Holiday lights are strung up all over the city, and Christmas shows are lighting up local stages. Just this week, the offerings run the gamut from the circus and ballet to stage and screen classics, including the sold-out screening of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” featuring star Chevy Chase tonight at the Fox.
Here are some other highlights:
‘It’s a Wonderful Life’
In American culture, “It’s a Wonderful Life” has become a Christmastime staple alongside Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” and the movie’s story is a natural for a stage adaptation.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” is the story of George Bailey, the Everyman from the small town of Bedford Falls whose dreams of escape and adventure have been quashed by family obligation and civic duty.
His guardian angel must descend on Christmas Eve to save him from despair and remind him – by showing him what life would’ve been like without him – that his life has been wonderful after all. “It’s a Wonderful Life” is being performed on the Margo and Robert Ogden Main Stage.
If you go: Opens tonight and continues through Dec. 22, 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, Spokane Civic Theatre, 1020 N. Howard St.; tickets are $35 adults, $30 seniors/military, $25 students and $15 children; available through spokanecivictheatre.com.
Article by Don Chareunsy of the Spokesman-Review
Photo by Colin Mulvany of the Spokesman-Review