It began as a lark – just two pals watching old holiday specials and reveling in one another’s laughter. It’s grown into the hottest ticket of the holiday season in Leelanau County. Such is the story of Andrew Dost’s Christmas at the Old Art Building (OAB) an annual holiday variety show that will mark its fourth installment this weekend. Ahead of the sold-out show, The Leelanau Ticker caught up with the Grammy-winning Dost to talk behind-the-scenes stories, holiday traditions, and his desire to keep the OAB partnership going “forever.”

A Frankfort native, Dost came to prominence in the early 2010s as a member of the indie rock band Fun, which scored a Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper in 2012 with the song “We Are Young.” After winning Song of the Year and Best New Artist at the following year’s Grammy Awards, Fun went on hiatus and never resurfaced. Dost returned to northern Michigan, where he’s become a fixture in the local arts scene – particularly around the holidays.

Dost says the idea for Christmas at the OAB grew out of conversations with his friend Mike Rizic, who shares his love for holiday specials from the likes of Lawrence Welk, Dolly Parton, Pee Wee Herman, and The Muppets.

“The idea of doing a Christmas variety show like that just sounded so fun: get our friends together – musicians, comedians, some puppets – and just put on a show,” Dost says. “It’s something we’d been kicking around for a couple of years, and then Mike had an in, through his wife, at the OAB in Leland, which seemed like a natural place to hold something like this. Fortunately, they were on board.”

The first Christmas at the OAB was held in 2022. A sell-out crowd earned Dost and Rizic a chance to make the show an annual thing – and an excuse to spend hours each year sifting through holiday ephemera in the name of “research.” Included on the pair’s watchlist? Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas from 1977, John Denver and The Muppets from 1979, The Mr. T & Emmanuel Lewis Christmas Special from 1984, and a whole playlist of Christmas-themed Saturday Night Live sketches.

“Mike and I would get together, watch through some of those old favorites, and take notes,” Dost tells The Ticker. “We were looking for whatever made us say, ‘Oh, I love this; we’ve got to have this kind of moment.’”

The pair began sketching out their “own warped take on a traditional Christmas special,” searching for “whatever was making us laugh and feel tickled in some way,” Dost says. “If one of us said something that made the other laugh, we knew we were on the right track.”

Of course, it’s one thing to fire off a funny idea while brainstorming, and another to bring it to life.

“For last year’s show, I popped out of a big Christmas present to begin my opening monologue,” Dost says. “So, we had to make a giant box, and we had to wrap it, and we had to get one of those big bows you see when people give a car as a gift. A lot of the prep is like that. It’s asking ‘What do we need to buy, what we need to make, and who do we need to hire to make it?’”

Sometimes, Dost admits, he and Rizic have gotten too ambitious, like when the 2024 show ended up with more than 30 cast members.

“Last year was definitely too many people,” Dost laughs. “We had a full men's choir open the show – which was amazing, but things ended up being a little tight in the OAB. We’re going to try to pare it down this year. But knowing us, that’s probably not actually going to happen.”

For her part, OAB Executive Director Sarah Mills is fine with the “all hands on deck” nature of the show.

“One element Andrew has consistently prioritized, which I particularly appreciate, is creating a unique setting for artists to gather, collaborate in unexpected ways, and step slightly out of their typical roles, all while bringing great joy to the audience,” she says. “It is a testament to the many ways the arts show us the power of human connection.”

This year's show not only sold out fast, but has a waitlist around 30 names long. Could future years expand over multiple nights? Dost confirms those conversations have happened, but he’s conflicted. He’d like the show not to get “too exclusive,” where people miss out if they’re not online to buy tickets the moment they go on sale.

“But it’s also really fun and special to have a one-night thing,” he adds. “I wonder about diluting the magic over a couple nights. It’s kind of amazing to have a joke pop, and then it’s gone. Who knows, though? Maybe next year, we'll plan it better and we'll be able to get two shows out of the deal.”

In any case, Dost is humbled by the popularity of the show, and by the fact that locals are making it part of their Christmas traditions.

“One of the ultimate goals, as an artist and a human, is to make something that people incorporate into their holidays, because holiday traditions are so important to me,” he shares. “My family watches The Muppet Christmas Carol every year; we make the same cookies; we sing the same songs; we read the same stories; we look through the same pictures. These traditional things are part of the fabric of my being, and if something we're building can be a part of that for other people, then that is just the biggest honor I could think of.”

“We want to keep this going forever, though we'll pass the torch once we’re unable to put on a good show,” Dost adds.