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      The Ultimate Brenda Lee Primer

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      Listen to 11 songs that show she’s more than her classic, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”Brenda Lee is most known for “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” but she was also a prolific chart-topper in the 1960s.Gabriel McCurdy for The New York TimesDear listeners,Sitting at No. 8 on this week’s Billboard Hot 100 — right between a sleek hit from the 20-year-old pop star Tate McRae and the latest offering from Taylor Swift’s vault — is a 65-year-old song, sung by an artist who is about to turn 79. Which, if you do the math (I’ll wait), means that artist recorded it when she was just 13.That song is the holiday anthem “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and the artist is Brenda Lee, an icon of American music I was lucky enough to interview in her Nashville home a few weeks ago, for a profile published earlier this week. Christmas classics often have a longer tail than most pop songs, but the emphasis that Billboard places on streaming numbers now means that some of those classics climb (and even top) the charts each December. The fact that this year marks the 65th anniversary of “Rockin’” is also giving it an added boost.But the reason I wanted to profile Lee is to remind people that she is much, much more than her Christmas standard. In the 1950s, the petite firecracker was an early pioneer of rock ’n’ roll, her raspy voice providing a fitting soundtrack for teenage rebellion. But she could also win over those teenagers’ parents with sophisticated ballads that recalled crooners three times her age. Though the Georgia-born Lee was marketed as a pop act, she was a Southern girl at heart, and in the 1970s she settled in Nashville and was a consistent presence on the country charts.Lee is a local legend in Music City, but in the wider world she’s not quite a household name — at least not compared to her peers. She is among the four artists who charted the most singles in the 1960s, a whopping 47. Who are the others? Oh, just Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Ray Charles.For today’s playlist, I want to show why Lee deserves the same respect as those marquee names. To show her impressive range, I’ve selected some of her early rockabilly numbers (“Sweet Nothin’s,” “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”), her most heartstring-tugging ballads (“I’m Sorry,” “Emotions”) and a few of her later country hits (“Nobody Wins,” “Big Four Poster Bed”). By the time you’re done listening, you’ll understand why they call her Little Miss Dynamite.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. “Sweet Nothin’s”One of Lee’s most enduringly cool classics, this song — recorded when she was just 14 — is a showcase not only for her soulful vocals, but for the sharp production style of her longtime collaborator Owen Bradley. It’s a testament to his innovative ear that the song would be sampled long after its release, first in the backing vocals of Prince’s sparse 1986 smash “Kiss,” and later in the “uh-huh, honey” that recurs throughout Kanye West’s 2013 single “Bound 2.” (Listen on YouTube)2. “Emotions”The sumptuous atmosphere, smoky crooning and vaguely eerie strings — how has this 1961 torch song not yet been used in a David Lynch movie? (Listen on YouTube)3. “Dynamite”This is the song that gave Brenda Lee the nickname “Little Miss Dynamite,” a moniker that stuck so long that she used it as the title of her 2002 autobiography. If you were to listen to it out of context, you’d probably think the person singing it, with her bluesy growl and intuitive phrasing, was a woman of at least 25. So viewers of the country music showcase “Ozark Jubilee” must have been shocked to see it performed on TV by an unbelievably precocious 12-year-old dressed like Shirley Temple. (Listen on YouTube)4. “Nobody Wins”Let’s jump ahead to the later part of Lee’s career with this 1972 tune penned by a then up-and-coming talent who represented country music’s future: Kris Kristofferson. “Nobody Wins” was one of the songs that heralded Lee’s return to her country roots, while also displaying a new richness and maturity in her voice. (Listen on YouTube)5. “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”First recorded by the Black, Nashville-based group Alvin Gaines & the Themes, this 1959 ditty finds Lee leaning into the rockabilly sound that suited her voice so well. (Listen on YouTube)6. “I Want to Be Wanted (Per Tutta La Vida)”One of my absolute favorite Brenda Lee vocal performances, this wrenching ballad — originally written in Italian by the songwriters Pino Spotti and Alberto Testa as an entry in a local song contest — topped the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1960, becoming Lee’s second No. 1 hit. She was still just 15 when she recorded “I Want to Be Wanted,” effectively blending the song’s emotional maturity with some good ol’ teenage melodrama. (Listen on YouTube)7. “Big Four Poster Bed”Another later country hit for Lee, released in 1974, this rollicking tune poignantly charts a family’s history through a handmade bed that is passed down from generation to generation. For Lee, it’s a relatively rare foray into narrative storytelling, but it was written by someone who certainly knew how to spin a yarn: Shel Silverstein. (Listen on YouTube)8. “Break It to Me Gently”One of Lee’s greatest heartbreak ballads, “Break It to Me Gently” from 1963 — featured in an early episode of “Mad Men” — represents the more sophisticated, supper-club side of her artistry. (Listen on YouTube)9. “That’s All You Gotta Do”This upbeat Jerry Reed-penned 1960 single shows that Lee can pull off R&B, too. (Listen on YouTube)10. “Dum Dum”A sassy, slinky, gum-smacking Top 10 hit from her 1961 album “All the Way,” this song demonstrates some of the sonic changes that were taking place in rock ’n’ roll as the 1950s became the 1960s — and how well suited Lee was to adapting to them. (Listen on YouTube)11. “I’m Sorry”Lee’s first No. 1 hit was this dreamy, contrite 1960 ballad, which she imbued with an emotional wisdom well beyond her years. It also has an unexpected connection to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” When Lee’s holiday single was first released in 1958, she wasn’t yet very well known, so it failed to chart. After the success of “I’m Sorry,” though, her savvy label rereleased “Rockin’” to capitalize on Lee’s newfound popularity. The rest is history. (Listen on YouTube)Uh-huh, honey,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Ultimate Brenda Lee Primer” track listTrack 1: “Sweet Nothin’s”Track 2: “Emotions”Track 3: “Dynamite”Track 4: “Nobody Wins”Track 5: “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”Track 6: “I Want to Be Wanted (Per Tutta La Vida)”Track 7: “Big Four Poster Bed”Track 8: “Break It to Me Gently”Track 9: “That’s All You Gotta Do”Track 10: “Dum Dum”Track 11: “I’m Sorry”Bonus TracksSpeaking of profiles of legends, here’s Jon Pareles on Peter Gabriel, whose new album “I/O” is out today.And in this week’s Playlist, we have new music from Beyoncé, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Oxlade and more. Listen here. More

