this week in literature

ELEGIES FOR ANGELS, PUNKS, AND RAGING QUEENS WORLD AIDS DAY BENEFIT

Who: Brooks Ashmanskas, Laura Bell Bundy, Lena Hall, Robin de Jesús, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Nathan Lane, Norm Lewis, Kevin McHale, Jessie Mueller, Cynthia Nixon, Anthony Rapp, Krysta Rodriguez, Seth Rudetsky, JK Simmons, Alysha Umphress, Paul Castree, Richard Chamberlain, Charity Angél Dawson, Fran Drescher, J. Harrison Ghee, Gideon Glick, Lisa Howard, James Monroe Iglehart, Cherry Jones, Francis Jue, Vicki Lewis, Telly Leung, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Eric William Morris, Michael Notardonato, Okieriete Onaodowan, Kirsten Scott, Matthew Scott, Michael James Scott, Evan Todd, Mariand Torres, Michael Xavier, Danny Burstein, Judith Light, Billy Porter, Michael Urie, more
What: Abingdon Theater Company benefit for World AIDS Day
Where: Broadway on Demand
When: Tuesday, December 1, free, 5:00
Why: First produced at the Ohio Theatre in New York City in 1989, composer Janet Hood and lyricist Bill Russell’s Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raging Queens consists of monologues from the perspective of AIDS victims and songs that explore the reaction of their deaths from friends and family. On World AIDS Day, Broadway on Demand, in conjunction with the Abingdon Theater Company, is hosting a virtual revival of the show, featuring an all-star cast of more than fifty actors, including Brooks Ashmanskas, Lena Hall, Fran Drescher, Nathan Lane, Norm Lewis, Richard Chamberlain, Jessie Mueller, Cynthia Nixon, Anthony Rapp, Krysta Rodriguez, James Monroe Iglehart, Cherry Jones, Seth Rudetsky, and JK Simmons, with special appearances by Danny Burstein, Judith Light, Billy Porter, and Michael Urie. It’s free to stream, although donations are encouraged for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The stories were inspired by the AIDS Memorial Quilt and Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology collection of interrelated free-verse poems and features such songs as “I’m Holding On to You,” “I Don’t Do That Anymore,” “I Don’t Know How to Help You,” and “Celebrate.”

A THOUSAND DREADFUL THINGS: SHAKESPEARE AND THE FEAR OF BLACK VENGEANCE

Ron Cephas Jones (right) will discuss Titus Andronicus in special Shakespeare program from Brooklyn Public Library and the Public Theater (photo by Joan Marcus)

Who: Ron Cephas Jones, Eisa Davis, William Jackson Harper, Raúl Esparza, Jill Lepore, Michael Sexton, Ayanna Thompson, Stephen Greenblatt, Philip Lorenz
What: Digital Shakespeare program
Where: Brooklyn Public Library and the Public Theater
When: Sunday, November 22, free with RSVP, 7:00; Thursday, December 3, free with RSVP, 7:00; Thursday, December 17, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: Shakespeare readings and discussions have multiplied during the pandemic, with actors and scholars presenting impassioned soliloquies online, followed by fascinating talks about the legacy of the Bard, particularly in this time of Covid-19, isolation, and social and political unrest; Red Bull Theater’s RemarkaBULL Podversations have been especially enlightening, highlighted by scintillating episodes with Chukwudi Iwuji and Patrick Page. Now the Brooklyn Public Library and the Public Theater have teamed up for a free three-part digital voyage into Shakespeare, kicking off November 22 at 7:00 with “A Thousand Dreadful Things: Shakespeare and the Fear of Black Vengeance,” an exploration of Aaron the Moor from Titus Andronicus, with Ron Cephas Jones, who played Aaron at the Public in 2011, William Jackson Harper, and Public Theater Shakespeare scholar in residence Ayanna Thompson, author of Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America. On December 3 at 7:00, “What Is the City but the People? Shakespeare, Art, and Citizenship” features Pulitzer Prize-winning profession Stephen Greenblatt, author of Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, and actor and playwright Eisa Davis looking at modern democracy; and on December 17 at 7:00, “Two Monsters of Nature: Lope de Vega and William Shakespeare” links the theater of Lope de Vega and Shakespeare, with readings in Spanish and English by Tony winner Raúl Esparza and commentary by Cornell professor of comparative language Philip Lorenz. All three programs will be moderated by Public Theater Shakespeare Initiative director Michael Sexton and are free with RSVP.

