The Actors Studio continues its seventy-fifth anniversary celebration with several special free events this month (photo courtesy the Actors Studio)
THE ACTORS STUDIO IN PROCESS
The Actors Studio
432 West Forty-Fourth St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
May 12-13, free with RSVP, 7:00
Additional events May 14, 19-20, 25-26
theactorsstudio.org
If you haven’t been paying attention, the Actors Studio has been celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary with some outstanding public events. Last month, “Directed by Estelle Parsons” featured the Oscar- and Obie-winning actress helming three works; in December, Carroll Baker was on hand for a talk following a screening of Elia Kazan’s Baby Doll; and in October, Al Pacino hosted a screening of Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon at United Palace.
The party continues this weekend with Tony and Obie winner Lois Smith and others taking audiences behind the scenes in “The Actors Studio in Process.” On May 12 and 13 at 7:00, there will be open rehearsals of scenes from three plays: Elizabeth Stearns’s Hillbilly Women, directed by Marilyn Fried and starring Smith, Jacqueline Knapp, and Taylor Plas; writer-director Dennis Russo’s Midnight and Sky, with Russo and Marc Solomon; and Chris Stack and Scott McCord’s We Might Fall Apart, with McCord, Stack, and Plas. Admission is free with RSVP.
On May 14 at 3:00, an encore of “The Playwright: Tales from the Color Line” consists of scenes from plays exploring race, followed by Q&As, with Phillip Hayes Dean’s This Bird of Dawning Singeth All Night Long, directed by Paul Calderon and starring Martha Gehman and Richarda Abrams; James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charley, directed by Patricia Floyd and featuring McCord, Robert Mobley, Samuel Pygatt, Delissa Reynolds, and Lawrence Stallings; Lorraine Hansberry’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, with Michael Billingsley, Aprella Godfrey-Barule, and Omar Ezat and directed by JoAnna Rhinehart; and Charles Gordone’s No Place to Be Somebody, with Mobley, Brittaney Chatman, Rony Clanton, Marcus Naylor and Steven Vause, directed by Naylor.
The festivities carry on later in the month with “On the Fly 2023: Then and Now” on May 19 and 20, a two-part presentation of short plays by BIPOC writers and directors, the first night a screening of Zoom plays streamed during the pandemic, the second live works, and May 25 and 26 with “Areyto: Latine Celebration,” an immersive theatrical ceremony rooted in equatorial tribal origins, followed by a reception.