Amid the usual holly-jolly suspects of holiday theater season, Viva's Holiday, the new Christmas opera about legendary Portland stripper/writer/breast cancer survivor/lady about town Viva Las Vegas, is a welcome departure! It opened last night, with two more performances tonight and tomorrow. Go see it, unless you want to try your luck with the a play you've already seen five times.

This month's installment of Eleanor Ford's visual art column, Project Art, is a must-read for anyone who cares about how emerging arts spaces survive in a gentrifying city. "Any alternative gallery, project space, or long-term project in Portland has suffered from a lack of funding at some point, if not from the outset," she writes. "So many spaces begin as labors of love or passion, and frequently end due to a lack of financial resources." Ford walks us through the way PICA's Precipice Fund, which provides grants to art-makers, has changed the landscape of Portland's visual art community. Do you like living in a city with artists in it? Read the whole thing.

Fans of Portland's vibrant comedy scene would be well advised to pick up Kliph Nesteroff's The Comedians. "As a surface-skimming account of a full century of entertainment, The Comedians is as good as they come," writes Robert Ham in his review. "Nesteroff hits all the highlights and lowlights of this constantly evolving art form. He excels by bringing in the names and voices of dozens of stand-ups, writers, and producers that, while not as well known as Sid Caesar or Joan Rivers, were just as important in moving comedy from stage to radio to TV, movie, and computer screens."