Get Festive

Dec 17

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) goes big for the holiday season with special events and shows throughout November and December! Events range from classic holiday favorites to jaw-dropping performances and free community celebrations. The holiday lineup at the Arts Center is chock full of family entertainment—a perfect option if you’d like to give your loved ones live performances as a holiday present, or just create wonderful family memories during the season.

Dec 15

New to NJPAC this season is a special screening of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on Dec 15 and a live conversation with its iconic star Chevy Chase. Bring your little ones to clap and giggle along with their favorite four-legged friends when Paw Patrol Live! The Great Pirate Adventure returns to NJPAC Dec 29 and 30.

Dec 26

Cirque Dreams Holidaze on Dec 26 is a one-of-a-kind performance; it’s the show-stopping singing and dancing of Broadway built around a fantastical circus. Holidaze has your favorite holiday characters—toy soldiers and reindeer—plus aerial artistry, acrobats, jugglers and more. It’s a visual tour de force that will leave you spellbound and on the edge of your seat.

In addition to multiple performances in both of NJPAC’s theaters on Dec 23, the halls (and lobby) are decked and jolly with the popular Kwanzaa Family Festival and Marketplace. This Newark tradition honors the seven principles of Kwanzaa with joyous programs such as free art workshops, dance performances, storytelling, face painting and a large Marketplace with vendors selling handmade and artisan crafts, jewelry and home accessories.

Dec 23

Dec 23

For those who prefer the classics, nothing says Christmas like the music of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and NJPAC provides more than one way to hear the traditional score. The State Ballet Theatre of Ukraine brings the winter wonderland of The Nutcracker to the Prudential Hall stage on Dec 17. One week later is NJPAC’s original The Hip Hop Nutcracker which remixes and reimagines Tchaikovsky’s

Dec 23 ballet with supercharged hip hop choreography. A successful national touring show for the past decade, The Hip Hop Nutcracker won a New York Emmy Award in 2021 for its PBS broadcast and last year, Disney+ streamed a new all-star version. The two live shows, at NJPAC on Dec 23, are hosted by hip hop legend Kurtis Blow who attracts legions of fans of all ages.

Other NJPAC traditions include Jazz & Gingerbread, a ticketed event with all supplies included, for your family to decorate a gingerbread house while listening to the talented young artists from TD Jazz For Teens Also in the afternoon of Dec 23, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre—a contemporary dance company with traditional West African and neo-African influences—performs a powerful homage to the ancestors in the Victoria Theater.

Dec 23