Theater tickets are a nice gift, though scheduling the date can be tricky. Most theaters will accommodate you with some sort of gift package or gift certificate. For family fare with broad appeal, tickets to a show at Shea’s are an excellent choice. Gift certificates are available on line at www.sheas.org. Molly Ringwald is coming in Sweet Charity this February. That will be followed by Spamelot at the beginning of May, and Chita Rivera from May 29-June 3. For the dancer or dance student in your life, tickets to Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life are a sure bet. Seeing the foremost dancing star of the Broadway stage recreate great moments from a career that included the original West Side Story, Bye Bye Birdie, Chicago and Kiss of the Spider Woman, while she reminisces about great choreographers from Jerome Robbins to Bob Fosse to Jack Cole is a once in a lifetime experience.

Current Broadway shows that have CDs available include Grey Gardens, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Avenue Q, The Color Purple, The Drowsy Chaperone, Jersey Boys, Spamelot, Mary Poppins and The Wedding Singer.

Bookstores are a great resource for artsy presents—attractive bookends, notecards, blank books—all make nice gifts. Recent book titles like Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, a widely praised biography of Shakespeare, might be a good bet for a Shakespeare lover. All biographies of Shakespeare are controversial, so don’t let mixed reviews dissuade you from buying what should be a good read for the theater or Shakespeare fan in your life.

Continuing on the Shakespeare topic, those who enjoy books of lists or pithy quotations taken out of context might like Where There’s a Will There’s a Way: Or, All I Really Need to Know I Learned from Shakespeare by Laurie Maguire. This is an accessible self-help book in which the author organizes Shakespearean quotation for convenient use in contemporary life.

Molly Ringwald in "Sweet Charity."

A membership in Shakespeare in Delaware Park is a possible Christmas gift. The recipient will be listed in the printed program and will receive discounts to Shakespeare in Delaware Park events for the rest of the year, as well as a newsletter and an invitation opening night receptions.

This summer, Shakespeare in Delaware Park will present All’s Well That Ends Well and Othello. Fans of the popular summer festival might enjoy getting a jump on the season with a new edition of the scripts. The Arden editions have become the preferred academic text, but the new All’s Well… won’t be ready for Christmas, and there are less expensive versions that are perfectly acceptable for casual enjoyment with informative introductions. Washington Square Press has a new edition that will only set you back $5.99. Folger editions are also nice; their Othello is just $7.95. If you curl the pages it will fit into most Christmas stockings—though it would be more clever to tuck them into a picnic basket with a couple of bottles of wine for that summer trip to Delaware Park.

If the recipient is fussy or scholarly and you aren’t sure what to get, Talking Leaves bookstore does offer gift certificates and excellent advice. Titles specifically recommended by Talking Leaves include Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theater in America by Stefan Kanfer—a charmingly readable history of Yiddish theater by Stefan Kanfer who visited Buffalo to promote the book. Also, big picture books on the musicals The Color Purple and Wicked. Finally, Suzan Lori-Parks’s new book, 365 Plays/365 Days is a fascinating project. As the playwright herself explains it: “The plan was that no matter what I did, how busy I was, what other commitments I had, I would write a play a day, every single day for a year. It would be about being present and being committed to the artistic process every single day, regardless of the ‘weather.’ It became a daily meditation, a daily prayer celebrating the rich and strange process of a writing life.”