If you're looking for a traditional holiday entertainment, be forewarned: This performance has more in common with wild and crazy sketch comedy than it does with a performance of a full-length Christmas play. Three actors perform novel interpretations of familiar Christmas tales. Oh, and there is a drunken Santa Claus who wanders about welcoming the crowd, operating the sound system in front of the stage and occasionally commenting on the stage action, usually by topping everybody else.

As an anti-traditional, anti-sentimental entertainment, New Stage Collective's 'Striking 12' zips right along. At least it does when the six singer-musicians are making, as they do, some fine and fascinating music. When they set their hands to acting the meager semi-script, the show proves something less than zippy.

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company's holiday season production travels to the Jazz Age, the decade of the 1920s, using period costumes, lots of popular music and cultural references to add texture to an amusing story of mistaken identities, cross-gender confusion and uproarious mischief-making. It’s exactly the celebratory, smiling tone called for by the holidays.

Based on the true story of the musical Von Trapp family in 1938, the show was a hit in 1959. It focuses on the widowed Captain Von Trapp, his seven singing children and Maria, an strong-willed postulant who comes as a governess then abandons her religious calling when she and the Captain fall in love.

I'm not much for holiday shopping, but with the wheezing economy dimming our holiday spirits, I have some suggestions for gifts that will keep you (or those you love) theatrically entertained in the New Year without breaking the bank. A great option offered by many mid-sized theaters is a "flex pass."

'Alice in Wonderland' is Lewis Carroll's beloved whimsical tour de force, written as a cautionary lesson for the daughters of a friend. The story has been updated by Cincinnati playwright Joseph McDonough, with the addition of appropriately silly lyrics and catchy Pop tunes by David Kisor. McDonough's book remains faithful to the spirit of the original, but he hasn't shied away from adding elements familiar to contemporary young people.

It's the time of year when theater companies present shows that veer from their routine fare in hopes of selling lots of tickets to fund subsequent productions more aligned with their mission. Know Theatre presents a tongue-in-cheek, 50-minute musical telling the story of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and the fundamental precepts of his church as interpreted by kids doing a reverent holiday skit. It's deadpan and satirical ... and also a tad mystifying.

Charles Dickens published 'A Christmas Carol' in 1843, and onstage versions of it are today a holiday staple at theaters across the English-speaking world, cash cows that sustain operating budgets for the theater season. The tale resonates not simply because Scrooge's conversion has become a familiar holiday story but because Dickens wrote with passion about the plight of everyday people.

Stepping inside the Monmouth Theatre in Newport for Falcon Theatre's production of 'It's a Wonderful Life' feels like a step back in time. The company has transformed the intimate performance space into the Falcon Broadcasting Company, a replica of a 1940s radio broadcasting studio. The effect is fun and nostalgic.

'Tis the season, and those jolly holiday elves at New Edgecliff Theatre have arranged for us to revisit Mrs. Jocelyn Dunbar of haute suburbia. She comes complete with a $1.98 blonde wig and a razor tongue, telling her merry tales of an overachieving older son, an underachieving younger son, a flame-tattooed, drug-devoted daughter, a crack-damaged infant grandson and, of course, her philandering husband and his holiday surprise to the Dunbar household: a screeching, mini-skirted, 22-year-old souvenir of his wartime romping in Vietnam.

The Carnegie in Covington has spent several years in search of the best way to present musicals on the small, tight stage in its renovated Otto M. Budig Theatre. With this month’s minimally staged but aggressively choreographed production of Jesus Christ Superstar the formula now seems evident: Put the energy into the performance, keep the production simple and let the passion do the dazzling.

In my review of the Playhouse's 'A Christmas Carol,' I suggest that Charles Dickens' social conscience, outraged in 1843 by the evils of the Industrial Revolution and greedy business operators, seems quite timely in 2008 amid the evils of unfettered financial mismanagement and greedy business operators. Have we made any progress? Come January there will be a change in our nation's leadership, after all, and that's certainly cause for hope.