this week in literature

MOBILE UNIT’S SUMMER OF JOY

THE PUBLIC THEATER’S MOBILE UNIT
Multiple locations in all five boroughs
July 31 – August 29, free
publictheater.org

The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit is back on the road after being sidelined by the pandemic lockdown last year, bringing free pop-up Shakespeare to locations across the five boroughs. “I always felt that we should travel,” Public founder Joseph Papp said once upon a time. “I wanted to bring Shakespeare to the people.” The Public has been doing just that in one form or another since 1957; this summer the Mobile Unit, in its tenth year, will be bringing two productions to plazas and squares from July 31 to August 29. Each presentation begins with the National Black Theatre’s Stage for Healing and Resilience, which will provide a space for reflection, meditation, and sharing. That will be followed by Verses @ Work — The Abridged Mix, Mobile Unit in Corrections artist Malik Work’s one-man show that incorporates verse, video, live music, musical theater, jazz, hip-hop, spoken word, and dance. Coproduced by the Public with NBT and directed by Vernice Miller, the autobiographical piece, inspired in part by Homer’s Odyssey, was nominated for a 2017 Audelco Award for Best Solo Performance and was turned into a film; Work has also staged a one-man adaptation of Timon of Athens and teaches Shakespeare, acting, and hip-hop theater. The free afternoon concludes with the hourlong Shakespeare: Call and Response; conceived by director Patricia McGregor, it features Sofia Jean Gomez, Teresa Avia Lim, Reza Salazar, and Work interacting with the audience through text, music, dance, and improv, playing multiple roles anchored by an MC and DJ duo rapping in iambic pentameter, with scenic design by Diggle, costumes by Katherine O’Neill, sound by Jorge Olivo, and choreography by Paloma McGregor (Patricia’s sister).

“The Mobile Unit is the purest expression of the Public’s conviction that the culture belongs to everyone. Our return this summer is a thrilling and responsive artistic expression born from this historical moment. We are responding to the call of community and creating a unifying embodiment of theater for this city,” Public artistic director Oskar Eustis said in a statement. Mobile Unit director Karen Ann Daniels added, “It is essential for the Mobile Unit to build something that could speak to the moment — a unique format that would reinvigorate our communal spaces and our connection to each other. We all came to the table with a strong sense that it is only through the creation of our art, and inviting our community’s participation in it, that we could offer healing, resilience, and the unbridled joy of the simple act of gathering.” The tour begins July 31 and August 1 at Astor Plaza, moving August 5-6 to Roberto Clemente Plaza, August 7-8 to Johnny Hartman Plaza, August 12 and 28-29 to Osborn Plaza, August 13 and 20 to Albee Square, August 14-15 to 125th Street Plaza, August 19 and 26-27 to Minthorne Street, and August 21-22 to Myrtle/Wyckoff Plaza; all shows are at 4:30 except for August 7-8, which start at 2:00. Also joining in the “Summer of Joy” will be the People’s Bus, a community-led initiative that repurposes a retired NYC prisoner transport vehicle into a mobile center that provides “resources and education to restore and build trust in our democracy.”

TICKET ALERT: BAM FALL 2021 SEASON

The sandy Sun & Sea brings the beach to Fort Greene (photo by Andrej Vasilenko)

BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
September 15 – November 6, $25-$35
www.bam.org

One of the places I’ve missed the most since the pandemic lockdown began in March 2020 is BAM, my performance-venue home-away-from-home. Over the decades, the Fort Greene institution’s exciting cutting-edge programming of innovative works from around the world has been a kind of lifeline for me. I remember in October 2012, after Hurricane Sandy paralyzed the state, I took an extremely slow bus through a dark, bleak city, on my way to BAM to see a show as if that would signal we would all get past this disaster. I made it just in time, breathing heavily, soon immersed in the wonders of how dance, music, art, and theater can lift you up. And so I relished the news when BAM announced its reopening for the fall 2021 season, featuring four works at the intimate BAM Fisher. “The hunger for artistic adventures has never been greater as our world continues to change around us,” BAM artistic director David Binder said in a statement. “Our 2021-22 season kicks off with works from a cohort of remarkable international artists, all of whom are making their BAM debuts. New forms and new ideas will abound in the Fisher, as they create singular experiences that can only happen at BAM.”