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      Brenda Lee, a Queen of Christmas and So Much More

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      “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” has been a holiday staple for 65 years. But Lee, who recorded it at 13, has never rested on her laurels.On a balmy day 65 years ago, a 13-year-old girl walked into a Nashville recording studio decorated with colored lights, garlands and a Christmas tree, the air conditioning cranked up to approximate a late-December chill. Members of the A Team, the session musicians who churned out hits for everyone in town, gamely donned Santa hats.As she had many times before, the young singer laid down a raspy rockabilly vocal way beyond her years, then packed up and went home, hardly imagining that the result would outlive most of the people in the room.“I would’ve never thought in my wildest dreams that ‘Rockin’ would be my signature song,” Brenda Lee said on a recent afternoon in her wood-paneled Nashville house, which is filled with gold and platinum record plaques and personalized memorabilia. To Lee, the song is just “Rockin’.” Always. Only a crimson pillow in her living room is embroidered with its full title: “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”As if frozen at the precocious age when she became famous, Lee, now 78, still stands at a diminutive 4”9’ — maybe 4”11” with the hair — and wears a size 2½ shoe. (She shops in the children’s footwear section, or brings an empty suitcase to fill when she’s in Thailand, the only place she’s found adult shoes that fit.) Clad in a sequined red pantsuit, her petite frame immersed in an oversized leather chair, Lee sipped a Diet Coke (“I’m addicted”) and reminisced about her Christmas classic that even after her retirement, is still climbing the charts. “I think I’m making more now than I did when I was singing,” she said, and laughed.Johnny Marks — who penned Christmas classics including “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Holly Jolly Christmas” — wrote “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” with Lee in mind. She was a child prodigy whose explosive vocal talent had earned the nickname “Little Miss Dynamite.” When he sent her a demo, she was extra impressed because Marks was Jewish.Lee’s voice was nimble: She could excite teenagers with rockabilly hits like “Sweet Nothin’s” and win over their parents by crooning ballads like “Emotions.” Rob Verhorst“I said, ‘Johnny! You don’t even believe in Christmas! How did you write this song?,’” she recounted. On a recent vacation, he explained, he’d been lying on a beach and was mesmerized by distant trees swaying in the ocean breeze. It almost seemed like they were … rocking. And unto us, a Christmas standard was born.Not that it was an immediate success. “Rockin’” arrived in 1958, but failed to make waves. Then in 1960, after Lee had her first No. 1 hit with the wrenching ballad “I’m Sorry,” her label, Decca Records, attempted to capitalize on her newfound popularity and rerelease her Christmas tune. It worked: The song hit No. 14 that holiday season, and throughout the ’60s it continued to chart in December.Prominent placement in the hit 1990 movie “Home Alone” introduced the song to a new generation. In more recent years, thanks to streaming, back-catalog Christmas music has become more lucrative than ever, and Lee’s tune — along with newer holiday standards like “Last Christmas” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” — has made annual appearances on the Billboard Hot 100.“She is living proof of how important you can be and how long you can last if you’re talented and you work hard and you truly love people,” the country singer Tanya Tucker said in an email. Lee inducted Tucker into the Country Music Hall of Fame in October, and people are still talking about the dry delivery and killer comic timing of her speech. Lee has, Tucker added, “the best sense of humor known to man (or woman).”For the past four years, “Rockin’” has peaked at No. 2, but in honor of its 65th anniversary, Lee’s label is giving the song an extra push, including a new music video that features Lee lip-syncing to the tune she recorded as a teen, and even a TikTok account. Only one woman and her whistle register seem to stand in the way of this decades-old song hitting No. 1.“Now I gotta worry about Mariah,” Lee said with a feisty laugh. “Get outta here, girl!” Growing more serious, she added, “Oh, there’s room for everybody. Her song’s good, too. I love her singing.”Lee and Carey have never met, but they would certainly have a lot to talk about — like how it feels to have a groundbreaking, history-making career reduced in the popular imagination to a seasonal novelty. Because while Brenda Lee is a Christmas queen, she’s also so much more.A LOT OF PEOPLE have stories. Brenda Lee has stories. She first met Elvis Presley in 1957 (“He was the pretty Elvis then”) when she was 12, the night she made her Grand Ole Opry debut; he was watching in the wings. “I’m never star-struck by anyone, and I’ve met the biggest,” she said. “But I was tongue-tied when I met him.”Patsy Cline was her early tour mate and mentor (“a good old broad, in the nicest sense of the word”). While still in her teens, Lee shared bills with Little Richard, Chubby Checker, Dusty Springfield — the list is seemingly endless. In 1962, at the peak of her worldwide popularity, while in Hamburg on tour, the Beatles opened for her. “They were raw musically,” she said, “but they were fabulous.” The admiration was mutual: Years later, in a Rolling Stone interview, John Lennon declared that Lee “has the greatest rock ’n’ roll voice of them all.”She’s still not quite sure where that voice came from. “I ask myself that sometimes,” she mused. “It’s just how I sing.” Raised poor (“you spell that ‘p-o-o-o-o-r,’ with four o’s,” she wrote in her 2002 autobiography) in the red clay of east Georgia, Brenda Mae Tarpley was born on Dec. 11, 1944. By age 3 she was standing on the counter at the general store, singing for change, and by 7 performing Hank Williams tunes on Atlanta TV.She was a preternaturally quick study, picking up the hiccuping vocal style she heard Williams use on the radio as well as the growl of a bluesman who played around town, blending them into a unique style made even more remarkable by the fact it was coming out of the mouth of a girl who looked and dressed like Shirley Temple. Lee got her national break at 11, performing “Jambalaya” on the popular “Ozark Jubilee”; a recording contract with Decca soon followed. Her debut single billed her as “Little Brenda Lee (9 years old).” “Apparently,” Lee wrote, “being 11 wasn’t dramatic enough.”