Rockin' Christmas Party

Rockin' Christmas Party

Zach Theatre Kleberg Stage, 1421 W. Riverside,

476-0541, www.zachtheatre.org

Through Dec. 27

Who doesn't like getting a new outfit for the holidays? A fresh addition to the wardrobe can get you more in the spirit of the season, get you feeling more spruced up and festive than usual

(especially if you've had to don the same gay apparel for quite a few yules now). So it is with the 2009 model of Rockin' Christmas Party, Zach Theatre's Santa-season musical tradition. Design wizard Michael Raiford has decked the Kleberg Stage with a new set that seems to have given the holiday perennial a little lift, making what's always been a holly-jolly time at the theatre more merry yet. Gigantic cutout snowflakes jut from the ice-blue proscenium, and a booklike set-piece opens to reveal cutouts that spring into the shape of a Christmas tree. For the finale, a monumental crystal ball appears, in which flakes flurry around Austin landmarks. These outsized evocations of pop-up books and snow globes pull us back to those early days when we found magic in such objects, and that helps reboot our sense of wonder – a quality that's useful for a show that revolves, however whimsically, around its performers being given the chance by St. Nick to live out their holiday fantasies.

This isn't the first time that Rockin' has updated its look. Dave Steakley, the show's creator and director/choreographer for lo these 17 years, knows how this kind of long-running revue can benefit from the occasional tweak, so he's regularly freshened the mix with new designs, new songs, new talent. In fact, stepping into this winter wonderland for the first time here are Tiffany Mann, seen at Zach last year in Caroline, or Change, and Bernard Davis, fresh from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. As the party's lone male this year, Davis shoulders a load that's been carried by two men in the past. His Solomon Burke/Wilson Pickett vibe may not make him the most natural fit for the Johnny Mathis-style schmaltz in the segment on TV holiday specials, but it sets "Sock It to Me, Baby" and "With a Little Help From My Friends" blazing like so many Yule logs. Mann manages a similar trick with her hilariously blistering take on Jazmine Sullivan's "Bust Your Windows," but she also delivers one of the show's most angelic performances in a pairing of the traditional hymn "Go Tell It on the Mountain" with Richard Smallwood's contemporary gospel number "I'll Go." (Add to these Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman," sung with country gusto by Laura Benedict, and some of Rockin's most memorable numbers now date from the last five years – quite a turn for a show that was born out of our nostalgic craving for Top 40 hits of the Sixties.)

None of this is to say that what isn't new isn't rockin'. The returning artists are not only as polished as ever but appear energized by the changes. Felicia Dinwiddie shakes an even meaner tail feather in "Tutti Frutti," Rebecca Schoolar milks even more L-A-U-G-H-S out of "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," and Judy Arnold, bless her, knocks out a version of "That's Life" so fierce it would make the Chairman of the Board resign his position. If these performers feel the years of doing this, they don't show it. They all look as if they might be hosting this party for the first time. Like a fresh dusting of snow in the sunlight, they sparkle and fill your heart with joy.