American Repertory Theater at Harvard University (A.R.T.) announces December 2018 and January 2019 programming at OBERON, its club-style theater space for cutting-edge performance and a thriving incubator for local and emerging artists. Upcoming events include A.R.T Breakout, Live @ OBERON, and Afterglow @ OBERON series, A.R.T. presentations, and independently produced events.
OBERON is located at 2 Arrow Street at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square, Cambridge.
Tickets are available online at americanrepertorytheater.org, by phone at 617.547.8300, in person at the Loeb Drama Center Ticket Services Offices (64 Brattle Street, Cambridge), and 30 minutes before curtain at OBERON. Prices vary per event. A.R.T. subscribers and members receive discounts to A.R.T. Breakout, Live @ OBERON, and Afterglow @ OBERON series productions, as well as The Donkey Show.
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OLD SCHOOL GAME SHOW'S HOLIDAY SPECIAL
Friday, December 7 at 8PM
Tickets from $20
Break out the eggnog and your favorite ugly sweater: Old School Game Show (OSGS) is back for our Holiday Special. This isn't your Auntie MiMi's holiday feast-OSGS is staying on the naughty list with more game show antics to keep your holiday season bright! Whether you're celebrating the holidays or you just like to laugh, play, and win fantastic prizes, OSGS is the perfect present for you and your friends!
Old School Game Show is an interactive trivia experience like no other. Audience participants can get the chance to play our original pop culture games, competing to win fabulous prizes from local sponsors. Or we invite you to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of live music, special guests, dancers, and sketch comedy. You'll feel like you're in the audience of your favorite retro variety show. It's all the fun of an afternoon spent rolling around in the rumpus room - without the rug burn.
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HARRY POTTER AND THE SACRED TEXT
Sunday, December 9 at 7PM
Tickets from $25
Harvard Divinity graduates Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile will deep dive into a chapter of Harry Potter, tell stories from their own lives, and try-out a medieval religious reading practice or two with this modern-day classic.
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THE BUTTCRACKER
Wednesday, December 12 at 8PM
Tickets from $20
It's the most bum-derful time of the year! Join Madge of Honor and Johnny Blazes at the holey-day clASSic you've come to love: The Buttcracker IX! This assiNINE edition of The Buttcracker will have you bent over with laughter for the whole night, delivering enough booty-shaking and butt puns to get your cheeks rosy and your ass clapping. Featuring your favorite anal all-stars along with some virgin Buttcracker contributors, come prepared for drag, burlesque, storytelling, comedy, music, and interactive games. It only comes butt once a year-don't miss out!
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THE SWEETBACK SISTERS' COUNTRY CHRISTMAS SINGALONG SPECTACULAR
Live @ OBERON
Friday, December 14 at 8PM
Saturday, November 15 at 7:30PM
Christmastime is here again and so are The Sweetback Sisters with their tenth annual Country Christmas Sing-Along Spectacular! These ladies bring the holidays to life with their vaudevillian theatrics reminiscent of TV variety shows of the 50s and 60s. This wildly popular show delivers a veritable explosion of yuletide splendor, complete with trivia, prizes, and, of course, all the holiday tunes you know and love.
Want to sing, but don't know the words? Fear not! Songbooks and warm fuzzy feelings are provided. You never know what the diverse musical influences the Sweetback Sisters will bring to the table, but it's sure to be bountiful feast of spirit and revelry. Buy your tickets early, and come find out why folks are saying, "It's just not Christmas without The Sweetback Sisters."
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CLUB DROSSELMEYER 1941
Sunday, December 16 at 7:30PM
Wednesday, December 19 at 7:30PM
Thursday, December 20 at 7:30PM
Friday, December 21 at 7:30PM
Tickets from $49
Discover mystery and mayhem, solve puzzles and crack codes, meet a cast of unusual characters, listen to incredible big band play Tchaikovsky in 8/8 rhythm and dance the night away all at Club Drosselmeyer 1941, an interactive Nutcracker in Swingtime!
It's 1941 and the elusive inventor Herr Drosselmeyer and his niece, Dr. Clara Stahlbaum are hard work on Drosselmeyer Industries' most important invention yet: Project Nutcracker, version Delta. But what is the role of a mechanical supersoldier at the homefront when there's a new war on? And how will Herr Drosselmeyer's swanky Cambridge night club help keep morale high, all while mobilizing citizens to aid in the war effort?
Dancers, divas, acrobats, magicians, sugar plum fairies, rat kings, and spies will all be racing for the newest codebreaking technology... because whoever controls the information will win the war.
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THE MOTH
Tuesday, December 18 at 8PM (tickets available December 11 at 3PM)
Tuesday, January 29 at 8PM (tickets available January 22 at 3PM)
Tickets $10
The Moth StorySLAMs are steadily spreading all over the map, gathering people and stories from all over the country. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston have multiple shows each month. The Moth is open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's posted theme. The brave of heart or those with stories they're aching to tell prepare personal, true tales. When the doors open, storyteller hopefuls put their names in The Moth Hat. A half-hour later, names are picked, and one by one, storytellers take the stage. Each person has just five minutes! The ten featured stories are scored by teams of judges selected from the audience. Each StorySLAM generates a StorySLAM winner. After ten SLAMs, the winners face off in our GrandSLAM Championships. Come sign up to tell a story, or just enjoy the show!
