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The Must List: Sweet Honey in the Rock, Menorah Mania, Buttcracker II

By Seattle Magazine Staff December 14, 2016

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Must Listen
Sweet Honey in the Rock
(12/15-12/18, 7:30 p.m.) Since 1973, this Grammy-nominated female a cappella quartet has delivered positive, socially conscious and relevant music: gospel, blues and spoken word. jazzalley.com

Must Celebrate
Menorah Mania
(12/17, 5:30-7:30 p.m.) A Hanukkah party with all kinds of festivities: cookie decorating, make your own menorah, a life-sized dreidel game, food trucks and performances from the Klezmatics and Shul of Rock. sjcc.org

Must Crack Up
Buttcracker II
(Through 12/18, 7:30 p.m.) Tchaikovsky meets Def Leppard, Ozzy and Aerosmith, and Clairol turns jailbird in this much-demanded reboot of the irreverent parody of the classic by serious local choreographers Diana Cardiff, Sara Jinks, Jana Hill and Matt Mulkerin. facebook.com/ericksontheatre


Must Hear

Seattle Men’s Chorus
(Through 12/22, times vary) In Silver & Soul, 250 melodious voices offer holiday favorites (“Sleigh Ride,” “O Come, All Ye Faithful”), a tender David Bowie tribute, a crowd-rousing karaoke sing-along, soulful gospel harmonies and a strong closer with a disco Santa finale. seattlechoruses.org

Must Watch
Holiday Stage Events at Bathhouse Theatre
Christmastown: A Holiday Noir (Through 12/24, 7:30 p.m.) A hardboiled gumshoe dreamed up by Seattle playwright Wayne Rawley encounters a sexy elf, a nosy reporter, a used-Christmas-tree salesman and a sharp cabbie in a show that’s as crazy as a pair of waltzing mice.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Through 12/24, times vary) The Herdmans’ annual family church pageant invasion is as chaotic as a pack of actual children and grown-up pro actors can possibly make it. seattlepublictheater.org

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