Returning productions — Holiday season 2011

The Century Theatre has welcomed back the incomparable Mary Zentmyer to present Sister’s Christmas Catechism, a festive Late Nite Catechism tutorial on the Virgin Mary and living nativity gone awry. The linked review is from the 2010 production, and although some of the staff may have changed, Zentmyer is sure to be in top form, a wonderfully wry Sister no less exacting and disdainful for her wacky comic outlook.
Sister’s Christmas Catechism is no longer playing. Click here for the latest from the Gem & Century Theatres.

In its fifth year, Matrix Theatre’s Puppet Scrooge remains a living adaptation, changing in ways large and small since its inception. This contemporary take on A Christmas Carol finds self-serving Pecunia Scrooge in southwest Detroit, her story acted out by several varieties of puppetry. This year, the company’s popular “Make and Take” workshop, in which young patrons can create their own puppets, is offered before every performance.
Puppet Scrooge is no longer playing. Click here for the latest from Matrix Theatre.

A Christmas Carol at Meadow Brook Theatre (adapted by Charles Nolte from the Charles Dickens novella) is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. This production and I go way back — too far for the Rogue to evaluate with anything approaching objectivity. There is no Rogue Critic review, nor will there ever be, but rest assured I’ll be making my annual sojourn.
A Christmas Carol is no longer playing. Click here for the latest from Meadow Brook Theatre.

2009’s This Wonderful Life rightly merited John Lepard a Wilde Award for his performance, and the actor teams up again with director Tony Caselli to revive playwright Steve Murray’s one-man It’s a Wonderful Life adaptation on the Williamston Theatre stage. Candor and intimate connection are Lepard’s engaging hallmarks; from the outset of this 90-minute production, he holds the audience in the palm of his hand. It’s a comforting and special place to be.
This Wonderful Life is no longer playing. Click here for the latest from Williamston Theatre.

Also reaching its five-year anniversary is the Who Wants Cake? favorite, The SantaLand Diaries & Season’s Greetings. The double bill showcases Joe Plambeck and Joe Bailey in staged interpretations of unmistakably bawdy and seasonally vicious David Sedaris essays. Anyone who enjoys spicy holiday snark will thrill at the surly Macy’s elf in tights; anyone who doesn’t scream with laughter at Mrs. Jocelyn Dunbar’s supreme perturbations should be checked for a pulse.
The SantaLand Diaries & Season’s Greetings is no longer playing. Click here for the latest from the Ringwald Theatre (formerly Who Wants Cake?).