“I would’ve never thought in my wildest dreams that ‘Rockin’ would be my signature song,” Lee said.Gabriel McCurdy for The New York TimesBy then, though, Lee was already the family’s sole breadwinner. When she was 8, her construction-worker father died after a hammer dropped on his head. To support her mother and two siblings, she developed a tireless work ethic, booking countless studio sessions and touring relentlessly. “We went by car and I slept up in the back window, that’s how little I was,” she said. “I just loved it so much that I didn’t mind the hardship. And I was young.”Lee’s voice was nimble: She could excite teenagers with rockabilly hits like “Sweet Nothin’s” — Presley’s favorite Lee song, which was many years later sampled by Kanye West — and win over their parents by crooning ballads like “Emotions.” Her ability to straddle the worlds of pop, rock and country made her a constant fixture on the hit parade. Lee had the fourth most chart hits in the 1960s (47), surpassed only by Elvis, the Beatles and Ray Charles. She was the first woman to be inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.Lee was also one of the first American pop stars to find an international audience. At the time, she said, most artists didn’t want to give up domestic tour dates. Lee realized how shortsighted that approach was the first time she went to Japan and was greeted by a crowd holding “BLFC” signs: “Brenda Lee Fan Club.” She returned 31 more times. “They love you if you’ll come,” she said, sitting beside a sepia-toned globe several times larger than her head. “All they ask is that you come, and I loved to go.”Lee’s house is cluttered with souvenirs from her travels and mementos from her peers. A sketch by Elton John sits on the piano, alongside a close-up photograph of Keith Richards’s hand, skull rings and all (“because it’s so distinct,” Lee said, adding, “He loves me. He’s a fun guy, too.”). Cyndi Lauper — an acolyte Lee particularly admires — once visited and left her lipstick in the bathroom. “And I’ve still got it,” Lee said, and giggled mischievously. “I’m Hector the Collector. Like the Shel Silverstein book. That’s just me.”IN 1961, LEE booked a three-week stint headlining Las Vegas’s Sahara Hotel. The previous headliner had been her idol, Judy Garland, and when Lee arrived, she approached Garland as she was lounging by the pool. Lee still remembers the encounter vividly: “I said, ‘Miss Garland?’ And she looked up and I said, ‘Uh, my name is Brenda Lee and I’m an artist and I love you.’” Lee asked Garland if she had any showbiz advice. “She took those sunglasses off and she looked at me and she never faltered. And she said, ‘Don’t let anyone take your childhood.’”Lee credits the support of those around her for helping her avoid the tragic fate of so many child stars. “I had people that cared about me,” she said, like her longtime manager Dub Allbritten. “He respected my wishes.” She continued to attend high school in Nashville when she could, and if something came up on her social calendar — “so-and-so’s graduation party” — Allbritten would let her prioritize that over the road. That autonomy was important to her. “I didn’t do that very often,” Lee said. “But I knew I could.”And then there’s Ronnie Shackett, the impossibly tall guy she once spied across the aisle at a Jackie Wilson concert. Lee passed him a note: “Hi, my name’s Brenda, here’s my number. But I’m going to be gone for three months in Europe, working.” When she got back, he called. “Sometimes it works,” she said. They married in 1963.Midway through our conversation, Shackett walked through the living room. “Fifty-seven years,” Lee marveled.“It’s more than that, Brenda,” Shackett said. “We had a daughter in ’64.”Lee is the first woman inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.Gabriel McCurdy for The New York Times“I guess it is more than that,” Lee said. She paused for a moment to do the math and then clapped her hands in delight. “Sixty years! Lord. And he’s a good man. I lucked out.”When Lee thinks back on her days recording with Bradley and the A Team, she mourns a version of the industry that doesn’t exist anymore. “I miss all of them that are gone tremendously because they were my friends,” she said. She can’t believe what often passes for a session in the digital age. “It just seems like now, you don’t even see the musicians,” she said. “You go in and sing to a track. The musicians always gave me my energy.”“There’s no standards being written today,” Lee added. “And that hurts me, ’cause I go back to the ’60s all the time and listen to those songs. They’re still played all the time, ’cause they were good. They were done with people that loved what they did.”Still, she added, there’s plenty of talent in Nashville today — “it’s oozing” — and she’s just glad she doesn’t have to compete with it. Despite the renewed attention to “Rockin,’” Lee retired from singing publicly in 2020. “God has blessed me that I don’t miss it,” she said. “I love to sing, but I can get that out of my system right here. I can go in the shower and sing. Good acoustics.”She admitted that there’s nothing like the thrill of singing before a crowd, trying to win over the skeptics. But she’s traded that in for something else. “I can finally put my kids and my grandkids and my friends first,” she said. “For once, I’m here to see them.”After 65 years of traveling the world, Lee has earned her rest. That’s not to say she won’t break out into an impromptu tune now and then; she recently went viral for surprising passengers by singing “Rockin’” on a plane intercom. Just don’t expect to see her on the road. “If somebody said, ‘Brenda, we’re coming to get you in the bus,’” she said in no uncertain terms, “I’d say, ‘Oh, no you’re not.’” More

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      Why You Love (or Love to Hate) Christmas Music

