TONIGHT: PGMC Channels Bette Midler for its Holiday Extravaganza
Bette Midler (The Divine Miss M, if you’re nasty)’s peppy holiday classic “Cool Yule” is the inspiration behind Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus’s 2013 holiday concert, called, wouldn’t you know, “Cool Yule.” For the event, Artistic Director Joseph J. Buches has hired a Big Band that will guide his 140-strong group of songbirds through a catalogue of little-known holiday tunes from the swing era. I ran into PGMC member — and occasional Philly Mag writer — Sandy Smith last night at KNOCK, where he hilariously regaled me with a sampling of two or three of the songs on the agenda, like “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” which he crooned to me in his best “eight-year-old voice.”
Other songs you can expect are “Hot Hanukkah,” “Everybody’s Waiting for the Man With the Big Bag” (Ha!) and, because no PGMC concert is complete without a little choreography, the guys will perform a tap-dancing routine to “Sparklejollytwinklejingley” from the Broadway musical Elf.
The three-day shebang kicks off tonight, Dec. 5, at 8:30 and will run straight through to Sat., Dec. 7 at the Prince Music Theater (1412 Chestnut St.) Tickets range from $30 to $55, and they can be purchased here.
To get you in the spirit, I’ve included a video sampling of some of the “Cool Yule” selections below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGLGJV01C0Q
