 90th Street). For more details, click here.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20
LET THE MEMORY LIVE AGAIN
Everybody’s got an opinion about the Cats trailer: Thrilling? Creepy? A bit of both? At last, the day has arrived to see Broadway vets Jennifer Hudson, Judi Dench, James Corden, Ian McKellen and Robbie Fairchild join forces with Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba and Rebel Wilson to bring Andrew Lloyd Webber and T. S. Eliot’s mischief-making Jellicle cats to life on the big screen. In a gender flip, Dame Judi plays Old Deuteronomy, who will be sending Oscar winner Hudson’s Grizabella to the Heaviside Layer after she sings the hell out of "Memory." Director Tom Hooper and Billy Elliot scribe Lee Hall co-wrote this adaptation of the show that brought "now and forever" fame to Webber and his feline friends.
INFO: Opens December 20 at theaters nationwide. For more details, click here.