live performance

CONEY ISLAND SAND SCULPTING CONTEST 2024

Twenty-fifth annual Sand Sculpting Contest takes place in Coney Island on Saturday (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Thirty-second annual Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest should feature plenty of impressive creations on Saturday (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

CONEY ISLAND SAND SCULPTING CONTEST
Coney Island
Boardwalk between West Tenth & Twelfth Sts.
Saturday, August 17, free, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
www.coneyisland.com
www.allianceforconeyisland.org

The thirty-second annual Coney Island Sand Sculpting Contest will take place at the People’s Playground on August 17, as amateurs, semiprofessionals, and professionals will create masterpieces in the Brooklyn sand, primarily with a nautical theme. It’s a blast watching the constructions rise from nothing into some extremely elaborate works of temporary art. The event, which features cash prizes, is hosted by the Alliance for Coney Island and features four categories: Adult Group, Family, Individual, and People’s Choice. There are always a few architectural ringers who design sophisticated castles, along with a handful of gentlemen building, well, sexy mermaids. You can usually register as late as eleven o’clock Saturday to participate. While visiting Coney Island on August 17, you should also check out the Coney Island Museum, the Coney Island Circus Sideshow, Burlesque at the Beach’s “Boner Killers” with Jo “Boobs” Weldon, MiscAllaneous DomTop, Iris Explosion, Sweaty Eddie, Poison Eve, Voodoo Onyx, Broody Valentino, Porcelain, and Storm, and the New York Aquarium in addition to riding the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel, a must every summer.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE 17th ANNUAL CHARLES BUKOWSKI MEMORIAL READING

Who: Kat Georges, Peter Carlaftes, Jennifer Blowdryer, Puma Perl, Michael Puzzo, Danny Shot, Richard Vetere, George Wallace, more
What: Annual tribute to Charles Bukowski
Where: The Bitter End, 147 Bleecker St. between Thompson & La Guardia
When: Thursday, August 15, $10, 6:00
Why: “What sort of cultural hangover keeps Charles Bukowski in print and popular more than twenty years after his death?” S. A. Griffin asks in his Three Rooms Press essay “Charles Bukowski: Dean of Another Academy.” “In light of the fact that a good portion of what has been published since his passing in 1994 may not be the man’s best work, along with some heavy editing at times, why does Charles Bukowski remain relevant well into the 21st century?”

The seventeenth annual Charles Bukowski Memorial Reading takes place August 15 at 6:00 at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village in honor of what would have been the 104th birthday of the author of such books as Pulp, Factotum, Post Office, On Cats, and Love Is a Dog from Hell, with tribute readings by performance artist Penny Arcade, musician and storyteller Jennifer Blowdryer, poets Puma Perl, Danny Shot, and George Wallace, and playwrights Richard Vetere and Michael Puzzo, hosted by Kat Georges and Peter Carlaftes of Three Rooms Press. Bukowski, who died in 1994 at the age of seventy-three, will be celebrated through poetry, oral history, rare videos, and live performances, with a special look at what he might have thought about the 2024 elections, presidential immunity, nonalcoholic beer, AI, and other contemporary issues. As a bonus, various prizes will be given away.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS

Sutton Foster is an unstoppable force of nature in Once Upon a Mattress (photo by Joan Marcus)

ONCE UPON A MATTRESS
Hudson Theatre
141 West Forty-Fourth St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 30, $89-$389
onceuponamattressnyc.com

Sutton Foster makes an entrance for the ages in Lear deBessonet and Amy Sherman-Palladino’s delightful revival of Once Upon a Mattress, which opened tonight at the Hudson Theatre for a limited run through November 30.

