5 Issues to Do This Xmas Weekend

In the fantasy model of a December evening, we would sweep in off West 54th Road, down the staircase and into the cozy, enveloping glamour that generally makes Feinstein’s/54 Down below experience like it’s ready for its close-up. We would slide into a booth and buy a little a little something charming. Then the extensive-jogging cabaret series “Sondheim Unplugged” would get started — a single additional shimmering perk to expending the vacations in New York.

Happily, the pandemic edition of “Sondheim Unplugged” is pretty wonderful, also: tasteful, consoling, peppered with deadpan humor. Shot on 5 cameras and streaming on Saturday at 8 p.m. Japanese time (and then obtainable on desire from Sunday to Jan. 9), it is an hour of Sondheim hits and obscurities, sung by Broadway performers, with only piano for accompaniment. Large factors contain Telly Leung’s heartstring-plucking “Being Alive,” Lucia Spina’s seethingly angry “Could I Go away You?” and T. Oliver Reid’s exquisitely regretful “Good Detail Likely.” Tickets to obtain the functionality are $25 at 54underneath.com. Pour a glass of one thing bubbly and delight in.
LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES

Dance

Ending 2020 Calmly

If you require a respite from holiday getaway activities, or some space to replicate on the earlier 12 months, look at paying out time with Jordan Demetrius Lloyd’s dreamy, entrancing small film “The Past Moon in Mellowland.” Lloyd, a Brooklyn-based mostly dance artist, transitioned into generating perform for the display when theaters shut down in March. Element of Problem Challenge Room’s “soft bodies in tricky sites,” a series structured by the curator Benedict Nguyen and timed to planetary situations (like a new moon or a solstice), “Mellowland” attracts the viewer into a 20-minute meditation that loosely traces the arc of a working day. Lloyd describes this environment as a position that “viewers previously recall,” and there is a calming familiarity in its rhythms and repetitions, as the digital camera rests on a spinning ceiling enthusiast or two dancers at the ocean’s edge.

With performances by Lloyd, Breeanah Breeden, Ariana Speight and Demetries Morrow, and dramaturgy by Stephanie George, the movie, which was produced in November, is offered free by Dec. 31 at issueprojectroom.org/event/very last-moon-mellowland.
SIOBHAN BURKE

Gospel

An Vacant Hall Full of Spirit

On the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday upcoming thirty day period, the Harlem Gospel Choir will celebrate 35 many years as a single of the country’s top modern gospel groups, and a globally acknowledged ambassador for the style. Through any regular calendar year the choir would do a planet tour at the very least at the time, and each time it was not on the road, the team would enjoy a Sunday brunch just about every week at Sony Hall in the vicinity of Occasions Square, joined by a entire band, bringing the sounds of praise to a combine of devotees and holidaymakers.

The group will return to (an empty) Sony Corridor on Friday for the initial time considering the fact that March, for a exclusive Xmas Working day effectiveness at 5 p.m. Japanese time, doing its portion to maintain the spirit of communion at a social length. Tickets to watch the livestream charge $25 and can be bought at sonyhall.com. Archived online video of the performance will stay offered to ticket holders as a result of Jan. 1.
GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Forget magic and fairy godmothers. The title character of “Hip Hop Cinderella” requirements rap and rocket science.

Charmingly performed by Alexis Aguiar, she masters equally in this 35-moment area-age adaptation, which streams on demand from customers on Stellar by way of Jan. 31. (Tickets are $15-$25.) Presented by Amas Musical Theater in affiliation with HipHopMusicals.com, the demonstrate nevertheless pits Cinderella versus a scheming stepmother (Lexy Piton) and stepsisters (Cassandra Barckett and Emily Lang), but the prize is not a royal marriage. As a substitute, a prince (Jamiel Tako L. Burkhart) intends to crown the winner of a hip-hop ball and rap contest. With the enable of her loyal robot (Brian Criado), Cinderella, a.k.a. Ella C, just may get the galaxy’s groove back again.

Conceived by Linda Chichester and David Coffman and directed by Christopher Scott, this production incorporates intelligent graphics and even a minor space shuttle footage. The display, which features a guide by Scott Elmegreen and music and lyrics by Rona Siddiqui, will also amuse grownups when the stepmother helps make a familiar-sounding grievance: “That levels of competition was rigged!”
LAUREL GRAEBER

Comedy

The Ultimate Kosher Xmas

For the to start with time in its 28-calendar year record, Kung Pao Kosher Comedy, a.k.a. “Jewish Comedy on Christmas in a Chinese Restaurant,” is on the web, which also means you needn’t go to San Francisco to delight in the demonstrates.

The headliner is Judy Gold, who appears frequently on “The Drew Barrymore Show” and revealed a ebook this calendar year, “Yes, I Can Say That: When They Come for the Comedians We Are All in Problems.” Also performing is Alex Edelman, whose piece about attending a neo-Nazi conference in New York, “Just for Us,” acquired him a nomination for very best present at the Edinburgh Competition Fringe in 2018.

Kung Pao Kosher Comedy’s founder, Lisa Geduldig, hosts the gatherings, which air on Zoom and YouTube Live at 8 p.m. Japanese time on Thursday and Friday, and at 5 p.m. on Saturday. Tickets to entry the broadcast are $25-$50 and offered at cityboxoffice.com.
SEAN L. McCARTHY