’Tis the season for department-store Santa Clauses – particularly the most infamous Father Christmas who ever worked at a Macy’s. And just in time for the holidays, the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities is staging Miracle on 34th Street, the Musical, based on the 1947 film and earlier…

Best to check your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) before going to see BALLS! A Holiday Spectacular, which once again will offer wacky, non-denominational cheer to holiday crowds. From a comedy unicycle act to audience-wide sock-puppet sing-alongs, the variety show is a silly way to get into the holiday spirit…

If paying your December 1 emptied your pockets, don’t despair: You can still have fun — for free! — this week. Among the options are watching a campy horror movie about a Franken-prostitute, catching a candle art show, and playing drag queen bingo. For a full listing of all events…

Even if you are rolling in dough, you won’t need to spend much of it in order to eat pancakes and see art tonight. That’s just one of the bargain entertainment options this weekend; others include seeing Santa and the Grinch duke it out for a wrestling title. Here are…

From the Muppets to Mr. Magoo, Charles Dickens’s redemptive holiday tale, A Christmas Carol, has been adapted in many incarnations. But the WreckingBall Theater Lab and Band of Toughs musical spectacular Moulin Scrooge is perhaps the first to take Ebenezer Scrooge to a Parisian cabaret. Written by The Colbert Report’s…

Whether you’re broke after shopping on Black Friday or simply extending Buy Nothing Day, there’s no need to refrain from going out this week — because there are many ways to keep yourself entertained for free! For example, you can visit the zoo, party like a lowlife writer at a…

Now that the turkey is all packed away in your fridge and the masses are elbowing each other out of the way for Black Friday deals, it’s time to go out and have fun without spending a lot of cash. There’s plenty to do this weekend without maxing out your…

Want to walk off those Thanksgiving leftovers and also avoid the mobs at the mall? The Victorian Holiday Home Tour, now in its third year, is a Saturday-afternoon jaunt along East Colfax Avenue, with tours of seven historic homes all gussied up for the holidays. “What we’d really like is…

Save your money for Black Friday — you don’t need to open your wallet over the next few days in order to keep yourself entertained before the tryptophan coma. See a comedy show, attend a reindeer petting zoo, and relax with yoga — without spending a dime! For a full…

Though the message surrounding the holidays is always to buy buy buy, you can buck the trend and give your wallet a break this weekend with these bargain events. Visit the zoo, see a campy turkey-themed horror movie, and learn how to better your air guitar technique — all for…

Some art pieces force viewers to look closer at reality, but others help them escape into something new. Space Gallery will be exhibiting some of the latter tonight with Translucence, a show featuring new work from Sophia Dixon Dillo and Jane Guthridge. “They both kind of transport you into their…

Broke after the weekend? The fun doesn’t have to stop. Among the free events on the calendar this week are a screening of an Academy Award-winning film with the director on hand, a solar eclipse-viewing party complete with free snacks, and a workshop on how to get started writing your…

As stores start to get in the holiday spirit, your wallet begins to get a work-out. Fortunately, you won’t have to spend much this weekend to stay entertained. You can ignore the upcoming holidays and pretend it’s still Halloween at a Second Halloween art show, dance like a fool in…

“Men have their midlife crisis, but we never talk about women having their midlife crisis,” says Susan Lyles of the And Toto Too Theatre Company about the premise of Toto’s latest production, Naked in Encino. Written by Mork & Mindy and Anything but Love writer Wendy Kout, the play explores…

Gallery owner Carmen Wiedenhoeft likens local abstract artist Jeffrey Keith’s creative output to that of Clyfford Still or Vincent Van Gogh. “When these people are so voraciously creative, they do anything and everything their whole life, and it’s incessant,” explains Wiedenhoeft, who has been working with Keith, a professor of…

“When you walk into a bookstore, you’re faced with life in such a grand scheme, between fiction and nonfiction and travel and every-thing under the sun,” says Ronald Rice. “I’m so overwhelmed by how much there is yet to know, and that feeling makes you alive.” And he’s not the…

France’s notoriously out-of-touch, extravagant and ill-fated queen will come to life tonight in the regional premiere of Joel Gross’s Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh. The intimate, three-person production by Spark Theater imagines a love triangle between the cake-loving queen; her portrait painter, Madame le Brun; and a count named…

“Opera seems very conservative and traditional, but it’s not,” says Opera on Tap’s Eve Orenstein. “Opera’s not stuffy at all. It’s kind of fun and naughty.” The monthly series, which just moved from the now-defunct Bender’s Tavern to the Bar, is a raucous night of opera singers performing songs centered…

Sometimes the best things in life really are free. This week, for example, you can experience slam poetry, catch a film screening, or learn about a magical realist legend — and you won’t be charged a thing. Keep reading for three free things to do this week; for a full…

With Halloween over, we’re now officially on to colder weather and anticipating the upcoming holiday season. But there’s still plenty to do this week, everything from Day of the Dead parties to art openings, costume parties and even a dramatic reading of lines from Pretty in Pink. And they’re each…