DAVID GODLIS PRESENTS GODLIS STREETS

Who: David Godlis, Luc Sante, Chris Stein, Dave Brolan
What: Virtual book launch
Where: Rizzoli Zoom
When: Thursday, November 19, free with RSVP, 5:00
Why: “As Garry Winogrand said, ‘I photograph to see what things look like photographed.’ This book is what I photographed,” David Godlis explains in his new book, Godlis Streets (Reel Art Press, $39.95, November 2020). I’m used to seeing the ever-cool Godlis and his impressive curly hair every year at the New York Film Festival, snapping away from his seat at front and center, but this year’s event, of course, was virtual, so I will have to settle for catching up with Godlis on Zoom when Rizzoli hosts his book launch on November 19 at 5:00, when Godlis will speak with Reel Art Press music editor Dave Brolan. Godlis is known for his black-and-white documentation of the punk scene, cinema luminaries, and street photos from the 1970s to 1990s, ever since he purchased his first 35mm camera in 1970; his motto is “Better Living Through Photography.” Look out for his photo of an outdoor stand selling “Black Art,” a drawing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., next to “American Art,” a painting of a clown; a shot of a nun walking past a bus with an ad featuring a naked man and woman on it; and a picture of two women looking askance at him as they pass a peep show. The book includes a foreword by Luc Sante and an afterword by Chris Stein; both Sante and Stein will be part of the launch as well, which is free with RSVP.

RED BULL THEATER: THE COURAGE TO RIGHT A WOMAN’S WRONGS (VALOR, AGAVIO, Y MUJER)

Red Bull Theater teams up with UCLA to present new translation of Spanish Golden Age comedy

Who: Red Bull Theater company
What: Livestreamed benefit reading of new translation of Ana Caro Mallén’s The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs
Where: Red Bull Theater website and Facebook Live
When: Monday, November 16, free with RSVP (donations accepted), 7:30 (available on demand through November 20 at 7:00)
Why: For its latest livestreamed reading, Red Bull is teaming up with Diversifying the Classics | UCLA to present a brand-new translation of Spanish Golden Age poet and playwright Ana Caro’s The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs (“Valor, agravio y mujer.”) Part of La Escena 2020, the second edition of Los Angeles’s Festival of Hispanic Classical Theater, the seventeenth-century comedy focuses on a woman’s boundary-crossing encounters with issues of society and gender, justice and honor, specifically related to her former lover, Don Juan. In their introduction to the new translation, Marta Albalá Pelegrín and Rafael Jaime write, “Through this stirring tale of a woman’s courage to right the wrongs she has suffered, the play holds up to scrutiny contemporary notions of masculine honor and offers in their place a vision that opens up space for women and their agency.”

The reading will be performed by Anita Castillo-Halvorssen, Helen Cespedes, Natascia Diaz, Carson Elrod, Anthony Michael Martinez, Sam Morales, Alfredo Narciso, Ryan Quinn, Luis Quintero, and Matthew Saldivar and is directed by Melia Bensussen; there will be a live, interactive Bull Session with some of the artists involved and UCLA professor of Spanish and English Barbara Fuchs and California State Polytechnic English and modern languages associate professor Pelegrín on November 19 at 7:30, also free with RSVP. The reading will be available on demand through November 20 at 7:00.

