Justin Timberlake in Concert at PPG Paints Arena; Texture Brings ‘The Nutcracker’ to the Palace (Sat., 12/14/24)

1) Back when posters of boy bands adorned the bedroom walls of every teenage girl in the country, naysayers said all those J Crew model-esque pretty boys would be exiled from the limelight in 10 years—and the naysayers were mostly right, but not in the case of Justin Timberlake. The ever-charismatic breakout star from ’N Sync has shown rare staying power, contributing songs like “Cry Me a River” and “SexyBack” to the canon of 21st-century classics and branching out to movies. You remember him as a devil-may-care dot-com guru in The Social Network. He also voiced Branch in 2016’s Trolls and recorded “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” for its soundtrack. Through it all, Timberlake hasn’t taken himself too seriously; his sly, self-referential humor made him an often-invited-back host of “Saturday Night Live” (a show on which he’s won four Emmy Awards, to go with his 10 Grammys). His sixth and newest album is this year’s Everything I Thought It Was. Catch Justin Timberlake in Pittsburgh on his Forget Tomorrow World Tour, with special guest Andrew Hypes. 7:30 p.m. PPG Paints Arena, 1001 Fifth Ave., Uptown. (C.M., M.V.)

Justin Timberlake performing at the Pilgrimage Festival in September 2017. (Photo: Mark Briello and Wikipedia).

THE NUTCRACKER (ballet) by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Texture Contemporary Ballet. December 14 with the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra (Palace Theatre) and 21 (August Wilson Center). 

2) For kids and older adults who love Tchaikovsky’s immortal Christmas ballet but who have early bedtimes (all the better for dreaming of sugarplums), Pittsburgh’s Texture Contemporary Ballet offers three daytime performances for anyone to enjoy. At Greensburg’s Palace Theatre, Texture’s School and Company will present one morning (11 a.m.) and one matinee (3 p.m.) performance on December 14 with the Westmoreland Symphony. The following Saturday, December 21, the production comes to life at the August Wilson Center for two more performances, the first at 2 p.m. and a second at 7 p.m. Led by Artistic Director Alan Obozur in choreography he created along with his former associate, Kelsey Bartman, Texture Contemporary Ballet features a full company of professional dancers as well as students of the Texture Ballet School, too. The Palace Theatre is at 21 W. Otterman St., Greensburg, and the August Wilson Center is at 980 Liberty Ave., Cultural District. (C.P.O.)

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