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Michael Martin Murphey’s Cowboy Christmas Ball

Friday, Dec. 14, at 7 p.m.

Get ready to have a good old-fashioned Christmas party ‘round the campfire at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 N.E. 63rd St., Oklahoma City. All right, so there won’t be a real fire ablaze, but country singer Michael Martin Murphey brings Western spirit to the halls for the 18th annual Cowboy Christmas Ball, 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 14. Inspired by the original holiday ball in Anson City, Texas, in 1885, this festive winter’s night will feature dinner, entertainment, a visit from Santa and plenty of dancing. Tickets are $25-$75 each. Go to www.nationalcowboymuseum.org for more.
 

The Ugly Christmas Sweater Concert

Thursday, Dec. 13, at 7 p.m.

It’s called the Ugly Christmas Sweater Concert. The least you can do is outfit yourself in a knitted offering-to-the-burn-pile for this year’s line-up. Silversun Pickups, Metric, Passion Pit and Shiny Toy Guns appear on one stage on one night for an all out alt rock bash at the Brady Theater, 105 W. Brady St. Tickets are $37.50, available online at www.bradytheater.com. It’s going to be hot, so we hope that doesn’t deter too many concertgoers from their glittery, tasseled, bedazzled best!
 

The Nutcracker

Continues through Sunday, Dec. 16

In her Christmas Eve slumber, little Clara dreams of meeting her prince and taking a fantastic adventure though her child’s imagination. Oklahoma City Ballet brings the magical tale to the stage of the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall’s Thelma Gaylord Performing Arts Theatre in classic elegance with visions of snowcaps, candy canes and glittering sets and costumes. Performances of The Nutcracker continue this weekend at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday (Dec. 14-15) and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (Dec. 15-16). OKC Civic Center Music Hall is located at 201 N. Walker Ave., OKC. Tickets are $33-$60 each at www.myticketoffice.com. For more about the ballet, go online to www.okcballet.com.
 

Athletes First Basketball Classic

Saturday, Dec. 15, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.

Youth basketball players get to show their moves on the court at the Athlete’s First Basketball Classic, Saturday, Dec. 15, in the Jim Norick Arena at Oklahoma State Fair Park, 3001 General Pershing Blvd., Oklahoma City. The Nike-affiliated summer youth basketball team program is the only boy’s Nike team in Oklahoma, meaning the players are the best in state. The Athletes First Foundation seeks to prepare these youth and other players around the state for college-level competition and the art of good sportsmanship in and outside of the arena. Tickets to the day are $6-$8 each, available at okstatefair.com.
 

Jim Brickman: On a Winter’s Night

Wednesday, Dec. 19, at 7:30 p.m.

As the best-selling solo piano artist today, Jim Brickman knows that much is expected of him. Behind hits like Valentine, The Gift and Simple Things as well as numerous collaborations with Martina McBride and Lady Antebellum among many others, fans look to the composer for a sound inspiring romance and lifting up the soul. During his On a Winter’s Night tour, which stops at Midwest City’s Rose State Performing Arts Theatre in Midwest City, we’ll get it all. The platinum-selling artists is still golden with tickets to his show running $32-$65. Go online at www.okcciviccenter.com for details or to purchase seats.
 

The Eight: Reindeer Monologues

Opens Thursday, Dec. 13, at 8 p.m.

Tinsel and cocoa aren’t for everyone. Take one Jeff Goode, a playwright who wrote The Eight: Reindeer Monologues about scandal … a sex scandal … in the North Pole. The darkly comic play gets stage time from Tulsa’s Theatre Pops, which presents evidence and the testimony from Santa’s flying reindeer, each with a tale to tell that could spell disaster for Saint Nick. With a take on media sensationalism and faux celebrity-dom, The Eight roasts Christmas with near the aplomb of a Dean Martin or a Bob Hope – wit and insult lavishly wreathed tongue-in-cheek upon a revered institution. Or maybe that’s just how we remember it. Tickets are $15 each. The show runs Dec. 13-16 and 20-23 at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center’s Liddy Doenges Theatre, 110 E. Second St. For tickets, go to www.myticketoffice.com.
 

The Brian Setzer Orchestra Christmas Rocks Extravaganza

Thursday, Dec. 13, at 8 p.m.

Christmas rocks! Haven’t you heard? The Hard Rock Tulsa Hotel & Casino will prove it with a visit from the Brian Setzer Orchestra Thursday, Dec. 13, playing the hotel and casino, 777 W. Cherokee St., in Catoosa. From out of the land of Nashville, Setzer – remember the Stray Cats from the early ‘80s? – throws together a little rockabilly, a little big band and a lot of rock ‘n’ roll guitar for a show so fun and bouncing that venues should seriously consider taking out a few seats to make room for dance for this show. Listen to how Setzer and his orchestra treat Tchaikovsky’s famous Nutcracker Suite here. Tickets are $45-$65. Go to www.hardrockcasinotulsa.com to get ‘em, cause we can’t imagine a seat being left in the house by show time.
 

Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award

Wendell Berry stands as one of the most decorated American authors today. The Tulsa Library Trust has added yet another honor to his list: the prolific writer of fiction, poetry and essays is recipient of the next Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. Berry will receive the award at the black-tie dinner on Dec. 7 at Tulsa City-County Library’s Central Library. The Kentucky author will also give a free public presentation at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 8. Berry has won the T.S. Eliot Award, Thomas Merton Award, a National Humanities Medal and the Poets’ Prize in addition to the Guggenheim Fellowship and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. One of his best known works, 2004’s Hannah Coulter, embodies many of the themes Berry worked into his fiction and poetry and that mirrored his activism against the industrialization of agriculture. Berry will speak at the events, both taking place at Central Library. For tickets to the Dec. 7 gala, go to www.helmerichaward.org.

The Weekly Hit List

Oh, The Spectacle

So much of Cirque du Soleil’s appeal rests on the synthesis of multiple disciplines, seemingly disparate styles and variant philosophies. That’s how you end up with Dralion, a show as well as a creature bringing together the ends of the earth in a display of artistry and acrobatics.
As part of Cirque’s ever-expanding repertory of circus presentations, Dralion is the 12th touring production to feature performers doing everything from juggling to aerial dance to tumbling feats. Here, a creature that is part dragon, representative of the East, and part lion, representative of the West (Dralion), stands for the fusion of circus styles that includes clowns sharing a stage with Chinese acrobatic arts that have been honed over 3,000 years.

Traditions of thought are also at play as the four elements of nature are embodied, as humans from the ends of the globe in the parade of spectacle that is characteristic of the Cirque brand. And spectacle is why audiences will go to Dralion – for the tense action and wonderment of watching logic and sometimes death defying stunts always done beautifully and magically. As always, you never know what will happen next, which is a promise we hope Cirque will always be able to keep. How is that for a holiday surprise?

Dralion plays Tulsa’s BOK Center from Dec. 12-16. There will be seven shows scheduled there before it moves to the Chesapeake Energy Arena for another seven performances Dec. 19-23 in Oklahoma City.

Tickets for the Tulsa shows are $37-$147 and are available online at www.bokcenter.com. OKC show tickets are $35-$145, available at www.chesapeakearena.com.