Today’s Highlights:
Amahl and the Night Visitors, directed by Kenny Leon, featuring Joyce DiDonato (Amahl’s Mother), Albert Rhodes (Amahl), Philip Boykin (King Balthazar), Bernard Holcom (king Kaspar), Todd Thomas (King Melchior), and Jonathan McCullogh (The Page), with Jesse Barrett, Miastasha Gonzalez-Colón, Brian Jeffers, Kathryn McCreary, Manuel Palazzo, Bryanna Strickland, Natalie Trumm, Miguel Ángel Vásquez, Olivia Vote, and Jason Zacher, with Patrick Bessenbacher, Tynan Davis, Kingston Nahm-Korn, and Madeline Wright, opens at Linoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre.
Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, directed by David Ralphe, featuring Joey Langford, Jack Rodgers, Dawn Michelle, KiSea Katikka, Peter Fair, Beth Stockton, Anna Marie Melendrez, Lexi Windisch and Will Palo, opens at North Hollywood’s El Portal Theatre.
A Broadway Holiday with David Burnham closes at Long Beach’s Musical Theatre West.
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Alex Bechtel, Grace McLean & Eva Steinmetz’s Penelope will run Feb. 6 – Mar. 1 at Lyric Stage Boston, directed by Courtney O’Connor.
Aimee Doherty (Penelope).
A generous glass of bourbon, a five-piece band, and 90 minutes are all Penelope needs to tell her side of the story as she embraces her heartache, loneliness, and resolve during a seemingly endless war. Her son has disappeared. Relentless suitors prance before her. Days drone on as she is left to wonder who she is if she is alone. From jazz to folk to indie rock, Penelope dishes the dirt in a captivating cacophony of emotions that redefines what we might know of her through a modern lens.
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Red Bull Theater‘s Richard II continues through Dec. 21 at Off-Broadway’s Astor Place Theatre, directed by Craig Baldwin.
Michael Urie.
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The world premiere of Christopher Franciosa’s What Opa Did will run Jan. 16-17 at 7:30 PM at Beverly Hills’ Theatre Forty, directed by Pames Paradise.
Meghan Lewis, Victor Montez, Lilli Passero, Jeremy Schaye, and Allan Wasserman.
Confronted with the ultimate evil, what would you do in order to survive? The play follows Kate, a young New Yorker, as she confronts her Jewish grandparents’
past in Germany, where they were forced to hide with their baby during the war. As Kate uncovers the truth about her Opa leaving the family to fend for themselves for three years and the choices that he and her Oma had to make to survive, she grapples with the moral complexities of their actions and the impact of secrets on their identities.
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Sarah Ruhl, Ian Axel & Chad King’sWonder continues through Feb. 8 at Boston’s A.R.T., directed by Taibi Magar.
Garrett McNalley, Max Voehl, Kaylin Hedges, Alison Luff, Javier Muñoz, Melvin Abston, Raymond J. Lee, Donovan Louis Bazemore, Kylie MiRae Kuioka, Reese Levine, Skylar Matthews, Paravi, Diego Cordova, Nathan Salstone, Pearl Sun, Nicholas Trupia, and Maddy Lee.
The musical follows August (Auggie), a bright kid with a severe facil difference (Treacher Collins syndrome), a bright kid with a severe facial difference (Treacher Collins syndrom), who has been homeschooled, as he takes his first steps into a mainssteam middle school, confronting cruely, finding friends, and discovering his own strength, while his family also navigates changes, all set to a modern pop-inspired score.
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Rachel Vail’s If We Kiss has been extended through Dec. 20 at Off-Broadway’s A.R.T., directed by Zachary Elkind.
Jordan Bellow, Caroline Grogan, Katie Hartke, Jeffrey Omura, and Frankie Placidi.
A 90-minute romantic comedy about first kisses and new families based on the novel by Rachel Vail, If We Kiss is full of the joy, heartbreak, humiliation, and exhilaration of falling in love.
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Sweeney Todd will run Jan. 30 – Feb. 22 (opening Jan. 31) at CA’s La Mirada Theatre, directed by Jason Alexander, with music direction by Darryl Archibald, and choreography by Lee Martino.
Will Swenson (Sweeney Todd), Lesli Margherita (Mrs. Lovett), Chris Hunter (Anthony), Allison Sheppard (Johanna), Norman Large (Judge Turpin), Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper (Beadle Banford), Austyn Myers (Tobias), Andrew Polec (Pirelli), Meghan Andrews (The Beggar Woman), and Jeff Lowe (The Overseer), with Gabbie Adner, Anthony Cannarella, Ryan Dietz, Grant Hodges, Bets Malone, Drew Margolis, Michael McClure, Hassan Nazari-Robati, Lizzy Sheck, Riannay Vasquez, Toni Elizabeth White, Davide Costa, and Maddie Miller Lacambra.
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The world premiere of Invitation to the Dance, written & directed by Michael Van Duzer, will run Feb. 13 – Mar. 15 at Theatre West.
Michael Gabiano (Malcolm), David Mingrino (Asher), Casey Alcoser (Finn)
It takes two to tango. What happens when a third cuts in? A sexy, dark comedy where an older gay couple face off against a determined young man who updens their world with his provocative blend of sexuality and menace.
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Lynn Ahrens & aMike Ockrent’s A Musical Christmas Carol continues through Dec. 23 at Pittsburgh CLO, directed by Scott Evans.
Denis O’Hare (Ebenezer Scrooge), Theo Allyn (Mrs. Fezziwig, Mrs. Dilber), Christian Clausntizer ( Melessie Clark), Christian Clausnitzer (Dick Wilkins, Peter Cratchit), and Allison Dorsey (Martha Cratchit), Justin Bortunato (Fred), Aaron Galligan-Stierle (Bob Cratchit), Lisa Ann Goldsmith (Mrs. Bratchit), Kat Harkins (Chost of Christmas Past), Tim Hartman (Fezziwig, Ghost of Christmas Present, Businessman, Charity Worker), Lara Hayhurst (Peg), Daniel Krell (Marly, Marley’s Ghost, businessman), with Connor Bahr, J. Alex Noble, Brady D. Patsy), Benjamin Ken Pimental, Jason Shavers, Alex Sheffield, Saige Smith, Erika Strasburg, and Hallie Camach.
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LA’s Fountain Theatre has announced its 2026 season:
Click the link above for the complete season.
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Isenhower: this Piece of Ground, written & directed by Richard Hellesen. will run Jan. 14 – Feb. 1 at Laguna Playhouse,
John Rubinstein (Dwight D. Eisenhower).