The month of December is here and so are the latest offerings from BroadwayHD. The premiere streaming platform, bringing us the best of Broadway, The West End, and Hollywood, has given us some terrific gifts for the season, including a holiday playlist that caters to the yuletide spirit. Among these joyous titles include Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn (Broadway Production), A Christmas Carol, She Loves Me (Broadway Production), The Nutcracker Ballet, The MeshugaNutcracker!, and Dan Goggin’s Nuncrackers.
Many new titles are also premiering on Broadway HD this month, including the film version of the Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret, starring Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey and directed by Bob Fosse. Also on the menu are the one-man show Six Characters in Search of a Play by Del Shore, as well as Christopher Weldon’s three-act ballet, Alice in Wonderland, commissioned by the Royal Ballet. In celebration of Noel Coward’s 120th Birthday, BroadwayHD will premiere Collins Meets Coward starring Joan Collins in December. Stravinsky Staged: The Firebird and Les Noces ballets on and St. Matthew Passion in concert.
“The holidays are the perfect time to cozy up on the couch with the family, enjoy a bit of cocoa, and hours of exciting performances on BroadwayHD,” said BroadwayHD co-founders, award-winning producers and filmmakers Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley. “From the iconic Cabaret for the adults to Christopher Wheelden’s Alice in Wonderland ballet and our holiday playlist which is perfect for co-viewing with the kids, December will be a great month for viewers to check out what’s new on the service.”
Additionally, in preparation for the December premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats in movie theaters, BroadwayHD celebrates the composer’s beloved shows including a video capture of the original stage production of Cats, Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
See below for a full line-up of what BroadwayHD subscribers can see starting this December:
- December 3, 2019 – Six Characters in Search of a Play- From the Executive Producer ofQueer As Folk and the creator of the highly acclaimed films Sordid Lives and Southern Baptist Sissies, Del Shores’ one-man play brings to life six one-of-a-kind characters he has met in real life that haven’t quite made it into one of his plays, films or TV shows. In 90 minutes, the audience heard the truth behind how he collected these eccentrics and their stories as he portrays his hilarious, off-the-rails encounters with them. The play and capture were directed by Del Shores’ long-time collaborator Emerson Collins.
- December 5, 2019 – Cabaret- The Academy Award-winning musical film was directed by Bob Fosse, and stars Liza Minnelli, Michael York, and Joel Grey. Adapted from the Broadway show, this hard-hitting musical drama is set in decadent 1930s Berlin during Hitler’s rise to power. The film chronicles Cambridge student Brian Roberts’ friendship with the high-spirited Sally Bowles, a singer at the sleazy Kit Kat nightclub, where the anti-Semitic emcee sets a tone of debauchery.
- December 10, 2019- Stravinsky Staged – The Firebird and Les Noces
This exciting program presents two of Stravinsky’s seminal works to scores commissioned by Serge Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes: The Firebird and Les Noces. Michael Berkeley and Deborah Bull discover more about the ballets and the people who created them. Deborah Bull also dances Nijinsky’s version of The Rite of Spring with choreography recreated by Millicent Hodson.
- December 16, 2019 – Collins Meets Coward – This BBC series of eight, 30-minute plays are all based on the works of Noel Coward, originally titled “Tonight at 8:30” and stars Dynasty’s, Joan Collins. The series of plays include Hands Across the Sea, The Red Peppers, The Astonished Heart, Family Album, Fumed Oak, Ways, and Means, Still Life and Shadow Play.
- December 24, 2019 – Alice in Wonderland Ballet – The three-act ballet by Christopher Wheeldon with a scenario by Nicholas Wright was commissioned by The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, and the National Ballet of Canada and had its world premiere on Monday, 28 February 2011. The ballet follows the classic storyline where Alice journey through Wonderland and encounters a world of countless strange and magical creatures. Christopher Wheeldon also directed the musical American In Paris, which is now streaming on BroadwayHD.
- December 24, 2019 – St. Matthew Passion- Jonathan Miller’s daring dramatization of Bach’s most famous work. Upon a text written by Picander (Christian Friedrich Henrici) sets chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of St. Matthew to what is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of classical sacred music. The whole production is in the round, with singers and orchestras in ordinary clothes.
To learn more about BroadwayHD, visit www.broadwayhd.com.
Mark Robinson is the author of the two-volume encyclopedia The World of Musicals, The Disney Song Encyclopedia, and The Encyclopedia of Television Theme Songs. His latest book, Sitcommentary: The Television Comedies That Changed America, released on October 15. He maintains a theater and entertainment blog at markrobinsonwrites.com.