Backstage with Richard Ridge: Norm Lewis Talks Keeping It Nutcraker Cool This Holiday Season with New Album and Solo Show!

Tony nominee Norm Lewis is keeping it cool this Christmas. Nutcracker cool, that is.

Just last month, Lewis released The Norm Lewis Christmas Album- an amalgam of selections chosen from song lists that Norm has performed over the last three years at Feinstein's/54 Below in what has now become an annual holiday tradition in midtown, where he has a six night residency at the famed music hot spot. Click here to purchase today!

Then later this month, Norm will throw the swingin'est Christmas party in town and this year will be no exception, naming it "Nutcracker Cool." The dates this season are: Monday, December 17, 2008 through Saturday, December 22. All shows are at 7:00 PM. Tickets can be purchased here!

Below, Richard Ridge chats with Lewis about how the album came to be, what to expect from his Feinstein's/54 Below return and so much more!

Norm Lewis was recently seen in the NBC television special, "Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert!," alongside John Legend, Sara Bareilles, and Alice Cooper. He recently appeared in the Broadway revival of Once on This Island and as Sweeney Todd in the Off-Broadway production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at the Barrow Street Theatre, receiving the AUDELCO Award for his performance. In May of 2014, he made history as The Phantom of the Opera's first African American Phantom on Broadway.

Mr. Lewis received Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League, and Outer Critics Circle award nominations for his performance as Porgy in the Broadway production of The Gershwins' Porgy & Bess. Other Broadway credits include Sondheim on Sondheim, The Little Mermaid, Les Misérables, Chicago, Amour, The Wild Party, Side Show, Miss Saigon, and The Who's Tommy. In London's West End he has appeared as Javert in Les Misérables and Les Misérables: The 25th Anniversary Concert, which aired on PBS.