ASUNA’s 100 Keyboards will be performed in the round at the BAM Fisher (photo by Ritsuko Sakata)

The season kicks off September 15-26 with Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė’s Sun & Sea, which turns the Fisher into a beach. Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, the work, commissioned for the Lithuanian Pavilion at the fifty-eighth International Art Exhibition, takes place on twenty-five tons of sand on which thirteen vocalists sing a wide array of stories, with a libretto by Vaiva Grainytė and music and musical direction by Lina Lapelytė. Sun & Sea is followed September 30 to October 2 by 100 Keyboards, in which Japanese sound artist ASUNA performs a unique concert in the round on one hundred battery-operated mini keyboards of multiple colors, creating a mysterious sound moire as the audience walks around him, picking up different reverberations.

Cia Suave makes its US debut at BAM with Cria (photo © Renato Mangolin)

In By Heart, running October 5-17, ten audience members join Portuguese artist and Avignon Festival director Tiago Rodrigues onstage, memorizing lines from such writers as William Shakespeare, Ray Bradbury, George Steiner, and Joseph Brodsky to create a new narrative consisting of forbidden texts while the rest of the audience watches (and sometimes participates as well); the set and costume design is by Magda Bizarro, with English translations by Rodrigues, revised by Joana Frazão. And in Cria (November 2-6), Brazilian troupe Cia Suave celebrates the passion of adolescence in a piece choreographed by Alice Ripoll and performed by ten members of the all-Black company of cis and trans dancers who proclaim, “We are CRIA, not created. Little breeds. Loneliness. To smear yourself. The act, the creation and its moment. Sprout. The heart saying, ‘hit me’ with every punch of suffering. In scene birth and death. Each time. Even in childbirth there is a force that wants to give up. A life that begins touches the sublime.” Tickets go on sale today at noon; the way New Yorkers have been snatching up tickets for live, in-person events, you better hurry if you want to catch any of these promising shows in the small, intimate BAM Fisher.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK BERGEN COUNTY

Who: Black Box PAC
What: Free Shakespeare in Bergen County
Where: Overpeck Park Amphitheater
When: Weekends July 23 – August 29, free, 8:00
Why: New York City has Shakespeare in the Parking Lot’s Two Noble Kinsmen, NY Classical’s King Lear with a happy ending, the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Seize the King, and the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park presentation of Merry Wives of Windsor. But you can also catch free Bard in New Jersey, where the Black Box Performing Arts Center’s summer season begins this weekend with modern productions of Hamlet and As You Like It, continuing Thursday to Sunday through August 29 at the Overpeck Park Amphitheater in Bergen County. In addition, Black Box PAC will be hosting free “Play On!” concerts Sundays in August at the amphitheater at 4:00, including performances by Divinity & the FAM Band, Melissa Cherie, Esti Mellul, Ginny Lackey & the Hi-Fi Band, Dan Sheehan’s Rising Seas, and Andy Krikun & Jeff Doctorow. There will also be script-in-hand readings of Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew at the Englewood Public Library on Wednesdays at 8:00 from July 28 to September 1. Admission to all events is free, with no advance RSVP necessary. As Duke Orsino declares in Twelfth Night, “If music be the food of love, play on!”

