Features

Seasonal Showtime: 20+ Holiday Shows, Concerts, Ballets, and Plays

From 'A Christmas Carol' to 'The Nutcracker' and everything in between

By Ross Boissoneau | Nov. 15, 2025

Come the holidays, the Prince of the Land of Sweets will again reign supreme. If it’s Christmas time, it’s time for The Nutcracker, the world’s most popular ballet. But why is it such a beloved production? “The dance community asks that question every season,” says Heather Raue, artistic director at the Crooked Tree Arts Center School of Ballet. “Us dance folks don’t quite get it.” The ballet features music by Pyotr Ilyich … Read More >>

Radical Responsibility

Jamie John on what artists owe themselves and the world

By Anna Faller | Nov. 15, 2025

“Artists have a responsibility to reflect the times that we’re living in,” says northern Michigan artist Jamie John (he/they). “Print-making is entrenched in a radical history. I consider myself to be one of the newer additions to that, and I’m taking up that responsibility in the ways that I know how.” For the Anishinaabe two-spirit, queer and trans, and Korean-American artist, art has never been just about “pretty pictures.” Instead, he says, … Read More >>

The Beauty in the Broken Glass (Co.)

Bellaire’s Brooke Brewster is giving stained glass a 21st-century update

By Art Bukowski | Nov. 15, 2025

As far as art forms go, few things are more traditional and stoic than stained glass. This ancient practice invokes thoughts of quiet churches, stately administrative buildings, and other imposing structures, where it has been used for more than 1,000 years to add color and tell stories. Brooke Brewster has a few designs traditional enough to hang in your great-aunt’s house. A flower bouquet here, perhaps. A fruit basket there. But what … Read More >>

Crafting with a Conscience

Cozy up with the fiber arts scene of northern Michigan

By Geri Dietze | Nov. 15, 2025

Have you heard of slow textiles? The idea is to have just enough of something—useful, beautiful, or both, to keep and enjoy—that will not end up in a landfill. According to earthday.org, in the U.S. alone, an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste, about 85 percent of all textiles, go to landfills annually. Enter the mindful sewing and knitting circle, and the peace that comes from spending time in low-velocity, hands-on … Read More >>

More than an Art Store

TC’s Surfaces Art Supplies offers something for everyone

By Ellen Miller | Nov. 15, 2025

Since Traverse City Front Street newcomer Surfaces Art Supplies opened this July, they’ve hit the ground running, curating a mix of craft and fine art supplies alongside art experiences for tourists and locals alike. Owner Liz Kennington opened Surfaces in pursuit of a longstanding dream to pursue art as a career over working in the corporate world. “I really wanted to do something that made me happy. Being able to teach people … Read More >>

Mix, Mash, and MATCH

A look inside home sweet home for Mashup Rock & Roll Musical

By Nick Cooper | Nov. 15, 2025

Earlier this year, Mashup Rock & Roll Musical, the TC-based indie theater creators of performances such as Quack to the Future, officially found a place to call home. Founders Lesley Tye and husband Anthony Bero have settled at the Music, Arts, Theatre, Community, Home event space in the Cherryland Center after years of moving from venue to venue. Tye, Bero, and more than 20 artists and performers had been traveling around Traverse … Read More >>

Circular Shopping with SEEDS

Nov. 15, 2025

For this holiday season, SEEDS Ecology + Education Centers—a nonprofit based in Traverse City that serves multiple counties with their “place-based activities that regenerate habitat, prevent carbon emissions, develop talent pipelines for green industries, and invest in the next generations”—has one of the most sustainable gift guides we’ve ever seen. Their Wood Rescue Initiative “saves fallen trees from becoming firewood, being chipped, or worse, getting landfilled” and turns those downed trees into … Read More >>

Everybody (Folk) Dance!

Nov. 15, 2025

Cedar’s Green Door Folk School has an array of cool classes to explore from a “Wild Dyers Lab” on Nov. 16 to “Creating a Stitch Journal” on Nov. 22 to “Winter Care: Daily Rituals and Kitchen Herbalism for Surviving the Winter Months” on Dec. 6. But right now, we’re most excited about their Fall Barn Dance, to be held at Gilbert Lodge at Twin Lakes on Friday, Nov. 21 from 6:30-9pm. The … Read More >>

Affordable Menstrual Products Up North

Nov. 15, 2025

Northwestern Michigan College health science student Zinnia Burks wants to understand the prevalence of “period poverty”—or the inability to afford or access menstrual products and education—here in northern Michigan. Burks is spearheading a survey that has thus far found that more than 17 percent of respondents say they do not have access to a sufficient amount of sanitary menstrual products and that more than 14 percent have had to choose between purchasing … Read More >>

Off to Wonderland in Manistee

Nov. 15, 2025

Fresh off the spooky fun of It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, and acting as the bridge between that show from the Manistee Civic Players and Ingrid Bond’s The Nutcracker Ballet (coming December 5-14), The Ramsdell Regional Center for the Arts will turn upside down for the Manistee Conservatory of Dance performance of Alice in Wonderland, which runs Nov. 20, 21, and 22 at 7pm and for a matinee Nov. 22 … Read More >>