Let it Snow

With snowfall hopefully approaching on the wings of cold winds that have already chilled the streets, it’s time to take the family to Slava’s Snowshow (December 2-January 4) for a premature taste of a White Christmas at the Helen Hayes theater. Created by Slava Polunin, the show combines theatrical spectacle with the hilarity and poignancy of the art of clowning. Also forecasting snow flurries all month, join Cirque Du Soleil for Wintuk (Wamu Theater at Madison Square Garden, through January 4), the story of a boy who must journey to a far off land to bring snow back to his city. Another helping of icy magic can be had at the Marquis Theater with Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (through January 4), set in the snowy hills of 1950s Vermont.

If the little ones are crying for another taste of the circus, Theater for the New City will be presenting Bread and Puppet Theater’s The Sourdough Philosophy Circus (December 4-21), an exploration of what the world would be like with a little more human fermentation, an idea that also gets applied to dancing zebras, turkeys, and free range cows.

The New Victory Theater will add to the festivities with the Holiday House Party with Dan Zanes and Friends (December 19-January 4), a menagerie of different celebratory flavors from traditional Christmas carols to Chanukah songs and Mexican rhythms. For a wicked take on the holiday spirit, take a trip to Manhattan TheatreSource for Witch Christmas! (December 17-28). At the same venue will be Greg Oliver Bodine’s solo performance of A Christmas Carol (December 9-11), featuring the condensed version Dickens himself used on his historic reading tours of the United States.

The 13th Street Repertory will stage a full production of Dickens’ timeless story A Christmas Carol (December 17-January 11) as adapted for the stage by Sandra Nordgren. The Jeffrey Ballet School will stage The Nutcracker (December 12-14) at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Arts, and Vital Theatre Company will present a Jewish version of the ballet, The Klezmer Nutcracker (December 3-January 3) at the McGinn Cazale Theatre.

For less holiday themed entertainment, Axis Theatre Company’s Seven in One Blow, Or the Brave Little Kid (December 5-21) follows a boy who commemorates his ability to kill seven flies at once with a belt that causes everyone to misjudge his abilities. Works and Process will bring a classic musical play, Peter & the Wolf (December 13-21), Prokofiev’s classic story set to music, which is set to open at the Guggenheim Museum. Literally Alive’s production of Beauty and the Beast (November 9-December 30), is based on the original book by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont, while Manhattan Children’s Theatre will explore the beauty of giving with the Elves & The Shoemaker (November 15-January 4), a fairytale from the volumes of the Brothers Grimm.