THE MURDER ON THE LINKS

Who: L.A. Theatre Works
What: All-star audio play based on Agatha Christie novel
Where: LATW online
When: Available starting July 1, $20 (nine-play season $150)
Why: In the 1990s, L.A. Theatre Works focused its attention on audio plays, “producing world classics, modern masterpieces, contemporary, and original works that speak to the issues of our times.” Audio plays have flourished during the pandemic lockdown, with excellent productions from the Public Theater, Keen Company, and Gideon Media, among many others. So the time is right for LATW’s digital 2020-21 nine-play season, which has included audio versions of The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse, Life on Paper by Kenneth Lin, Extinction by Hannie Rayson, Bump by Chiara Atik, A Weekend with Pablo Picasso by Herbert Sigüenza, For Us All by Jeanne Sakata, No-No Boy by Ken Narasaki, and A Good Day at Auschwitz by Stephen Tobolowsky.

Alfred Molina and Simon Helberg star in LATW audio adaptation of The Murder on the Links (photos by Matt Petit and Derek Hutchison)

The final work is Kate McAll’s audio theater adaptation of The Murder on the Links, based on Agatha Christie’s 1923 novel, which featured John Moffat as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in a 1990 BBC Radio 4 version and David Suchet as the intrepid detective in a 1996 episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot for British television. Here Alfred Molina stars as Poirot, with Simon Helberg as Poirot’s bestie, Capt. Arthur Hastings. The two men travel to France to meet with Paul Renauld, only to find out he has been murdered — and their quest soon leads to another body. The cast also features Adhir Kalyan as Jack Renaud, Joanne Whalley as Madame Daubreuil, Kevin Daniels as Detective Giraud, Edita Brychta as Madame Renauld and Françoise, Anna Lyse Erikson as Leonie, Darren Richardson as a sergeant, a doctor, and others, Jocelyn Towne as Cinderella and Marthe Daubreuil, and Matthew Wolf as Monsieur Hautet; the download includes access to a digital video of a table read. Recorded in West Hollywood in April 2021, The Murder on the Links is directed and produced by Erikson, with original music by John Biddle, editing by Charles Carroll, and foley sound by Jeff Gardner. Each LATW play can be downloaded for $20; all nine are available for $150 and come with such bonuses as a video conversation with LATW founding members Ed Asner, Richard Dreyfuss, Hector Elizondo, Stacy Keach, Marsha Mason, and JoBeth Williams.

INAUGURAL DRAMA BOOK SHOP IN-PERSON SIGNING — IN THE HEIGHTS: FINDING HOME

Who: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Jeremy McCarter
What: Book signing
Where: The Drama Book Shop, 266 West Thirty-Ninth St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
When: Wednesday, July 21, 2:00 (tickets on sale Friday, July 16, 10:00 am)
Why: In 2002, a theater group started rehearsing a new musical in the tiny Arthur Seelen Theatre in the basement of the Drama Book Shop, which was founded in 1917 by the Drama League and was bought by Arthur and Rozanne Seelen in 1958. With the future of the beloved store in jeopardy, it was purchased in January 2019 by two of the primaries involved with that rehearsal, director Thomas Kail and writer Lin-Manuel Miranda, along with producer Jeffrey Seller and theater impresario James L. Nederlander. The production was In the Heights, cowritten by Quiara Alegría Hudes, the Broadway smash that was nominated for thirteen Tonys and won four, including Best Musical. Delayed by the pandemic lockdown, the new store, designed by David Korins, opened June 10 on West Thirty-Ninth St., and it is celebrating with its first in-store book signing, a rather big one.

On July 21 at 2:00, composer-lyricist-star Miranda, librettist Hudes, and theater writer Jeremy McCarter will be signing copies of their new tome, In the Heights: Finding Home (Penguin Random House, June 2021, $40), following up on the virtual launch that took place last month. The book opens with an introduction by McCarter that begins, “The actors took their bows, the crowd finished cheering, and everybody headed for the doors. Spotting a friend, I cut across the lobby. I asked, Did you just see what I just saw? Or words to that effect. It’s been fourteen years, so I can’t remember exactly what I said that night. But I do remember exactly how In the Heights made me feel.” The show was turned into a major motion picture that was released on June 10, in theaters and on HBO Max, to wide acclaim and a casting controversy. Limited tickets for the bookstore event, in which the authors will not sign anything other than the books and no photos with them are allowed, go on sale July 16 at 10:00 am, and they’re likely to go fast, so don’t hesitate if you want to keep sharing that feeling.

