Grace Diaz Tootle directs the Little Theatre of Savannah’s annual Holiday Cabaret at the Freight Station, Friday through Sunday this week and picking up again the following weekend.
“It’s simply just a fun evening with holiday music – singing, stories and refreshments – a relaxing, family get–together around our grand piano,” says Little Theatre board president Monica McDermott.
Featuring a large cast of Little Theatre regulars, Holiday Cabaret isn’t part of the company’s regular season; instead, it’s meant to be a warm and toasty, chestnut–roasty celebration of home, hearth and family.
There is, of a course, a bittersweet aspect to this show, as it’s the last one the Little Theatre will be doing at the Freight Station, its permanent home for more than two years now.
“It’s been a great space,” McDermott says. “Every theater–type person who’s walked through the door has loved the flexibility of the space. There’s just not that much out there that has that.
“We really did like having a home for a while, because we’ve been a gypsy company for a bit. And we’re going to go back to our gypsy roots. But it was an important step for us to downsize at this time, before we get to the point where we’re forced to do something.”
The Little Theatre of Savannah will return in the summer of 2010, she promises, with a big musical production. The site has yet to be determined.
For details on Holiday Cabaret, see www.littletheatreofsavannah.org.
Acoustic holiday
A handful of the area’s finest singer/songwriters will perform Thursday, Dec. 17 at the Sentient Bean as a benefit for West Broad Street YMCA’s Christmas Miracle on May Street. Check out Lauren Lapointe, Dare Dukes, Jan Spillane, Eric Britt and Mark Carter – plus a couple of Savannah poets! – all giving of their time and talents, for the donation of new (or gently used) toy.
Yours truly, as it turns out, will be performing as well, guitar in hand.
The show starts at 7 p.m., and donations will be gratefully accepted. Call (912) 232–4447 to learn more.
And still more
• The Lady Chablis returns to the cabaret stage at Club One for the annual Children’s Toy Drive and Holiday Party Thursday, Dec. 10. Chablis and the Club One Cabaret cast do their thing at 9 p.m., while rock ‘n’ rolling Liquid Ginger plays at the 7 p.m. reception, and later as well. Your $20 (or a non–wrapped new toy of equal or greater value) gets you in, plus complimentary hors d’ouvres and cocktails, and will benefit Greenbriar Childrens Center and SCMPD’s Koppa Clause. Club One is at 1 Jefferson St.
• Choreographer Muriel Miller’s Abeni Cultural Arts puts on its third annual Christmas show at 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12. Abeni features kids, Miller explains, from “age 2 to adult.” It’s an evening of dance, music and poetry, a holiday fundraiser for the Feed the Need food drive, sponsored by the Chatham–Savannah Youth Futures Authority & St. Pius Family Resource Center. Admission is by donation; the show will be at St. Pius, 705 E. Anderson St.
• The Music Ministry of Christ Church (Anglican) annual Festival of Lessons and Carols is Sunday, Dec. 13 at 10:30 a.m. It’s free at Historic Christ Church, 28 Bull Street.
• The Savannah Philharmonic Chorus’ annual holiday performance, Carols in the Cathedral, takes place at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 18 in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. More on this in next week's Connect Savannah.
