Our guide to cultural events in New York City for children and teenagers happening this weekend and in the week ahead.
‘CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS’ at the Miller Theater (Dec. 21, 1 and 4 p.m.). Camille Saint-Saëns and Ogden Nash were born in different centuries and countries, but their sensibilities combine in this production, which pairs the whimsical music of Saint-Saëns’s “Carnival of the Animals” with the wry narration of Nash’s lighthearted verse. The third essential element is the staging by Lake Simons, a theater artist and puppeteer who has constructed the menagerie of characters from everyday objects: Mops transform into a lion, feather dusters into cuckoos and an umbrella into an elephant’s head. Recommended for children 6 and older, the show has become a seasonal tradition.
212-854-7799, millertheatre.com
‘A CHRISTMAS CAROL, OY! HANUKKAH, MERRY KWANZAA, HAPPY RAMADAN’ at Theater for the New City (Dec. 19-20, 8 p.m.; Dec. 21-22, 3 and 8 p.m.; through Jan. 5). This may be the only holiday production you’ll ever attend at which you can expect to hear both “Bah, Humbug” and Swahili. Vit Horejs, the founder of the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater, has been presenting variations of this piece of multicultural merriment since 2001, always using some three dozen wooden marionettes and rod puppets, many of them vintage examples. This version of the show, revised and updated for its debut at Theater for the New City, includes four Rockettes in Eastern European costumes, as well as a camel and the characters from Dickens’s classic story. The plot follows the basic outlines of Scrooge’s redemption, but incorporating songs, traditions and humor from a variety of countries.
212-254-1109, theaterforthenewcity.net
JUST KIDDING: SUZI SHELTON’S WINTER SOLSTICE CONCERT at Symphony Space (Dec. 21, 11 a.m.). Shelton may be honoring the solstice, but the themes she will explore — tolerance and inclusiveness — are worth celebrating at any time. A singer, songwriter and guitarist who specializes in upbeat pop music for children, Shelton will offer songs from her latest album, “Hand in Hand,” which includes rousing tunes like “Can You Feel the Power?” and “We Shall Walk,” which was written by Emma Mitri, her teenage daughter. (You’ll hear holiday numbers, too.) Appearing with her band as part of the Just Kidding series, Shelton will be joined by guests who include her fellow recording artists Sonia de los Santos and Joanie Leeds. A wintry bonus: Arriving children can have their faces embellished with a glittering snowflake.
212-864-5400, symphonyspace.org
[Read about the events that our other critics have chosen for the week ahead.]
KLEZ FOR KIDS at the Museum at Eldridge Street (Dec. 25, noon and 2:30 p.m.). This year, one person’s Christmas Day is another’s Hanukkah night. But whatever holiday you celebrate, all are welcome at this festive concert, an annual tradition on the Lower East Side. The sound will be klezmer — Jewish music that combines cantorial rhythms with Eastern European folk traditions — but the fun will include more than listening. The clarinetist Greg Wall and his band, Klezmerfest!, will engage their young audience in singing, dancing and learning a little Yiddish. After each performance, the museum will celebrate the fourth night of Hanukkah with more songs and a menorah lighting. And if you’d like to beguile your eyes as well as your ears, investigate “Lighting the World: Menorahs Around the Globe,” a show that features lamps from five centuries.
212-219-0302, eldridgestreet.org
‘POKÉMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU’ (Dec. 21, 11:30 a.m.; Dec. 22-23 and Dec. 26, noon; through Jan. 1) and ‘CHRISTMAS EVE ON SESAME STREET’ (Dec. 22, 2 p.m.) at the Museum of the Moving Image. Two fluffy, friendly and very yellow (in color, that is) characters will help children visiting this Queens museum enjoy the start of the public-school winter break. The first is Pikachu, the adorable rodentlike creature with electrical powers that is a star of the Pokémon franchise. In Rob Letterman’s film “Pokémon Detective Pikachu,” the little fellow (created here with computer-generated animation and Ryan Reynolds’s voice) has gained three dimensions, a prodigious English vocabulary and a bit of an attitude, as well as crime-solving abilities. Although Pikachu’s PG-rated adventure in the company of a human (Justice Smith), which is recommended for viewers 8 and older, didn’t win over Ben Kenigsberg, the New York Times critic, it fared well at the box office and will be shown every day of the recess except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The other sunny hero to appear onscreen is Big Bird, the gentle giant of “Sesame Street.” On Sunday little fans and nostalgic grown-ups can watch “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street,” a 1978 television special in which Big Bird, who would have trouble fitting down a chimney himself, wonders how Santa does it. The show also features Muppet characters like Bert and Ernie, who have gift-giving issues to resolve, and Oscar the Grouch, for whom “Happy Holidays” is an oxymoron. But at the museum, they all may be upstaged by a human star: Sonia Manzano, who played Maria on the show for more than 40 years. She and other guests will attend the screening, which will also include clips from still more seasonal “Sesame Street” specials.
718-777-6888, movingimage.us
‘THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR SHOW EXPERIENCE’ at the Melville Gallery (Dec. 21-22 and 26, 10 and 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.; through Dec. 29). This little larva with the big appetite, one of the favorite creations of the children’s author and illustrator Eric Carle, is back to chewing scenery as well as leaves and fruits. Jonathan Rockefeller, who first adapted the caterpillar’s story and those of some other Carle characters in 2016, has returned with another iteration of this stage show, this time at the South Street Seaport. The version here uses the production’s captivating puppets to dramatize “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” and one additional Carle work, either “10 Little Rubber Ducks” or “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” (That book’stext is by Bill Martin Jr.) The second story you encounter depends on the performance you attend. Each hourlong presentation (some shows are sold out) includes audience participation and a chance to take a photograph with the very hungry hero.
866-811-4111, southstreetseaportmuseum.org
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