Christmas movies are great but there is something about live entertainment this time of year that really fills audiences with the holiday spirit.

I am not talking about your child’s kindergarten Christmas performance or half-in-the-bag carolers who show up at your door unsolicited and belt out holiday songs while holding back a burp.

As fun as those performances can be, I am talking about professional actors, singers and dancers who will blow the roof off the joint with live performances at your local theater and are well worth your hard-earned dollars. Here are some shows playing around the state in the next few weeks that are definitely worth looking into:

If you’re in Northeast Wisconsin, be sure and check out Let Me
Be Frank Production’s “Frank’s Christmas.” Frank Hermans is a frequent guest on “Nite Lite” and is a Fox Valley and Green Bay favorite. His shows have been selling out the Meyer Theatre and other Wisconsin venues for the last two decades. They are packed with great music, comedy and at time are even interactive.

“Frank’s Christmas” runs Nov. 29 through Dec. 27 at the Meyer and there is a special performance Dec. 8 at the Southern Door Community Auditorium. Check it out.

If there is classical music that is synonymous with Christmas, it’s “The Nutcracker.” If you’re in the Madison area and looking for some good live entertainment and have never seen this show, I highly recommend it. The ballet with Sugarplum fairies, waltzing flowers and classical Christmas music first debuted Dec. 18, 1892 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and stills sells out all over the world a 130 years later.

You can see “The Nutcracker” from Dec. 13 through Dec. 22 at the Overture Center in Madison’s Overture Hall. The Overture is a stunning facility with state of the art acoustics and the Madison Ballet has had an excellent reputation since its inception in the early 1980s. Tickets for the Nutcracker are on sale now and start at just $25.

If you live in the Milwaukee area or are up for a fun holiday road trip from wherever you reside in our great state, do whatever you can to see “A Christmas Carol” at the Pabst Theater in downtown Milwaukee. The Charles Dickens classic is one of the most well-known Christmas stories ever and as usual is performed by the Milwaukee Rep.

“A Christmas Carol” is the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge who over the course of one night is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. Because of a few harrowing moments during the show, the recommended ages for attendees are ages 6 and above, but word on the street is they aren’t checking IDs very thoroughly. Tickets start as low as $15. At those prices, you can afford not to check it out!

With three weekends to go before Christmas, why not take a Wisconsin Christmas tour and check out all three?

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