From classical music and dance, to campy classics featuring your favorite drag performers, there's something on stages across the Bay Area to bring joy and inspiration to your holiday season.

At age 81, after more than 60 years in show business, superstar Barbra Streisand's long-awaited memoir is finally out. In interviews, Streisand has said that she worked on the book for the better part of ten years. It was a massive undertaking.

To paraphrase the song, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas movies, everywhere you go." As we lamented elsewhere, how is it I love Christmas so much and really don't like Christmas movies? And why are there so many of them?

"Why would anyone read reviews?!" asks the brash title character of David Cale's funny, brainy one-actor play "Harry Clarke," now at the Berkeley Rep. "Surprise me!"

Nancy Spada's new "Beyond the Handsomeness: A Biography of Thomas Schippers" hits a sour note. Spada breezes past one thing people who know little else about Schippers know: his versatile sexuality.

Our prolific music writer has some holiday albums to share, including Cher! Also, songs by George Perris, Scout Durwood and Stephanie J. Block should get you into the spirit of the time.

Allan Piper's "eVil Sublet" (the stylized title) is a queer horror comedy that delivers. It's a supernatural parody on how far people in New York City will go to obtain affordable housing.

While many of you dear readers may be out of town for Thanksgiving, some of us will enjoy the weekend in the Bay Area, and nightlife offers a fun break from all the turkey and leftovers. We've got an extra helping of arts events, too.

Photographer Wolfgang Tillmans likes to shake up cavernous white cube museum spaces. With his retrospective exhibition, "To look without fear," he does so at the SFMOMA, personally revising an exhibition that debuted in 2022 in New York City.

"Sometimes you get surprised," said Eric Bean of the 50-odd cities he's visited as one of the 134 members of "The Lion King" touring company that opens at the Orpheum Theatre this week. "In Tulsa, Oklahoma, there are four different drag brunches!"

"I don't consider myself a stand-up comedian at all," drawled Matt Mathews. Nevertheless, his comic wit that gained popularity online has led to nearly sold-out shows nationwide.

The acclaimed cabaret singer discusses his two new albums, "I Know Things Now: My Life in Sondheim's Words" in 2022, and his latest, "A Collective Cy: Jeff Harnar Sings Cy Coleman."

Actress, screenwriter and filmmaker Emerald Fennell's second feature film "Saltburn" feels like the troubled kid brother of her prior work, "Promising Young Woman," especially in the way it delivers gut-punching twists and turns.

If you're more interested in holding tight to the things you're thankful for than in cranking up the amperage of your holiday cheer, the Aurora Theatre's production of "1984" may be just the ticket for you.