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      Like the holiday season itself, the nostalgia that Christmas music evokes can be emotionally charged.It’s been a little over one year since the Backstreet Boys released their Christmas album, “A Very Backstreet Christmas,” and Francine Biondo has had it on repeat ever since.To be fair, Ms. Biondo, 39, a child care provider in Ontario, Canada, is a fan of Nick Carter and maybe even a bigger fan of Christmas music. The Christmas season was in full swing for her by mid-November, with plans to decorate a tree. Although she typically begins listening to holiday music after Halloween, she is known to sprinkle in a little Christmas cheer during the summer.“It just puts me in a happy, feel-good mood,” she said by phone of songs like Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” adding that they invoked happy memories of her childhood.For Ms. Biondo, the songs do more than get her into the holiday spirit, they also boost her productivity. “To be honest, I need music to just get me through the day,” she said. “I need music when I’m cleaning the house and just doing the daily things, it kind of helps motivate me. Christmas music, especially around that time of year, it just’s more fun.”She might be on to something.Daniel Levitin, an author and musician in Los Angeles and a professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, said research has shown that most people in Western countries use music to self-soothe. “They know that there are certain kinds of music that will put them in a good mood,” he said. “Christmas music is a reliable one for a lot of people.”The healing effects of music have long been studied. Mr. Levitin participated in a 2013 study that concluded that music boosts the body’s immune system and reduces stress.Mr. Levitin said that listening to a song that has not been heard in a long time can transport a person back in time. “That’s the power of music to evoke a memory,” he said. “With those memories come emotions and possibly nostalgia, or anger, or frustration, depending on your childhood.”For the people who find joy in Christmas music, the brain may increase serotonin levels and may release prolactin a soothing and tranquilizing hormone that is released between mothers and infants during nursing, Mr. Levitin said.Conversely, if negative memories and feelings are associated with Christmas, the same songs could cause the brain to release cortisol, the stress hormone that increases the heart rate, and trigger the amygdala, the brain’s fear center. “There are a lot of people who, when Christmas time comes around, they just want to run home and put their head under the covers and wait it all out,” Mr. Levitin said.Christmas music, like all forms of music, is powerful. But this genre is perhaps more potent than other forms of music because the holiday season itself is emotionally charged. It represents the ideals that most humans strive for like equality, tolerance, love and tranquillity. “For some of us, that’s an inspiring message,” Mr. Levitin said. “For others of us, it just draws in stark relief how far we are from achieving that.”Yuletide music sung to celebrate the winter solstice has been around for thousands of years, some even predating Christianity, according to Alisa Clapp-Itnyre, an English professor at Indiana University East. These songs were sung in communal, secular settings and as early as the third century, Christianity adapted Yuletide festivals for celebrations of Jesus’ birth. Then, stories of Jesus were woven into carols, which were still sung in communal settings, even across class divides.“During the dark months of winter, it brought people together for celebration and generosity,” Professor Clapp-Itnyre said, adding that she thinks this still happens today in various forms, like the Salvation Army holding donation drives and carols being sung in nursing homes.By the 20th century, secular Christmas songs like “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “White Christmas” began reflecting the grief people were facing and brought solace, particularly to World War II soldiers who could not be home for Christmas. “These songs are becoming popular during the war because people are seeking something traditional, something that they used to know of family and peace and those good traditions, even as their whole world is being blown to smithereens,” Professor Clapp-Itnyre said.The positive feelings associated with Christmas music are something Vanessa Parvin, the owner of Manhattan Holiday Carolers, a holiday entertainment company, knows well. Ms. Parvin, 45, has been singing Christmas music professionally since 1999.Part of the joy, she said, is “adding to other people’s holiday magic experience and nostalgia,” which can mean honoring song requests that remind guests of their childhoods or relatives who have died.While she has a memorized repertoire of about 90 Christmas songs, there is one that invokes memories of her own family. “‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ was my grandmother’s favorite, so that doesn’t make me think of caroling,” she said. “It makes me think of my grandmother and my mother.” More

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      Theater to See in N.Y.C. This Holiday Season

