Getting Through the Holidays

I'm not going to any real Christmas parties this year, which is a little disappointing. My office will be having a "holiday dinner" at a restaurant next Monday (as I am the only full-time member of the staff who is not Jewish, I suppose a Christmas party would be asking a lot) and I'm going to an ugly holiday sweater party on Thursday, but I imagine that will feel like a regular house party except that everyone will be wearing bright colors. So when my friend Eddie told me he was singing in a Christmas medley show at the famous Birdland jazz club, I didn't hesitate to say I'd be there. Birdland is a lot of fun, I love watching Eddie perform, and I felt I was in need of some Christmas spirit.

The show was run by Zach James, a college friend of Eddie's who studied opera. Zach has been extremely successful, performing on Broadway not once but three times. Currently he plays Lurch in the long-running Addam's Family.  He certainly looks the part: he's very tall and thin, but at the same time seems too cheerful and good-natured to play the role. He emceed the show, entitled "Getting Through the Holidays," and sang quite a few of the numbers and was really wonderful.

Zach in the role of Lurch

Zach explained that he'd "gotten some friends together" to do the event, and I was struck by what a statement like that means for someone like that as the show went on.  Eddie's number, "The Oogy-Boogy Man" from The Nightmare Before Christmas was the first one, and he was fantastic. He really hammed it up and had the audience in stitches. A classically trained opera diva sang "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," a version replete with extremely dramatic arpeggios in odd places.  A crooner with slicked-back hair joined Zach in a duet of "Silent Night." A friend of Eddie's in a slinky black dress with feathers in her hair sang a jazzy song about New Year's. A short, older, very Jewish woman did a few minutes of stand-up-style comedy before treating us to an overly phlegmy version of "Silent Night" in Yiddish. And a frumpy drag queen named Bertha, the self-titled "Hausfrau of the Heartland" did a hilarious act in tights and a red dress trimmed with white fur. It was, needless to say, quite a show.

I left full of martinis and the holiday spirit, feeling thankful that if I can't be a Broadway star, at least I can hang out with them.