LUCKY STAR (0.3)

Pioneers Go East Collective’s Lucky Star (0.3) takes place at Judson Memorial Church July 13-30

LUCKY STAR (0.3)
Judson Memorial Church
55 Washington Square South between Thompson & Sullivan Sts.
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, July 13-30, free with RSVP, 8:00
www.judson.org
pioneersgoeast.org

Pioneers Go East Collective honors the history of DIY queer artmaking at such famed New York City venues as La MaMa, Judson Memorial Church, and the Pyramid Club in Lucky Star (0.3), a free multidisciplinary performance installation taking place Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 8:00 at Judson from July 13 to 30. Inspired by Club 57, which was recently highlighted in the documentary Kenny Scharf: When Worlds Collide, the in-person work consists of five episodes featuring dance/performance artists Shaina and Bryan Baira, Bree Breeden, Daniel Diaz, Beth Graczyk, and Joey Kipp and nightlife icon Agosto Machado. Lucky Star (0.3) was written by creative director Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte and production designer Philip Treviño, with choreography by Ori Flomin, film by Jon Burklund and video designer Kathleen Kelley, set design and fabrication by Mark Tambella, and sound by Marielle Iljazoski and Ryan William Downey.

“Lucky Star was born by a desire to make art in a new time,” the collective said in a statement. “We pay homage to creators and legends whose trailblazing work has solidified ways for us to survive as artists reimagining our approach to sharing our work in the age of social media and instant gratification. We term the project a meta-creative journey inviting viewers to engage in an emergent process of collective liberation.” Inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem “Pioneers, O Pioneers!” (“O you youths, Western youths, / So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, / Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, / Pioneers! O pioneers!”), Pioneers Go East Collective was founded in 2010 to “empower a collective of thought-provoking, adventurous, and proud LGBTQ artists . . . dedicated to Latinx, BIPOC, and immigrant artists and teaching artists and their communities in all five boroughs, [exploring] stories of vulnerability and courage for social change.” Admission to Lucky Star (0.3) is free with advance RSVP.

ANDROMEDA’S SISTERS: AN ARTS & ADVOCACY GALA

Who: The Neo-Political Cowgirls
What: Fifth annual benefit gala
Where: NPC Cowgirls online and Leiber Collection Museum in East Hampton
When: Saturday, June 26, $25 streaming, $125-$250 in person, 5:00
Why: Last summer, the nonprofit organization the Neo-Political Cowgirls hosted the fourth annual “Andromeda’s Sisters” online, two virtual evenings of short performances, workshops, and discussion focused on advocacy, including, most memorably, Catherine Curtin in Joy Behar’s stirring monologue Where Are You At? and Laura Gómez in Dipti Bramhandkar’s Brown Girl’s Guide to Self-Pleasure. This year, “Andromeda’s Sisters: An Arts & Advocacy Gala,” which took place in person in 2019 at Guild Hall, goes hybrid, happening online as well as at the Leiber Collection Museum in East Hampton on June 26 at 5:00.

The 2021 event includes a reading of Kathryn Grant’s one-act play Order My Steps, about a prison inmate reconnecting with her estranged adult daughter, directed by Florencia Lozano and NPC founder Kate Mueth and starring Curtin and Irene Sofia Lucio, followed by a panel discussion on social justice and advocacy with Planned Parenthood Federation of America president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson, New Hour for Women and Children — Long Island founder Serena Ligouri, and novelist and editor Angie Cruz. Founded in 2007, the Neo-Political Cowgirls “are committed to making work for women and about women — to creating a space where women and girls from all walks of life can share their experiences, joys, concerns, and spirits through professional dance.” The gala gets its name from the legend in which Princess Andromeda, captured by Poseidon, is saved by the daughters of the God of the Sea, leading to the idea that sisters should seek to help one another in these difficult times. Access to the livestream is $25; in-person tickets are $125-$250.