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      Christmas classics, comedic musicals and a star-studded Sondheim revival: a guide to the shows to see this season.The holiday season is upon us, which means it’s an excellent time for theatergoers to pack into cozy venues for a feast of the eyes. Our critics have selected a handful of options for tourists and locals looking to catch up on Broadway and Off Broadway shows this holiday season. And we’ve included some other choices as well.For those who prefer to be entertained from home, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year will feature performances by Broadway shows like “& Juliet,” “Back to the Future: The Musical,” “How to Dance in Ohio,” “Shucked” and “Spamalot,” along with an appearance by Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells of “Gutenberg! The Musical!”Other theater-related streaming options include “Dicks: The Musical,” with Nathan Lane, and the 2015 documentary that the “How to Dance in Ohio” musical is based on.Here is a selection of notable shows onstage in New York City.Fun for the Whole FamilyBig Apple CircusStraw hats thrown like Frisbees. Death-defying aerial acts. Dizzying foot juggling routines. All accompany the contortionist, trapeze and tightrope circus classics that spectators young and old have come to ooh and aah at. This year, Big Apple presents “Journey to the Rainbow,” a collaboration with the German troupe Circus Theater Roncalli, complete with humans dressed as polar bears and cotton candy galore. Through Jan. 1 at Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center, Manhattan. Read the review.Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City RockettesIt’s a New York City classic. It’s a Christmas classic. The Rockettes are back with sensational high kicks set to state-of-the-art lighting and projections. Little ones will be dazzled by animated trains, ribbons and wintry displays. Their adult companions will delight in a Nativity procession and holiday maximalism. Through Jan. 1 at Radio City Music Hall, Manhattan. Read the review.A Christmas CarolSet in a home built in 1862, in an intimate parlor room, this telling of the timeless Christmas tale stars John Kevin Jones as Charles Dickens. Audience members, surrounded by 19th-century holiday décor and candlelight, will travel back more than a century, to when Dickens wrote the story. The production also features a streaming version. Through Dec. 24 at the Merchant House, Manhattan.Craving Song and DanceSweeney ToddJosh Groban stars on Broadway as everyone’s favorite tall, dark and handsome throat slitter. Opposite the demon barber is a superbly zany Annaleigh Ashford as the murder-accomplice-baker Mrs. Lovett (our critic called her “a brilliant comic for whom comedy is not the end but the means”). The two stars will leave the production after the Jan. 14 performance, so be sure to catch them in full bloody glory before they go. Come for the meat pies and Stephen Sondheim’s gigantic score, stay for the shadowy lighting, which won Natasha Katz her eighth Tony Award. At the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, Manhattan. Read the review.Merrily We Roll AlongJonathan Groff stars alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez in this acclaimed revival of the former Sondheim flop, directed by Maria Friedman. Our critic called the show, which sweetly and gravely warns of the dangers of great ambition, “a palpable hit,” with “a thrillingly fierce central performance” by Groff and “high-wattage, laser-focused performances” by Radcliffe and Mendez. Through March 24 at the Hudson Theater, Manhattan. Read the review.Jonathan Groff, obscured, Daniel Radcliffe, aloft, and Katie Rose Clarke in the musical “Merrily We Roll Along” at the Hudson Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHere We AreUnderfed and yet very full: Will the people who have it all ever find something to eat? Inspired by two Luis Buñuel films, David Ives’s chic, surrealist musical was one of the most anticipated Off Broadway shows of the year, and a star-studded farewell to Sondheim’s final work. Through Jan. 21 at the Shed, Manhattan. Read the review.StereophonicFive members of a rock band try to record a studio album. That’s the premise, which hinges upon heartache, copious drug use and fragile rock star egos, of David Adjmi’s first New York production since 2013, set entirely in a recording studio. It’s a play, not a musical, so it’s not squarely in the song-and-dance category, but the music, written by Will Butler (formerly of Arcade Fire), is chock-full of captivating pop songs and gripping ballads. Through Dec. 17 at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan. Read the review.For the FaithfulPurlie VictoriousLeslie Odom Jr. and Kara Young star in Ossie Davis’s raucous 1961 comedy, directed by Kenny Leon, about a charismatic preacher who must outwit a plantation owner to buy and restore the local church. The play exposes racism as laughably absurd in a Broadway revival our critic called “scathingly funny.” Through Feb. 4 at the Music Box, Manhattan. Read the review.Leslie Odom Jr. and Kara Young, center, lead the ensemble cast in a revival of Ossie Davis’s 1961 play, “Purlie Victorious,” at the Music Box Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesCovenantIn his New York debut, the playwright York Walker’s Southern gothic, directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene, follows a small Georgia town’s reaction to a bluesman’s homecoming. The potent little Off Broadway play, about communing with God and making deals with the Devil, is based on the real-life bluesman Robert Johnson, whose technique inspired rumors that he had traded his soul for musical genius. Through Dec. 17 at Roundabout Underground, Manhattan. Read the review.Nearing ExpirationShuckedIf a cornucopia of puns is your thing, this lowbrow comedic musical about a small-town woman who leaves home to save her corn just might scratch the itch. With a book by Robert Horn, songs by the country music songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally and campy scenes — including a mini-kickline of plastic corncobs — directed by Jack O’Brien, our critic called the show low humor “but hard not to laugh at.” Through Jan. 14 at the Nederlander Theater, Manhattan. Read the review.Sleep No MoreArguably one of New York City’s crown jewels of immersive theater, the Hitchcock-style take on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” is set to close on Jan. 28 after 12 years. In an enchanting act of voyeurism, audiences members wear masks — the Venetian type, not the health-protecting kind (those are optional) — and follow characters from room to room, into densely packed apothecary dens, eerie miniature forests and dark, elaborate dining halls. Through Jan. 28 at the McKittrick Hotel, Manhattan. Read the review. More

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      Hallmark Christmas Movies Are Falling for Europe

