What plays are onstage in Gainesville for the holiday season? Here's your guide

Editor's note: The Gainesville Community Playhouse section of this story has been revised to provide Joe Keena's correct title and to revise a reference to Wednesday Addams.

A first meeting of future in laws who, literally, live in separate realities.

A woman who falls in love with a woman pretending to be a man.

A man who must come to terms with his wretched life one haunted night.

Three hapless emcees forced to improvise when the talent fails to show.

And what happens when America’s most celebrated orphan is adopted by — gasp! — a bachelor.

Going into the holidays, Gainesville theaters are offering up a mixed nuts bag of plays designed to keep audiences entertained until Christmas.

On Nov. 17 the Gainesville Community Playhouse will kick off the holiday season with the musical comedy “The Addams Family.” Then, on Nov. 24, the Hippodrome will premier “The Ultimate Christmas Show Abridged.” Followed two days later with a “A Christmas Carol.”

On Dec. 1 the Acrosstown Repertory Theater joins in with a gender-bending rom-com “The 12th Night.” Then, on Dec. 7, the Star Center Theater’s opens with “Annie Warbucks.”

High drama from Charles Dickens. Low comedy compliments of the Bard. Something in between for everyone else.

Here’s the lineup:

GCP: 'The Addams Family' (Nov. 17-Dec 10)

Listen, that moment the bride-to-be brings the boy of her dreams home to meet the family is always going to be awkward. But never more so than when the girl is Wednesday Addams and the boy is — OMG! — totally normal.

Suffice it to say that after Uncle Fester summons the dead, Pugsley produces the truth serum, Morticia waxes maudlin and Lurch sings aloud..well, then things really start to weird.

“This play provides entertainment that isn’t typical of the sort of production normally seen in Gainesville,” promises GCP board president Joe Keena. “The set is unique, and it seems a nice fit following Halloween and heading into a family time of year.”

For ticket prices and show times go to GCP’s webpage.

Hippodrome: 'The Ultimate Christmas Show Abridged' (Nov. 24-Dec. 23) and 'A Christmas Carol' (Nov. 26-Dec. 23)

Listen, all would have been hunky dory at the Everybody’s Non-Denominational Universalist Church’s Christmas pageant and talent show but for one little hitch: None of the scheduled acts showed up. What to do?

“The prospect of giving everybody their money back, that ain’t gonna happen,” says Hipp regular Kevin Rainsberger, who plays one of three hapless hosts. “But some of the props and costumes have arrived. We know what’s supposed to happen, more or less.”

So why not improvise? “We’re trying to do the nativity story in panto form. We keep going, valiantly changing costumes and props and pieces. We don’t really think the audience can help, but the audience is involved from the get-go."

Well…um…break a leg guys.

For the Hippodrome, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” has been a holiday tradition since the 1970s. And if the plot is familiar — miserly Scrooge gets an attitude adjustment from three ghosts on Christmas Eve — the Hipp usually manages to find a fresh approach to an old story.

“This play is completely relevant in that it deals with issues, like the way we treat our children and socio-economic inequities, that are still with us today,” said director Laura Shatkus. “You can walk outside the Hipp and see signs of exactly” the same problems Dickens wrote about in Victorian England.

For ticket prices and show times see the Hipp’s webpage.

Acrosstown Repertory Theater: 'Twelfth Night' (Dec. 1-17).

Two twins, Sebastian and Viola, are shipwrecked off the Isle of Illyria. A stranger in a strange land, and believing her brother dead, Viola ventures town disguised as a young man because…of course she does.

“It’s a classic tale as old as time,” says director Rikki Baynard.“Deception after deception after deception. Your basic rom-com.”

All this coming at a time when gender identification seems to be an increasingly inflammatory political issue in Florida. But William Shakespeare was a past master of gender bending.

“There were no women on stage” in Shakespeare’s time, Baynard notes. “A young prepubescent boy would most likely be playing a woman playing a man. So there’s a lot in this play to think about in terms of gender roles and how much things have changed.” Or maybe haven’t changed.

For ticket prices and show times go to the ART’s webpage.

Star Center Theater: 'Annie Warbucks' (Dec. 7-17).

Apparently, nobody noticed that Annie, the plucky street urchin, ended up being adopted by Daddy Warbucks, unmarried tycoon extraordinaire. But then a child welfare official informs Warbucks that he has just 60 days to marry or Annie gets packed back to the orphanage.

“This play starts exactly where ‘Little Orphan Annie’ left off, on Christmas Day,” says director Christian St. John. Informed he must marry, Warbucks calls Franklin Delano Roosevelt for help, because that’s what tycoons do. “But Annie overhears the conversation and decides to run away, to Tennessee of all places, rather than cause Warbucks problems.”

Oh, and did we mention the plot to bilk Warbucks of his millions? Or that one true love waiting patiently in the wings?

Hey, that’s show biz!

For ticket prices and show times go to the Star Center’s web page.

This article originally appeared on Ocala Star-Banner: What shows are Gainesville theaters putting onstage during the holidays?