Can't Miss It: Wednesday

The simple truth is the holidays are pretty much inescapable right now, and if you're trying to avoid all of the usual events that are on offer at this time of year, all we can do is point you to things that might be new to you.

Fighting Jesuits Basketball: Actually, we did manage to find one thing that had nothing to do with Christmas; namely that's Seattle University Men's Basketball. The Redhawks are on their last season before becoming eligible to join an NCAA conference (they'll be part of the WAC starting in 2012). The Redhawks are a fledgling, defense oriented team led by Cameron Dollar, a former UW Huskies Assistant Coach and something of a commanding presence. When the team is hitting on all cylinders, the excitement fills the Key Arena as if that other basketball team that once played there had never left. This is a team with budding potential, and you could still get in on the ground floor. Their opponent tonight: The Virginia Cavaliers, regular March Madness attendees.

Tonight at 7:10p.m. // Key Arena, 305 Harrison Street // $15.78 - $88.77

What happens if you take the building blocks to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and then changed the specifics? What if Scrooge was a florist, Marley a rastafarian and Tiny Tim a 'rhoided high school athlete? With Unexpected Productions' A(n Improvised) Christmas Carol such character decisions change nightly and are based entirely on audience suggestions. After watching a performance, our own Dikla Tuchman said "[the cast] had the audience constantly laughing and catching the obscure references as they were woven in flawlessly to the improvised script."

Tonight at 8:30p.m. // Intiman Playhouse, 201 Mercer Street // $10 - $15

It has been 50 years since Langston Hughes' Black Nativity first opened on Broadway, and it has been a yearly tradition in Seattle for quite some time. Telling the story of the Nativity, Hughes adapted the story in order for it to be told with a large gospel choir, a dance company and recitals of some of Hughes' poetry. The richness of the production is underlined by its simplicity.

Tonight at 7:30p.m. // The Moore Theater, 1932 2nd Avenue // $25 - $55