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      More and more of the cozy Christmas movies on Hallmark and Lifetime are set on the continent. But onscreen, it’s a Europe doused in holiday magic.Christmas is magical. Christmas is inescapable.And, according to an increasing number of holiday movies, it’s in Europe.Browse Hallmark and Lifetime’s channels, and you will find a Christmas in Rome. In Vienna. In Switzerland. In Scotland. In Notting Hill. We’re having a Belgian Chocolate Christmas. A jolly good Christmas. A merry Scottish Christmas and even a merry Swissmas. You can enjoy a Heidelberg holiday and a Joyeux Noel (that one’s in France).Europe, with its cobblestoned streets (a nightmare in heels), old buildings (no central heating) and Christmas markets (those can be as good as they look onscreen), provides the perfect setting for a magical holiday adventure.“Hallmark fans get to experience these incredible destinations through the eyes of our character,” said Ali Liebert, the director of one of the network’s 2023 offerings, “Christmas in Notting Hill.”In many of these films, an American girl is undervalued at her big city job. She leaves the city and finds a rugged local, who embodies all the wholesome values of a small town. Sometimes her love interest is a widower. Sometimes he has an adorable child, or he may have a dog. (If he lives in Scotland, the dog’s name may be Hamish.)In Netflix’s 2021 film “A Castle for Christmas,” a best-selling author (Brooke Shields) ends up in a Scottish village and falls for a local duke (Cary Elwes).Mark Mainz/NetflixCertain European spots have been deemed more appropriately Christmassy than others. (We’re yet to see “My Barcelona Christmas,” despite the December temperatures there being pretty similar to London.) In these films, Europe is awash with eligible princes from royal families presiding over countries with names like Aldovia or Cordinia, which you would be hard pressed to find on a map.And for those holiday movie fans expecting a white Christmas in England, it’s more likely you’ll get a drizzly one. The last time Britain saw a festive blanketing of snow for the holiday, the way Charles Dickens intended, was in 2010.But none of that matters. Christmas movies let you vicariously live your best European Christmas, which may be significantly better than the holidays experienced by actual Europeans.And as far as snow goes — there are visual effects for that.Hallmark is releasing 42 new holiday movies this year, with a catalog of many more, and shooting some in European locations “gives us more cultural traditions to dig into,” said Lisa Hamilton Daly, the head of programming at Hallmark Media. “Our audiences love to travel with us.”In “Christmas in Rome,” an American tour guide (Lacey Chabert) meets a business executive (Sam Page). Stefano Montesi/Crown Media United States LLCDaly is already looking ahead to next year’s Christmas, she said, adding that Hallmark crews will probably be returning to Europe for the network’s 2024 holiday movie slate.And for viewers, getting to Europe — whether it’s because of pandemic delays, high ticket prices or general travel stress during the holidays — has not gotten any easier.“U.S. audiences may not always be able to go to these exotic foreign lands,” said Dustin Rikert, the director of the new Hallmark film “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” which centers on estranged siblings in a castle in Scotland.American audiences seem to enjoy watching stories set in the beautiful Scottish countryside. In Netflix’s 2021 film “A Castle for Christmas,” a best-selling author (Brooke Shields) ends up in a Scottish village and falls in love with a local duke.In Lifetime’s 2020 film “Christmas at the Castle,” a big city girl is sent to the Scottish Highlands to find a rare fragrance. She, too, falls in love with a local.These stories and settings are pure escapism, according to David Lumsden and Toby Trueman, the director and an executive producer of “Christmas in Scotland,” a 2023 movie streaming on Plex and Xumo.Yes, “Merry Swissmas” is set in Switzerland.Lifetime“We never have white Christmases, it’s always a gray Christmas,” Trueman, who lives in Edinburgh, said. “This is not a realist film.”Lumsden has also directed other genres, including horror, and he has enjoyed the switch to holiday content. “My family rarely gets to see the stuff I do,” he said, because it’s “too scary for my niece or nephew.” Christmas movies, he added, can be watched by everyone.Movies set around the holidays have long been popular, and in the 2000s, festive romance films like “Love Actually” and “The Holiday” made big money at the box office, before joining films like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Home Alone” in the rotation of classic holiday movies.Over the past few years, Hallmark and Lifetime have bet big on cheesy, formulaic Christmas movies with a guaranteed happy ending, releasing dozens of new titles every year.These movies’ predictable and cozy nature fuels their popularity. “The formula exists for a very good reason,” Daly said. “It makes people happy.”In “Jolly Good Christmas,” a Christmas present brings Anji (Reshma Shetty) and David (Will Kemp) together in London.Rob Baker Ashton/Hallmark MediaAt the end of a Christmas movie, you know that the beautiful Scotsman (or Germanic prince or English soccer star) will end up with the ambitious American blonde (or brunette). They will kiss — and nothing else! Hands where I can see them! — at the exact moment soft snowflakes start falling.Our American heroine may even make a permanent move to that drafty old castle without modern amenities. But I digress. What happens after the credits roll is not important. More

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      A Hallmark Christmas Movie Costume Designer Shares His Secrets

