Interview: Joe Iconis Continues His Christmas Tradition at 54 Below

Here’s the thing about the Joe Iconis Christmas Extravaganza: if you’re not careful, you might not get home until the next day.

Marking its 15th holiday season at 54 Below (December 12-14), the annual celebration goes all night. A 7pm show might not get out til shortly before the 11pm one begins. As for the 11pm? I’ve stumbled out at 2am some years. No regrets.

And what began 15 years ago has become a tradition sturdy enough to survive the pandemic, parenthood, shifting schedules, and a theater industry that feels increasingly precarious. As Iconis prepares yet another edition of the ever-evolving extravaganza, he reflects on the strange thrill of sustaining a beloved ritual in a moment when so much else seems to be disappearing.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

This is the Christmas show’s quinceañera. What’s that like for you?
It feels wild. It’s definitely among the things I am most proud of in my career. I think, also, because we had the Covid pause where we had to stop for a few years, it really made me appreciate how much the show not only means to me, but so many other people. Feeling the absence of it for a few years and then to be able to come back has been the most rewarding thing. In present day, New York City, 2025 theater culture, it feels like a time when everything is closing and everyone is talking about how theater is dead and the business is in such terrible shape. I’m just proud that this scrappy show that just does because they love it has been able to sustain for 15 years now.

And you change it every year.
It’s one of those things where people don’t quite realize how much the show changes from year to year. I do a massive amount of rewriting every single year. I wrote a brand-new opening for last year’s. And the truth is, so many people who have done the show year after year, their lives are just more complicated with career stuff or family stuff.

Yeah, we all have babies now, which, speaking from experience, adds a layer of difficulty in terms of going to grownup places.
Everybody has fucking babies. Myself included. It’s such a pain in the ass. It’s just so annoying. If I got famous slash rich, one of the things I would do would be to open up my own daycare—

For your kid and mine.
Yeah, exactly. Put the kids there. Then we all could be in the same building so everyone could just be at rehearsal, and I don’t have to hear the word “childcare” from anyone, even though it is a necessary evil. [Laughs]

The jigsaw puzzle has gotten more and more insane. One person can do one of the six shows, and another person can do that role at three of the six. It’s gotten more and more complicated. I’d like to think that my capacity for taking it is growing in tandem with the ambition.

Do you still do you still enjoy it?
I do still enjoy it, but it gets it definitely gets harder every single year. I’m just starting to write it. And there is a part of me that’s like, “what new jokes do I have about Christmas?” There’s only so many puns you can make about snowmen. Before I begin, it feels so daunting, and then once I’m in it, I really do love it. There’s nothing like the weekend itself. The level of exhaustion and exhilaration is so high. There’s nothing else I do where I feel so accomplished. If I was a person who ran marathons, which I’m very much not, I imagine it’s what running a marathon feels like at the end. You’re so physically exhausted, but so satisfied.

I remember 12 years ago we had you and the cast in our office kitchen to film a music video for the show. That office doesn’t exist anymore, which is to say, the Christmas Extravaganza has outlasted so much.
It really has. One of the guiding lights for me was Charles Busch’s Times Square Angel.

Which has just been retired after running for 25 years.
I know. When he announced that they weren’t going to do it this year, I was very sad. The way he talked about it, he was like, “These things are so hard to do, and I think that we’ve sort f done it enough and we feel good about it.” I so related. Like, good for you. It’s so hard for people to grasp, the magnitude of these things and how exhausting it is. For the Christmas show, no one pays for it. We don’t have a budget. The money that the show makes is what pays for the show. I don’t make any money from it. It is a labor of love.

I really understood why Charles Busch stopped, but the thought of our show continuing and Times Square Angel not is mind-blowing to me. I would go see it every year. It’s one of the hallmarks of the season. And now, to think that my show is a hallmark of the season for other people is really heavy, but beautiful.

Are you ready for your daughter Roxie to eventually be in the Christmas show?
Can’t wait. An actor whose schedule I have total control over and I don’t have to wait for her to respond to my email asking for her rehearsal availability.  Maybe I should have more kids.

That must have been what Captain Von Trapp said.
Exactly. [Laughs]