DECEMBER 18 theme is Joy: Prepare a five-minute story about an experience that brought you utter delight, or a time you were able to provide it for somebody else. Glee, euphoria, eureka...a random act of kindness, a brand-new car with a ribbon on it or a compassionate ear and a hot cup of soup for a hungry soul...things that make you bellow, a la Jimi Hendrix, "You make my heart sing!"
JANUARY 29 theme TBA.
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SAILOR MOON SHOUJO SPECTACULAR
Saturday, December 29 at 8PM
Tickets from $20
Get your sailor suits ready for an evening of burlesque, music, dance, and drag in celebration of the beloved 90s anime Sailor Moon!
Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight ~ the Sailor Moon Shoujo Spectacular is BACK for its SIXTH sugoi year! Join kawaii curators Mx Macabreand and Jade Sylvan for an evening of performance dedicated to one of the most influential and long-lasting animes of all time--Naoko Takeuchi's Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon! Let out your inner magical self as you see your favorite characters brought to life on stage. Dress to impress for our costume contest with fabulous prizes! Let us all lend our light and love to combat the darkness.
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SHAMELESS NEW YEAR'S EVE EVE
December 30 at 9:30PM
Tickets from $10
Let the evil geniuses at SHAMELESS transport you back to the 90s... The 1890s! The year is 1899, and you've been recruited to Paris to participate in the bohemian RESISDANCE taking hold of the city's drug and prostitute infested underworld. And nowhere is the thrill of the underworld more alive than at the Moulin Rouge, a nightclub where the rich and poor alike come to be enthralled by the dancers and the SPECTACLE!
We're bringing all your favorite SHAMELESS classics: the Interactive Green Screen Experience™, glitter drops, custom cocktails, and fabulous drag performances with a ROUGE twist! More burlesque, more glitz, more drama, and all the most GLAMOROUS JAMZ in history for you to dance, emote, and PERFORM to!
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THE DONKEY SHOW NEW YEAR'S EVE 2019
Presented by A.R.T.
Sunday, December 31, Doors at 9PM | Performance at 10PM | Toast at Midnight | Party until 2AM
Early Bird Pricing: $45 (Dance Floor), $75 (VIP Table Seat)
After December 12: $55 (Dance Floor), $95 (VIP Table Seat)
The Donkey Show is once again opening its doors for a special late-night New Year's Eve celebration. The Donkey Show brings you the ultimate disco experience-a crazy circus of mirror balls and feathered divas, of roller skaters and hustle queens inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The party rages on the dance floor to all the best 70s hits as the show unfolds around the audience. After the show, the party continues into the night so you can live out your own disco fever fantasy!
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MISS YOU LIKE HELL
A.R.T. Breakout, Presented in Association with Company One Theatre
Thursday, January 10 - Sunday, January 27 at various times
Tickets from $25
Sixteen-year-old Olivia hasn't seen her mother Beatriz in years, but-surprise!-mom just showed up in the middle of the night, with a pickup truck, the promise of the open road... and an immigration hearing looming at journey's end. C1 returns to OBERON with a powerful new musical odyssey about a daughter who gets to stay, a mother who might have to leave, and the border wall that could come between them. Quiara Alegría Hudes and Erin McKeown's Miss You Like Hell explores how many miles we can travel with the help of courageous neighbors and beautiful strangers.
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Dan Fishback ALONE!
Afterglow @ OBERON
Thursday, January 17 at 8PM
Tickets from $25
When Dan Fishback was a neurotic Jewish child wondering what his life would be like if the Nazis returned, he missed one bizarre detail: that he would still have personal problems. In Dan Fishback Alone!, the controversial playwright debuts at OBERON to process what it means to be bad at relationships during the rise of American fascism. Without a band or a cast of Broadway actors, Fishback returns to his scrappy singer-songwriter roots for an evening of songs about tender feelings and global intentions. With a mousy voice and ramshackle anti-folk sensibility, he'll play songs from his musicals (The Material World, Rubble Rubble), his band Cheese On Bread, and his archive of tiny, anxious anthems. In a world of systemic injustice and boys who don't text back, Dan Fishback Alone! can help you bandage your broken heart for battle.
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THE DONKEY SHOW
The Long-Running Hit
Presented by A.R.T.
Every Saturday night
Tickets from $25
Tony Award-winner Diane Paulus' celebrated smash hit begins its tenth season at OBERON every Saturday night, bringing you the ultimate disco experience-a crazy circus of mirror balls and feathered divas, of roller skaters and hustle queens inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The party rages on the dance floor to all the best '70s hits as the show unfolds around the audience. After the show, the party continues into the night so you can live out your own disco fever fantasy!
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