Your weekend arts forecast: Quiche, Christmas cheer and holiday tuneage

‘Twas the week before Christmas, and five lesbians were on Zoom, eating a quiche.

You read that right. Tampa’s Stageworks Theatre Company enters the virtual holiday fray Sunday with a reunion of the 2017 cast of the zany 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche. The Evan Liner/Andrew Hobgood comedy brings together the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein on a quintet quest for truth, justice, freedom from Cold War communism and the secret of life in 1956 Middle America.

Say hello – again – to Karla Hartley, Kari Goetz, Jamie Giangrande-Holcom, Nicole Jeannine Smith and Emily Belvo.

The fab five will engage in a livestream reading of the play, dish dirt, answer questions and be otherwise fabulous at 7 p.m.; you can get tickets for the event here.

Soledade and Najar

2020 Jazz Holiday

Guitarist Nate Najar giftwraps his annual Jazz Holiday show, via livestream, Friday at 8 p.m. from the Palladium Theatre. Nate will be joined by his most frequent collaborator, Brazilian vocalist Daniela Soledade, plus a killer band including Joe Porter, bass, Jean Bolduc, drums, plus special musical guests Daniela Soledade, vocals, Adrian Cunningham, sax and clarinet, James Suggs, trumpet, and Yves Dharamraj, cello. Tickets are here.

Christmas at Sundial

Santa – yeah, that guy – will be at Sundial Friday and Saturday, and again Tuesday and Wednesday, to take photos with kids in his bright, colorful sleigh, which happens to be equipped with a plexiglass safety divider, and will be sanitized (by elves, they say) between photos. The pictures are free, between 5 and 8 p.m. each day. AND there’ll be snow falling from above every 30 minutes between 6 and 9:30 p.m., right there in the Sundial courtyard.

The big man clearly gets around, because he’ll be at North Straub Park Friday through Wednesday (Dec. 23), from 6-9 p.m. to say hello to the little ones.

Making spirits bright with music

The annual Holiday Pops concert has come and gone, but The Florida Orchestra has a few more gifts under the tree. Classical Christmas, with Daniel Black conducting, is socially-distanced at the Mahaffey Theater at 11 a.m. today (Thursday, Dec. 17), and again at 2 and 5 p.m. Sunday. Tickets and info here.

And the St. Petersburg Opera “popera” performance of the Holiday Sparkle concert happens at Cage Brewing at 4 p.m. Friday and Sunday. Get hooked up here.

Stocking stuffers

American Stage’s virtual production of It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play begins Friday; while A Christmas Carol: In Concert is already in full swing, as a drive-in live show at freeFall Theatre. And the amazing drama Nosotros La Gente is still running, virtually, at American Stage). 

Out of the bottle

St. Petersburg native Anthony Murphy, who plays the Genie in ongoing national and international tours of Disney’s Aladdin, performs in concert (virtually) Saturday from thestudio@620. It’s Gonna Be A Great Day, fusing jazz, soul and Broadway, starts at 7 p.m. on the studio’s Facebook page, carrying a suggested donation of $10.

We’ll go close-up with Anthony Friday in the Catalyst.

Anthony Murphy in “Aladdin.” Photo: Disney on Broadway