Gay Tidings: Upcoming Shows are Festive and ”Fabulous!”

Thanksgiving isn’t even here yet, but it’s already beginning to look an awful lot like Christmas. In NYC, following a somewhat recent theatrical trend, the holidays are a time to be merry and oh, so very gay. Here is a sampling of a few shows that will help you to have a queer Christmas and a fabulous New Year.

Danny Pintauro (The Velocity of Gary, Who’s the Boss?) stars in A Queer Carol at The Duplex Cabaret Theatre on Christopher Street, December 2-15. Offering a gay spin on the Dickens classic, this Carol presents “Ben” Scrooge as a wealthy interior designer who, after refusing to give money to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, is visited by a series of ghosts including Marilyn Monroe and a black drag queen. Meanwhile, his overworked employee Bob Cratchit must weather Scrooge’s miserliness and abuse while caring for his partner, Tim, an HIV-positive office temp.

For something even more homey (or homo-y), there’s A Murray Little Christmas, an onstage recreation of one of drag king Murray Hill’s celebrated holiday cocktail parties. Murray will be setting up a fake Christmas tree, opening up a can of Bud, and throwing another Duraflame log on the cardboard cut-out fireplace for three winter nights (12/14, 12/20, and 12/21) at The Cutting Room. Entertainment will abound as The World Famous *BOB*, the Wau-Wau Sisters, burlesque bombshell Dirty Martini, fag-hag singer Lady Finger, the Dazzle Dancers, the Murrayettes, and pianist Lance Cruce join in the holiday cheer.

Christmas With the Crawfords features Joey Arias as Mommie Dearest in this musical spoof that takes us back to Christmas Eve, 1944. Joan Crawford — helped by her terrified children, Christina and Christopher — plans to make her comeback with a holiday show broadcast live from her Brentwood home, but things don’t go quite as planned.

And on December 16, writer-performer Charles Busch will bring his annual staged reading of Times Square Angel to Theatre for the New City. Busch will play Irish O’Flanagan, a 1940s nightclub chanteuse who learns a few lessons during the course of one wild Christmas Eve. Carl Andress directs and appears as Alfred the Angel; the cast also includes Andy Halliday, Theresa Aceves, David Staller, A.J. Vincent, Peter Borzotta, Flotilla De Barge, Sydney Myer, Marcy McGuigan, Jackie Sanders, and Larry Bullock.