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      Keith Nielsen, who oversaw costumes for four Hallmark Christmas movies out this year, shares his approach to dressing festively. (It does not involve ugly sweaters.)Several years ago, Keith Nielsen was feeling less than cheerful when a friend told him about an internship opportunity with the costume department of the TV series “Mozart in the Jungle.”After graduating from the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla., in 2015, he had hoped to find a job that merged his interests in fashion design and entertainment. When he couldn’t, he started working in retail. He said he had begun to feel depressed about his career by the time his friend mentioned the internship.His only experience in costuming had been on student films, but Mr. Nielsen, who said his grandmother had taught him to sew, got the internship. “On the ‘Mozart’ set, I listened and learned,” he said.Mr. Nielsen, now 30, worked on the show through its final season, rising from an intern to a costume coordinator. Afterward, he started to get more costuming jobs, including for productions at the Westchester Broadway Theater, now closed, and for the TV movie “My Adventures With Santa,” which was released in 2019.The movie tapped into Mr. Nielsen’s longtime fondness for Christmas, he said, and since then, he has been hired as the costume designer for about a dozen TV Christmas movies.This year, he oversaw costumes for four films: “Mystic Christmas,” a romance set in Mystic, Conn.; “Where Are You Christmas?,” a largely black-and-white movie that imagines a world without the holiday; “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” which was filmed at a castle in Scotland; and “A Biltmore Christmas,” which was filmed at Biltmore House in Asheville, N.C. All were for the Hallmark Channel.In “A Biltmore Christmas,” the actress Bethany Joy Lenz, left, wears a reworked Carolina Herrera gown. Hallmark MediaWorking with the theater helped prepare him to take on films, he said, because he learned how to better manage fittings and deadlines while becoming more familiar with outfits from different historical periods.“Keith has a deep understanding of fashion, culture and history, and an uncanny taste and style, especially for period pieces,” said Dustin Rikert, the director of “A Merry Scottish Christmas.” Mr. Rikert also worked with Mr. Nielsen on “Next Stop, Christmas,” which was broadcast in 2021. Costumes Mr. Nielsen created for that movie included the outfits worn by a time-traveling train conductor played by Christopher Lloyd.The director John Putch, who worked with Mr. Nielsen on “A Biltmore Christmas” and on “A Holiday Spectacular,” a 2022 movie featuring the Radio City Rockettes, noted his love of details. “Keith is into the shoelaces and socks people don’t see,” Mr. Putch said.Mr. Nielsen, who lives in Manchester, Conn., said many of his costume ideas originate from what he jokingly described as “my 12-year-old gay-boy mind.” (He declined to provide specific wardrobe budgets for films he has worked on as a costume designer.) In the edited interview below, he discussed the aesthetic influences that have inspired his work and the ways he has conjured the holiday spirit through clothes.Christopher Lloyd, left, and Keith Nielsen on the set of “Next Stop, Christmas.”via Keith NielsenHow do you source costumes?I read a script about four times and let my imagination run. Many holiday films are made in three weeks or fewer, so I often only have a couple of days to get fittings done.When I was costuming for theater, I started seeing old Broadway shows and going to warehouses that I still use. The vendor Right to the Moon Alice is where I get vintage items. I also get them from Ann Roth, an Oscar-winning costume designer, who has amazing pieces at her warehouse in Pennsylvania.Hallmark likes color and saturation. To get that freshness on camera, sometimes I recreate a garment so it doesn’t look like it has been sitting in a closet for 70 years.Do you ever buy clothes off the rack?I shop at outlets and online. I like J. Crew, Banana Republic and, for suits and coats, Brooks Brothers. Kate Spade has bags in bright reds and greens. I don’t like ugly Christmas sweaters.One costume in “A Biltmore Christmas” started as a Carolina Herrera gown that was bought from the RealReal. We had several fittings to re-drape the skirt, add a double-tulle layer and create a gathered bust that draped around the back. When I turn an existing garment into something else, I call it Frankenstein-ing.What has inspired your approach to costuming?I am a sap and love nostalgia and old Hollywood. Bill Travilla’s costumes for Marilyn Monroe are some of my favorites, especially those for “How to Marry a Millionaire.” I also like Arianne Phillips, who has designed costumes for film and for Madonna. I admire her breadth of work. I never want to get pigeonholed.How do locations like Biltmore House influence your process?I walked through the mansion to get ideas from the space. I remember looking at the colors of the wood paneling and of the limestone. Window shades are kept at a certain level and rooms are kept dimly lit to protect the things inside from light. It’s very romantic and cozy, and I wanted wardrobes that communicated warmth and coziness using colors besides red and green.To create a gown and a kilt worn by the stars of “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” I pulled together a bunch of tartans that went with the tapestries, candles and dark wood at the castle. We settled on MacDonald of Glencoe, a tartan with holiday-like jewel tones. The pattern was digitally printed on the fabric used to make the gown, and the kilt was made with a traditional wool tartan.What are some challenges with costuming holiday films?It’s the little things. All clothing sizes have changed: Vintage shoes are narrower than shoes are today, jackets fit differently, and girdles are gone. It’s hard to find people to do embroidery and beading.But I like classic and timeless looks because Christmas movies are watched over and over. More