ROSANNE CASH AND A. M. HOMES: EYE OF THE COLLECTOR

Rosanne Cash and A. M. Homes appear in new Met film Eye of the Collector (photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images North America)

Who: Rosanne Cash, A. M. Homes
What: Prerecorded film with songs and poems
Where: Met Museum Facebook and YouTube
When: Tuesday, November 17, free, 7:00
Why: In conjunction with the exhibition “Photography’s Last Century: The Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Collection,” which continues through November 30, the Met is hosting the free virtual presentation Eye of the Collector. In the half-hour film, directed and edited by Phyllis Housen, singer-songwriter extraordinaire Cash, whose albums include Seven Year Ache, The List, and She Remembers Everything, and Homes, who has written such books as Days of Awe, This Book Will Save Your Life, and The Mistress’s Daughter, share songs and poems, accompanied by images from the exhibit, which features works by Paul Strand, Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Joseph Cornell, Diane Arbus, Andy Warhol, Sigmar Polke, Cindy Sherman, Richard Avedon, and many others, promised as a 150th anniversary gift to the Met from Tenenbaum and Lee. The film will be streamed over the Met’s Facebook and YouTube pages on November 17 at 7:00.

“The pandemic and the protests were the perfect storm of isolation, longing, inspiration, longing, fear, and hope,” Cash writes about her new single, the sociopolitical “Crawl into the Promised Land,” adding, “Living in New York City was a pressure cooker, particularly in April and May, when the deaths were spiking and the city sealed itself off, and utterly changed. But strangely, there was also a sense of unity and community, and the potential for transcendence. I kept thinking of the model in physics, where things have to fall apart in order to re-assemble themselves in a more refined, evolved state. . . . I need more space and time to understand what happened, what we are still going through. Why we elected such an unfit person to guide us, why we kill Black people with impunity, why our leaders dismantle and mock every institution we have painstakingly created to hold us safe, why some deaths matter and others don’t. I won’t be here ‘fifty years away from here,’ but someone I gave birth to, or someone they gave birth to, will live in those times and understand, and maybe pass the knowledge on to me, even in another world or another life. The magnitude of the moment requires time and an ocean of reflection.” That is precisely what Cash and Homes will be offering on Tuesday night.

NEW YORK THEN AND NOW: ROZ CHAST AND CALVIN TRILLIN IN CONVERSATION WITH BUDD MISHKIN

Roz Chast and Calvin Trillin sit down for a 92Y online talk with Budd Mishkin on November 12

Who: Roz Chast, Calvin Trillin, Budd Mishkin
What: 92Y Talks & Readings
Where: 92Y online
When: Thursday, November 12, $15, 7:00
Why: Preeminent New Yorkers Roz Chast, Calvin Trillin, and Budd Mishkin come together for the inaugural presentation of the 92nd St. Y’s new series “New York Then and Now with Budd Mishkin.” On November 12 at 7:00, New Yorker cartoonist and Society of Illustrators Hall of Famer Chast and longtime New Yorker contributor and author Trillin will discuss the state of the city with moderator, broadcast journalist, and master interviewer Mishkin.

POETRY FOR THE PANDEMIC

Actors Tracie Thoms and Bill Murray are among those participating in “Poetry for the Pandemic” on November 12

Who: Dr. Joshua Bennett, Mahogany L. Browne, Juan Felipe Herrera, Molly McCully Brown, Patricia Smith, Tracie Thoms, Bill Murray, Maddie Dietz, Manasi Garg, Isabella Ramirez, Ethan Wang, Anthony John Wiles Jr.
What: Poetry, dialogue, Q&A
Where: Theater of War Zoom
When: Thursday, November 12, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: Theater of War continues its impressive online presence during the Covid-19 crisis with the free, virtual program “Poetry for the Pandemic,” joining forces with the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers on November 12 at 7:00. The ninety-minute program brings together established and emerging poets along with actors Tracie Thoms, who played Antigone in Theater of War’s Antigone in Ferguson, and Bill Murray. The evening will begin with poetry readings, followed by a discussion with the student poets and then an audience Q&A. Dr. Joshua Bennett will serve as facilitator, with professional poets Juan Felipe Herrera, Mahogany L. Browne, Molly McCully Brown, and Patricia Smith and student poets Maddie Dietz, Manasi Garg, Isabella Ramirez, Ethan Wang, and Anthony John Wiles Jr.