December 8, 2024
The Wicked lottery is open. You can sign up daily by downloading the Broadway in Hollywood app. Did I play every day this week? Yes. Did I win? No. The Once Upon a Mattress lottery is open as well. Did I play? Yes. Did I win? No. You can play too on the TodayTix app. I already bought tickets, but the lottery is for front row, so I will get them if I can. There are also rush tickets for Once Upon a Mattress. No rush tickets for Wicked.
Tonight I was supposed to be at the Westminster Brass Ensemble concert in Pasadena but life got in the way. I went to that concert last year and would recommend it to put you in the holiday spirit. It’s at Westminster Presbyterian in Pasadena and the church itself is a treat. It’s a smaller scale replica of Westminster Abbey. The acoustics are great and the brass ensemble is comprised primarily of local studio musicians and hey – this is L.A. there are many exceptional studio musicians. We will definitely try for that one again next year. Oh, and did I mention it’s free? They gladly accept donations and those donations go to charity, so you get to see a show and you get to feel good about it. Winning!
They have been promoting Cat Kid Comic Club the Musical like crazy. There is a lottery and rush tickets available and I suspect it will it Ticket Drop Tuesday this week. It’s playing at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City and best for ages 6+. My guess is they haven’t sold many tickets because the timing is terrible. It’s a busy time for kids and families. And then if these families are like mine, we went straight from performance season (school holiday shows, piano recitals, orchestra concerts and then later, jazz concerts, choir concerts, etc.) into the mad rush to get everything done for Christmas. Then we had a week of recovering from Christmas followed by a week of me cramming in as many activities as I could so it didn’t feel like we spent the whole break sitting around being exhausted. The end date for Cat Kid is January 5 and that would be around the time I would be ready to see it.
Today Tix has several other things on Cyber Sale right now as well, but the sale is ending soon. In my experience, these sales are real and if you miss them, the prices actually do go up. It might be fun to see Rainn Wilson in Waiting for Godot in Westwood. La Cage is still playing in Pasadena (there are rush tickets available) and Cirque du Soleil: KOOZA has a lottery. If you go to KOOZA, I am hearing it’s best to park in the beach lot a little farther away and walk.
There are lots of holiday shows open now as well. Debbie Allen’s Hot Chocolate Nutcracker is in Redondo Beach. A Christmas Carol is in Pasadena and another production is in Costa Mesa, White Christmas is in Simi Valley. LA Phil is doing Home Alone in Concert, but I would skip that and see Arturo Sandoval instead. Those Home Alone tickets are EXPENSIVE! There’s an LA Phil Holiday Sing-Along on December 14 if you like that sort of thing. I do not. I will be seing Tres Souls: Boleros de Navidad which is apparently a farewell concert. Boo! Johnny Mathis is coming to Cerritos on December 19th. Those tickets start at $93. Dave Koz and Friends are doing 2 holiday shows which will probably be fantastic. John Tesh is doing a Christmas show at La Mirada if that’s your thing. If not, you might be interested in Fishbone’s Red Hot Holiday Tour which will be at Garden Amp in Garden Grove again this year. I went to that show a few years ago when one of my daughter’s friends was playing with one of the openers. That show was fantastic. One of the openers was Son Rompe Pera, a cumbia band out of Mexico City who travel with a giant antique marimba. Garden Amp is also a great venue. There’s plenty of free parking and there’s a large pit/dance floor with lot’s of stadium seating around it so if you don’t want to mosh, you can just sit and listen like I do.