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Holiday magic this week at Hotel Jerome

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Holiday magic this week at Hotel Jerome







Alex Ross and Ana Marcu performed together last winter in a performance of  “A Christmas Carol.” The couple met in Aspen in 2022 while performing in a Theatre Aspen production of  “Jersey Boys.” They are returning this week as a part of “Dreaming of a White Christmas Cabaret,” which starts Wednesday and runs through Sunday in the Hotel Jerome Grand Ballroom at 7 p.m nightly. The ticket includes a chef’s dinner followed by a 60-minute musical revue featuring Broadway and holiday favorites. 




Theatre Aspen takes over Hotel Jerome this week with two holiday productions. The company’s fourth annual cabaret series,“Dreaming of A White Christmas Cabaret,” starts Wednesday and runs through Sunday in the Grand Ballroom at 7 p.m nightly. The ticket includes a chef’s dinner followed by a 60-minute musical revue featuring Broadway and holiday favorites.

The holiday cabaret has several Theatre Aspen alumni returning to perform, includingErin Davie (Broadway: “Diana the Musical” and “Side Show”), Nehal Joshi (Broadway: “The Cottage” and “The Phantom of the Opera”) and Nathaniel Stampley (Broadway: “Cats” and “The Color Purple”).

A second holiday event designed for children ages 4-10 and their friends and family, “Once Upon a Time: Whimsical Wintertime Tales,” will be held at 4 p.m. from Thursday to Sunday in the Grand Ballroom. 

The production consists of five classic stories, adapted by Vanessa Vivas, an alumni of Theatre Aspen’s apprentice program. There also will be a collaboration with DanceAspen.

The cast of “Whimsical Wintertime Tales” are all Roaring Fork Valley residents: Jess Elkins (Theatre Aspen), Eleanor Carroll (Theatre Aspen’s “Anastasia”), Harry Spitteler (Theatre Aspen’s Aspen Music Festival and School collaboration, “The Sound of Music),” Anna Riley (also “The Sound of Music”) and Christopher Wheatley (Theatre Aspen’s “Spamalot”).

DanceAspen dancers are Meredith Harrill and Jonah Delgado. The show is directed by Vanessa Strahan, director of education at Theatre Aspen.

“Great food and great music at Hotel Jerome have become one of Aspen’s happiest traditions,” said Theatre Aspen’s producing director Jed Bernstein. “Now in its fourth year, these special performances are a delightful way to ring in the holidays. We hope people will come and celebrate with us.”

Post-“Jersey Boys” match

The cast of “White Christmas Cabaret” is rounded out by Ana Marcu and Alex Ross, who performed in Theatre Aspen’s 2022 production of “Jersey Boys.” 

When actors meet on a production and start a romantic relationship, it is known in the business as a “showmance.” When Marcu and Ross met in Aspen on “Jersey Boys,” there was chemistry, but they didn’t become a couple until they ran into each other several months later.

“When you do a show you get close with everybody in the cast,” Marcu said in an interview conducted alongside Ross from their home in Brooklyn where they now live together. “That’s the beauty of theater. It becomes like a family for the cast and crew. That ‘Jersey Boys’ cast was super tight. But we really didn’t come together until several months after that show.

“Alex was living in Los Angeles at the time and came to New York to rehearse for a national tour of a play and we reconnected and he went on tour and we visited each other throughout the tour. When he finished the tour he moved to New York and we kind of made it official at that point.”







holiday cabaret theatre aspen

Erin Davie and Nehal Joshi perform at the 2023 Theatre Aspen Holiday Cabaret. Both Davie and Joshi are returning as part of the cast of “Dreaming of a White Christmas Cabaret,” which starts Wednesday and runs through Sunday in the Hotel Jerome Grand Ballroom at 7 p.m nightly.  




Marcu and Ross are returning to Aspen for the first time since the “Jersey Boys” production. Both have some cabaret experience but they have never had the chance to perform in one together.

“We were thrilled to be asked to come back this year for Christmas to do the cabaret at Hotel Jerome, and getting to work with Erin (Davie), Nathaniel (Stampley) and Nehal (Joshi) is such a treat,” Marcu said. “They’re all such great actors.Doing a cabaret together is something that Alex and I have wanted to do. A cabaret is a little more intimate than a traditional show and getting to do some standards and original songs, especially when it’s Christmas time, it’s going to be so much fun.”

According to Toni Case, Theatre Aspen’s marketing director, the plot of “White Christmas Cabaret” can be described this way: “The halls are decked and the snow is falling at Hotel Jerome, but proprietor Jerome Wheeler (Aspen titan of the late 19th century, namesake of Hotel Jerome and builder of Wheeler Opera House) needs help to produce the greatest holiday show his guests have ever seen. When his friends hear this they start the westbound trek to bring the best of Broadway to Aspen.”

The story line is indeed a case of art imitating life, because that is exactly what will be happening on the stage this week — Broadway actors will be entertaining an Aspen audience.

The script was co-written by the show’s director, Patrick O’Neill, and Sam Davies, the music director.

‘A little more glammy’

What can audience members expect when they come to the show? 

“It’s going to be a little more glitzy, a little more glammy, a little more Broadway. It’s a winter wonderland, it’s a white Christmas,” Ross said. “If you come to the show, you’re going to get fed really well with a three-course meal and get an hourlong show that is going to fill you with the holiday spirit. 

“You’ll have a few laughs and hear some great singers. Anytime you go to a Christmas show or a holiday show, you hope to be left humming a few tunes and to be in a better mood than when you came in, and leave feeling warm and fuzzy. I think it’s about filling people with the holiday spirit and being entertained.”

Both Marcu and Ross think having the show take place at Hotel Jerome in Aspen will only amplify the entertainment value and magic of the show.

“The setting of Aspen is really so incredible,” Marcu said. “I think everyone is so happy to be there because of how special it is and that comes alive in the art that you create as well. Our director of ‘Jersey Boys,’ Hunter Foster, would always say that we were in the most beautiful place in the world to make art.

“I think it is also what invigorates the mood of the audience. There’s this shared love of where you are that connects the performers with the audience. I always use the word magical because I can’t think of another word that describes it better than that.”

For more information and tickets, visit theatreaspen.org

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