Seat Filler

Richard Skipper as Carol Channing in Concert
Backed by a lively three-piece band, celebrated cabaret star Richard Skipper reverently channels the Hello, Dolly! legend, beautifully crooning Channing classics — though the show could do with less of her 1967 novelty song “Widow’s Weeds” — and effortlessly ad-libbing with the audience as an expert on Channing’s career. Far from campy drag-show caricature, Skipper’s impersonation makes it easy to forget that he isn’t really her.
St. Luke's Theatre, open-ended.

Other Desert Cities
Lincoln Center’s slick, sophisticated dramedy by out Brothers & Sisters creator Jon Robin Baitz stars Elizabeth Marvel as a novelist readying to publish a memoir that details a shameful family secret. Out über-director Joe Mantello smoothes over familiar familial tropes like political dissonance with the strongest ensemble in town, led by Stockard Channing as the chilly matriarch and Linda Lavin as her quick-witted alcoholic sister.
Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, through February 27.