ABOUT

HARRY SHEARER & JUDITH OWEN’S ANNUAL CHRISTMAS WITHOUT TEARS BENEFIT CELEBRATES 21ST ANNIVERSARY AT THE ORPHEUM THEATER IN NEW ORLEANS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16TH, 2026 

PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT INNOCENCE & JUSTICE LOUISIANA 

Evening To Feature A Variety Of Artists Including Bryan Batt, Tonya Boyd-Cannon, The Gentlemen Callers And Many More;

New Orleans, Louisiana.  Get ready for the annual Holiday party of the  year! For the 21st year in a row in an intimate evening full of music, laughter and special guests, critically-acclaimed Artist and consummate stage performer Judith Owen and her husband, actor and humorist Harry Shearer (The Simpsons, Spinal Tap, Derek Smalls), will once again spread their special brand of yuletide cheer for the 2026 Christmas Without Tears, at home in New Orleans!  Festivities will take place Wednesday, December 16th at 8pm at the Orpheum Theater, with all proceeds benefitting Innocence & Justice Louisiana (formerly Innocence Project New Orleans).  The evening will feature performances from artists including Bryan Batt, Tonya Boyd-Cannon and The Gentlemen Callers with additional performers to be announced shortly.

A tradition that began in Shearer and  Owen’s Santa Monica home, the annual Christmas Without Tears gatherings have grown into a heartwarming house party around the piano that involves and entertains  fellow performers and audience members alike. Since 2005, when the first  public performance was staged at the Walt Disney Concert Hall to aid the people of New Orleans after The flood, Christmas Without  Tears has been a guilt-free way of having fun and giving back:  ALL proceeds go to charities, with this year’s New Orleans performance benefiting Innocence & Justice Louisiana (formerly Innocence Project New Orleans).  

A reverent and irreverent antidote to the  most stressful of seasons, the evening includes both invited  performers and surprise guests who drop into Harry and Judith’s onstage living room and share a song or a joke to bring the holiday spirit to all. Song selections range from the sentimental ("Winter Wonderland” and  "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas") to the irreverent ("F&*k  Christmas” and "Jesus Was a Dreidel Spinner”). Comics, magicians and even a somber clown have been welcome additions,  adding the perfect mix that makes this a true variety show.

Past revelers have included Big Freedia, Terence Blanchard, Mario Cantone, Jon Cleary, Davell Crawford, Evan Christopher, Alan Cumming, Ani DiFranco, Donald Fagen,  Béla Fleck, Christopher Guest, John Goodman, Tom Hanks, Patterson Hood, Rickie Lee Jones, John Michael  Higgins, Jane Lynch, Steve Martin, Tom McDermott, Stephen Merchant, Tim  Minchin, Trixie Minx, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Shaffer, Martin Short, Irma Thomas, Richard Thompson,  Fred Willard, and Weird Al Yankovic, to name but a few.

A throwback to simpler times, this homespun variety show is both a festive romp and salve for the soul, serving as a reminder to all that Christmas is a time to be with the ones you love…and sometimes, even family!

Judith Owen’s latest album, “Suit Yourself,” has been released to widespread critical acclaim worldwide.  Bold, beautiful, sexy, smart and fun - these words can be used to describe pioneering vocalist Judith Owen and her merry band of New Orleans-based musicians, The Gentlemen Callers.  With an amazing blend of song delivery prowesses and personality delighting fans across the globe, Judith’s new album “Suit Yourself” is approaching one million streams since its release worldwide in April.  “Suit Yourself” was recorded at Esplanade Studios in New Orleans and can only be described as the full Judith Owen experience, celebrating all of her strengths and everything that has brought her joy throughout her last three releases.  It combines the joyous swagger of her wildly successful “Come On and Get It”, the hi-octane sounds of her 2024 love letter to big band, “Judith Owen Swings Christmas”, the live power of “Comes Alive” and her own emotionally intoxicating songwriting and arrangements.  A beautiful blend of jazz, blues and big band it may be, but above all it shows off her inimitable sound and personality that seamlessly unite all the tracks into one outstanding oeuvre.

Whether solo at the piano, accompanied by her jazz sextet or her contemporary big band, Judith’s rich mellifluous voice seduces, and her interpretations thrill on songs like Aretha Franklin’s “Evil Gal Blues”and Etta James’s “Since I Fell For You”.   Of special note is her duet with New Orleans luminary Davell Crawford on “Today I Sing The Blues” as well as the first single, the sexy and sophisticated,  “That’s Why I Love My Baby.”  Maestro Joe Bonamassa adds blistering guitar on “Mind Is On Vacation” while the Tonya Boyd-Cannon Choir joins Judith to bring it all back home on the Gospel-inflected “Inside Out.”  Judith and her band are currently touring worldwide.

Actor, comedian, writer, musician, radio host, director and producer Harry Shearer started at the top-as a child actor on the Jack Benny Radio and TV shows, in the movie classic, “The Robe” and the ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ TV show. Shearer was a cast member on Saturday Night Live between 1979 and 1980, and again in 1984 and 1985. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in the This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and A Mighty Wind (2003), and has written and directed two films Teddy Bears’ Picnic (2002) and The Big Uneasy (2010). Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program Le Show, incorporating satire, music, and sketch comedy. He has written three books.  Shearer has won a Primetime Emmy Award  and has received several other Emmy and Grammy Award nominations. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993, and became an artist in residence at Loyola University, New Orleans, in 2013.

Innocence & Justice Louisiana Background

Based in New Orleans, Innocence & Justice Louisiana, formerly Innocence Project New Orleans, frees innocent people sentenced to life in prison and those serving unjust sentences. We recognize the root causes of wrongful convictions and unjust sentences as systemic racism and inequities. We work to expose and address these root causes by sharing our clients’ stories in court, the legislature, the community and the media. We support our clients living well and fully in the world after their release.

Our office is one of the most effective innocence projects in the world: we have an international reputation for winning exonerations, both in the minority of cases where DNA testing can prove innocence, and in more difficult cases where DNA does not exist or has been destroyed.

Since 2001, they have freed or exonerated 78 innocent people from Louisiana and Mississippi’s prisons. We take their cases at no cost to them, or their loved ones. Of the 78 cases we have won to date, all but two of the defendants were young Black men, none of them were given a trial where the presentation of evidence lasted more than one day.  All were innocent of the crimes with which they were charged. Collectively, these men spent over 1,200 years wrongly incarcerated.

In 2019, they launched the Unjust Punishment Project (UPP), which advocates for the release of people serving excessive life or near life sentences through thoughtful and creative litigation and advocacy. The UPP frees people who were given inhumane sentences under Louisiana’s draconian sentencing laws. They have won the freedom of 29 people through the UPP, who served 400 + years in prison for crimes like possession of less than $20 of marijuana.   www.justicelouisiana.org

For media information please contact Alisse Kingsley at Muse Media, e:  AlissetheMuse@aol.com.

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