Performance Christmas is a divisive holiday. There are those who decorate their lawns in November and revel in each tinsel-strewn moment with the slack-jawed grin and open wallet of a Midwesterner at Disney   More

Arts & Books Although you may have thought the vampire craze had long since reached critical mass and collapsed under its own bulging excess, it appears the trend has not yet been staked in the heart Walking the line somewhere between the chaste, no-biting-till-marriage vampires of Twilight and the fuck-anything-that-moves vamps of True Blood is Bite Me a Little, a vampire musical by local playwright and composer ...   More

Arts & Books If you've watched any TV at all lately you've seen the ads: Billy Elliot The Musical! Based on that British ballet movie! With music by Elton John! It won all the Tonys! It has dancing kids, and miners, and nigh-unintelligible working-class accents!Well, that's all true, sure. Billy Elliot is an impressive spectacle, at times quite moving, full of ecstatic displays of dance talent by its very young ...   More

Arts & Books Quick: world is ending, and it’s your job to fill a space ship.  Who do you take?How about an explosive retired navy captain and his leggy, put-upon wife?  Or a conspiracy-loving former CIA Agent?  What about a randy redneck girl and a geeky hipster boy?  Or a crooked TV news reporter who’ll do anything to win an Oscar?That’s the premise for Planet Eden, an original Broadway-style ...   More