Orlando Bloom, Eat Your Heart Out

Before David Sedaris rose to prominence as a humor essayist and radio contributor, he held down a number of odd jobs in Raleigh, Chicago, and New York. Perhaps the weirdest of these was in the Windy City, where he was paid to staple screens into home attics to prevent squirrels from crawling in under the eaves and dying. But it was as a result of his days spent working as a Christmas elf at a Macy's department store in New York that the author achieved notoriety. Sedaris turned his experience into The Santaland Diaries, an essay that first aired on NPR's Morning Edition in 1992 and was subsequently incorporated into his first book, Barrel Fever. The festive story of Crumpet the Elf became so popular that it eventually made its way onto the stage. Now, for the fifth year running, Los Angeles–based actor John Michael Beck (who first sported the candy-cane stockings in 2002 with City Lights Theatre Company in San Jose) reprises the role of Santa's little helper. Expect pointy ears, tinkling bells, and unsavory goings-on in a grotto.
Nov. 30-Dec. 31