First, pick which local holiday market(s)you want to visit this week by consulting CoolCleveland’s handy guide below.Next, find some unique holiday events to attend: Unsilent Night in Tremont & Kent, four nights of burlesque at CPT, the Epoch! party at CMNH, Greyt Culture’s Songs for the Season benefitting the Cleveland Food Bank or Drumplay’s Homeless for the Holidays CD release at Treelawn for Coalition for the Homeless.
Finally, throw in something offbeat, like Bike Cleveland’s Better Streets Film Fest, tickets to January’s David Bowie in Clevelandshow, or Happy Dog Takes on Downtown Cleveland’s Lakefront. Pick your passion.
Holiday offer alert! Use promo code WCSHoliday24 through January 3 for 20% off 3-event ticket bundles to the William N. Skirball Writers Center Stage series at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.
Authors coming to the 2024-2025 season include Bridgerton creator Shelby Van Pelt (Remarkably Bright Creatures), Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange (There, There), National Book Award finalist Kaveh Akbar (Martyr!) and Erik Larson (Devil in the White City, Demon of Unrest). Presented by the Cuyahoga County Public Library Foundation and its academic partner Case Western Reserve University. Get the discount here.
You want to give something meaningful, something local, and something unforgettable for that special someone. Tickets to the upcoming David Bowie in Cleveland show may be just the thing.
Tickets are easy to give, and this show is sure to please. Through music, interviews and live performance, Thomas Mulready and Vanity Crash tell the story of David Bowie’s first ever appearance on a U.S. stage, at Cleveland’s Music Hall in 1972. Joined by special musical guests, and an exhibition of rare photographs of Bowie in Cleveland (which would also make great gifts!), this show takes place 1/10 at BOP STOP in Ohio City, Sat 1/11 at Jilly’s Music Room in Akron, and Sun 1/12 at the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern in N. Collinwood. More Info at VanityCrash.com
The first two weekends in December always offer a lot of chances to meet and shop from local artists, craftspeople and vendors, and two of the biggest take place this weekend. For two days, Sat 12/14 and Sun 12/15, the 20-year-old Cleveland Bazaar will sprawl throughout 78th Street Studios filling every available space with about 150 vendors. And many of the building’s resident artist studios, galleries and businesses are open as well, some with guest vendors in their spaces as well.
Over in Lakewood the Screw Factory artists open their doors Fri 12/13-Sun 12/15, and they fill the two big event spaces with visiting artists for even more shopping opportunities. Nearby in Lakewood, Mahall’s 20 Lanes will be holding its first ever European-style Christkindlmarkt on Sat 12/14 with a promise of Christmas Cosmic Bowling.
Stella’s Art Gallery in Willoughby will be hosting a reception for its holiday show on Fri 12/13@ 6-9pm and for that evening only you can buy directly from the artists with no commission. And the Grog Shop will again host its Jingle Bells Holiday Market on Sat 12/14 in conjunction with Coventry Village’s Winter Wonder event.Can’t make a market this weekend? Both the Heights Arts and BAYarts expanded holiday stores are open seven days a week through Christmas. Read more.
Overwhelmed by sale emails? Click DELETE! Introducing the local gifts that everyone loves. Discover Cleveland Independents Gift Cards, The Deck and the new Ci Calendar!
Cleveland Independents Gift Cards (in plastic and e-card versions) are redeemable at all member restaurants, act like cash and have a five-year expiration. Check out The Deck’s “playing cards” redeemable for nearly $500 in $10 off $30 food purchases and the 2025 Calendar/Recipe Poster (both available on the Ci website and at CLE Clothing, Geiger’s, The Root Café, Creekside Restaurant and Made Cleveland). Great gifts are a click away! Visit clevelandindependents.com. Click MERCH.
In 1978, Dave Valentine, who ran a University Circle bar called the Coach House, returned from a trip to Key West having discovered the music of Bob Marley. He immediately filled his jukebox with reggae tunes, and that spawned a scene which produced the band I-Tal and many future generations of local reggae rockers that still play around town to this day (Carlos Jones, Shake Ground). Valentine passed away December 1 at the age of 71. Read more.
The space at 11729 Detroit Avenue in Lakewood that’s now home to the Foundry Concert Club has been a music venue as far back as most people can recall: it was the beloved low-key hangout Hennessey’s in the 70s and has been many other things since. The Foundry’s lease has been terminated but they’ll hardly miss a step. They’ve found a new location on Pearl Road in Old Brooklyn to move their eclectic schedule of live music, and expect to open around February 14, just two weeks after they have to leave Lakewood. Read more.
Explore how modern art was used as a tool to sway public opinion by the Nazi party. Part history, part art show, the exhibition features famous works labeled as “degenerate” by the regime. This world-renowned exhibition will be at the Maltz Museum through April 20, 2025.
This Fri 12/13 at 1PM, join us for this enlightening presentation by Steven Luckert of the Levine Institute for Holocaust Education at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. In this discussion connected to our Degenerate Art exhibition, Dr. Luckert demonstrates how the Nazis used their power to cleanse the nation of art, literature, music—and ultimately people—deemed to be alien and dangerous to Germany in the new Reich. Read more.
THU 12/12 Teasing the Season
This week, Cleveland Public Theatre’s special holiday offering is four evenings of burlesque, drag and variety performances with seasonal themes, produced by Cleveland’s Burlesque Queen Bella Sin.
WED 12/18 Sing Hallelujah!
It’s time to start exercising your pipes and dusting off that score to Handel’s oratorio Messiah so your “Hallelujas” can join others in ringing the rafters of Trinity Cathedral.