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      Cher on Her First Christmas LP, a New Beau and 25 Years of ‘Believe’

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      The superstar talks about finding her recording voice again, getting Stevie Wonder (and Tyga) to appear on her holiday album and still finding the love for her hits.Though she’s been a singer and performer for six decades, Cher had never made one of pop’s most ubiquitous (and commercially viable) releases: a Christmas album. “I just didn’t want to,” she said. “I didn’t know how I would fit into it. I didn’t know how Christmas music and Cher could come together and be harmonious.”Then, suddenly — being Cher — she changed her mind. “Christmas,” out Friday, is a 13-track romp through holiday music, with guest appearances from Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Bublé, the rapper Tyga, and Darlene Love, who reprises “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”, on which Cher first sang backup at 17. “There was no way I was going to do her song without her,” she said.Just back from Paris Fashion Week, she spoke by phone from her California home, in a wide ranging conversation that touched on her affinity for assisting homeless people — “Just going and sitting down on the sidewalk, talking and interacting; I really loved it” — the time she went to Pakistan to save an elephant (there’s a documentary); and her new gelato pop-up, called, of course, Cherlato.At 77, Cher has also recently suffered loss, including the deaths of her longtime friend Tina Turner in May and of her mother, Georgia Holt, at 96, just before the holidays last year; the album is dedicated to her. But she also has reason to be hopeful, like an unexpected romance with the music producer Alexander Edwards, 40 years her junior, who encouraged her to go back in the studio, she said. He is credited as a producer on “Christmas,” and was responsible for the collab with Tyga.“It was a surprise that he got T to be on it,” she said of “Drop Top Sleigh Ride,” a syncopated track that fit with her holiday party vibe. “I knew I wanted to make something that was fun — Christmas needs to be that,” she added. “It needs to be lighthearted because, you know, who knows what next Christmas will bring.”Performances are in the works; she is also busy finishing her memoir — which, she admitted, is intense and all-consuming. “I’ve lived too long, and done too many things.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did your first musical conversations with Alexander go?He talks about music a lot and we play music a lot. And he knew from knowing me what I would like. There are certain chord progressions and sounds on any record that your body responds to, your emotions respond to. He just had me pegged so right. And he said, Cher, you need to go — well, he doesn’t call me Cher. But he said, baby, you need to get back in the studio because you are not finished. You need to bring what you have back to the world. And I was like, Oh, come on, dude. But he was serious. He didn’t even ask to produce. I just thought it would be really cool for him to do it and me to have something that was a very now sound.How did your relationship start?We’ve had a one-year anniversary. We met at Fashion Week — we were in the same picture at the end of the Ann Demeulemeester show. Then I went off to visit Tina in Switzerland.My friend gave him my number, and he texted me. I was like, Dude, this is not going to work out. Come on. I mean, he was very, very nice. We just got to be friends and then by the time we saw each other, we were more. It’s still crazy.I’m like, old enough to be his — oh, I’m probably older than his mother. It doesn’t work on paper, but it seems to work in whatever reality we’ve created.How did you prepare for the album?I haven’t sung in years. So I call my unbelievable teacher, Adrienne Angel, who I love like the sun and the moon. She’s 96; she’s been my teacher since my 40s — when I was making movies, I didn’t sing. Bernadette Peters told me that she had saved her when she was doing “Sunday in the Park with George.” Bernadette said, if you want to get your voice back, go to her. I just wanted it to sound like my voice. I didn’t want to have to lower any keys. That’s always the dead giveaway. My doctor said I have the vocal cords of a 25-year-old girl.I remember I had a conversation with Barbra Streisand once on a telethon we were doing. She leaned over and said, Cher, why are you still doing this? I was still on the road. And I said, Because there’s going to come a day where I can’t do it. And I don’t want to have thought that I could have done my art longer, and chose not to.I mean, look, you don’t usually have a very great voice at 77, right? But it seems like a lot of us are having some sort of resurgence. I don’t know what it is. Revenge of the old people.Your landmark single “Believe” is about to have a deluxe rerelease for its 25th anniversary. It helped popularize Auto-Tune.The sound for “Believe” started with an argument that Mark [Taylor, her longtime producer] and I had. The verse was not good. And he kept saying, Cher, you’ve got to sing it better, you’ve got to sing it better. And finally I said, Dude, if you want it better, get somebody else. And I walked out.And then, the next morning, I’d seen this guy, this beautiful guy [Andrew Roachford] on a morning show, singing into a vocoder. I called Mark — can we do it into a vocoder? He said, I just got this thing called a pitch machine, and I’m playing around with it.I went in later to listen and we both just jumped out of our chairs and high-fived. I said, you don’t even know it’s me! He said, Well, that’s what I was afraid of. I said, No, it’s perfect. I love this.You couldn’t have had any idea about its legacy — it changed music.No, of course not. We were just trying to fix a problem. The other day, Alexander was telling me that sometimes, when someone can’t sing all that well, they use it. That was something I didn’t really know.Do you mind that sound being associated with you?Are you kidding? I love it. I mean, young people don’t know it came from me, but it’s OK. Maybe old people don’t know either. You know what I believe? What comes to you, belongs to you. That’s my theory about life.What’s your relationship to ambition at this point in your life?Look, I’m working my ass off, so I must be ambitious. If I don’t have the love for it, I wouldn’t do it. But I’m proud of this album, too. And I love everyone on it. I never had people on my albums before, and I didn’t plan to. It kind of started with Cyn [Cyndi Lauper]. I said, I’m going to do this Christmas album, and I’m not even sure what I’m asking, but I just want to know that if I need you, that you’ll be there. She said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, fine.”And then I did a Stevie song [his rendition of “What Christmas Means to Me”], but there were parts that I just didn’t know how to access. Because it belongs to him, not to me. So I did my version, and I sent it to him. I thought I was going to have to, like, get down on bended knee — but I didn’t. He said, Cher, is it one of my songs? Do you want me to play harmonica on it? When he said yes, my sister and I were in my bedroom and I just ran around and jumped up and down on my bed. I was yelling, “Stevie Wonder is going to be on my album!”Are you watching other veteran performers now, to see how you might do things differently?I’m not going to do things differently. If people come to see you, they want you to do things they like. I remember seeing Bob Dylan — I think it was “Blood on the Tracks.” And I went to the first concert and some of the songs I went, “What is this?” He got tired of singing the songs the same way. But people really want to hear their favorite song exactly the same way. It doesn’t make any difference if I’m tired of it. I have to find it inside myself to love it and to love what I’m doing.Had you thought much about this stage of your career?I never thought I would get here. I mean, my age is so frightening. It’s like, the numbers are so big. And I keep thinking, Where did it go? I was busy working. While I was busy being Cher, how did this happen? No one’s given me any info.I still have a lot of energy and I can still be really excited about things. I live in Malibu. I can see the ocean, and that’s my favorite thing. I love my house. I’m grateful.How do you celebrate Christmas?I don’t cook, but everyone ends up at my house. Stragglers, family. We’ve got lots of kids around, and teenagers. Mostly we’re just talking and acting crazy and watching movies and hanging out. We don’t put on really Christmas music, just fun music. But music doesn’t seem to be a large part of it. Everybody’s talking too loud. More

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      SZA Spends a Third Week Atop the Album Chart With ‘SOS’

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      Mariah Carey led an avalanche of Christmas songs on Billboard’s singles chart as holiday music lingered into the last week of 2022.As 2022 drew to a close, listeners wanted to load two things on their streaming apps: SZA’s new album, and lots and lots of Christmas music.Both dominate the charts, with SZA, a New Jersey-raised R&B singer and songwriter, holding the top spot on the Billboard 200 with “SOS,” her long-awaited second LP, and Mariah Carey’s holiday war horse “All I Want for Christmas Is You” leading a storm of tinsel at the top of the Hot 100 singles list.“SOS” is No. 1 for a third time with 169 million streams in the United States, which accounted for virtually all of its 128,000 “equivalent album units,” according to Billboard and its data provider, Luminate. In the three weeks since it was released, SZA’s album has racked up a total of about 810 million clicks on streaming services.On the Hot 100, “All I Want” holds at No. 1 for a fourth time this season, and its 12th time overall. (Released in 1994, Carey’s song did not reach No. 1 until 2019.)Billboard’s weekly tracking period starts Friday, and with Christmas falling on a Sunday, the final week of the year still had four days following the holiday. But seasonal singles still dominated listening, with a total of eight tracks — all of them decades old — in the Top 10.Besides “All I Want,” they include Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” (No. 2), Bobby Helms’s “Jingle Bell Rock” (No. 3), Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (No. 4), Burl Ives’s “A Holly Jolly Christmas” (No. 5), Andy Williams’s “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” (No. 6), José Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad” (No. 7) and Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” (No. 9).The only non-holiday releases in the Top 10 are Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” (No. 8) and Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s “Unholy” (No. 10).Back on the album chart, Swift’s “Midnights” holds at No. 2, but Santa is close behind there as well: Michael Bublé’s “Christmas” is No. 3 and Cole’s “The Christmas Song” LP is No. 5. “Heroes & Villains” by the rap super-producer Metro Boomin holds at No. 4. More