In 2022, deBessonet made her Broadway directorial debut with a spectacular, streamlined adaptation of James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim’s fairytale mashup, Into the Woods, which transferred from the popular “Encores!” series at City Center to the St. James. She should have another smash hit on her hands with her spectacular, streamlined adaptation of another fairytale classic, Once Upon a Mattress, the Tony-nominated 1959 show featuring music by Mary Rodgers, lyrics by Marshall Barer, and a book by Jay Thompson, Dean Fuller, and Marshall Barer, adapted here by Sherman-Palladino, the six-time Emmy-winning creator, writer, and producer of such series as Gilmore Girls, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Bunheads, which starred Foster.

Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1835 story “The Princess and the Pea,” Mattress is set “many moons ago,” in a medieval castle where Prince Dauntless the Drab (Michael Urie) is seeking a bride to become princess of the land. However, his strict mother, Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer), has devised impossible tests for his suitors, as she doesn’t want her son to be betrothed. Meanwhile, his father, King Sextimus the Silent (David Patrick Kelly), has nothing to say on the matter, as he cannot speak because of a curse that can only be lifted when “the mouse devours the hawk.” Even if he could talk, it is unlikely he would be able to get a word in edgewise with his powerful, domineering wife.

The queen’s dismissal of princess after princess has a terrible impact on her subjects; no one else can marry until Prince Dauntless has been led to the altar. The law particularly hurts Lady Larken (Nikki Renée Daniels), who will be the new princess’s lady-in-waiting. Lady Larken is pregnant and is desperate to wed her true love, the handsome, brave, and not very bright Sir Harry (Will Chase), Chivalric Knight of the Herald, before she starts showing. Sir Harry — and his jangling spurs, which he is obsessed with — heads out to find a princess. And what a princess he brings back.

King Sextimus the Silent (David Patrick Kelly) and Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer) oversee the potential marriage of their son, Prince Dauntless the Drab (Michael Urie) (photo by Joan Marcus)

Princess Winnifred the Woebegone (Foster) is everything the queen despises. She’s dressed in muddy rags, her hair is a mess, she’s utterly uncouth, and she is covered in leeches and other surprising creatures, as she swam the moat and climbed the wall to enter the castle. “What on earth are you?” the disgusted queen says to Winnifred. The princess wriggles around as if something is on her body and asks the queen, “It feels weird. Is it weird?” Queen Aggravain responds, “For you? I’m going to say no.”

In a role originated by Carol Burnett and later played by such other comedic actors as Dody Goodman, Jo Anne Worley, Sarah Jessica Parker, Andrea Martin, Tracey Ullman, and Jackie Hoffman, Foster holds nothing back. She romps across the stage with infectious glee, singing, dancing, and telling jokes, a seeming free spirit who Dauntless is instantly smitten with, even as she claims, “Despite the impression I give, / I confess that I’m living a lie, / because I’m actually terribly timid, and horribly shy.” She continues her hilarious high jinks through to the adorable finale.

But before Fred, as she prefers to be called, can marry Dauntless, she has to pass the queen’s toughest test yet by proving she has the sensitivity of royalty. “Sensitivity, sensitivity, / I’m just loaded with that!” the queen tells her wizard (Brooks Ashmanskas). / “In this one word is / the epitome of the aristocrat / sensitive soul and sensitive stomach, / sensitive hands and feet. / This is the blessing, also the curse / of being the true elite. / Common people don’t know what / exquisite agony is / suffered by gentle people / like me!”

As the jester (Daniel Breaker), who serves as the narrator of the show, informed the audience at the beginning, the test will involve twenty down mattresses and a tiny pea.

Princess Winnifred the Woebegone (Sutton Foster) creates havoc after swimming a moat and climbing a castle wall (photo by Joan Marcus)

As with deBessonet’s Into the Woods, which was nominated for six Tonys, including Best Director and Best Revival of a Musical, Once Upon a Mattress is great fun, although the show lacks some of the serious edges that make Woods so special, instead concentrating on inspired goofiness. Two-time Tony winner Foster (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything Goes) is a force of nature, a whirling dervish of id; every bone and muscle in her body gets in on the action — and you might never look at a bowl of grapes the same way again. Urie (The Government Inspector, Buyer & Cellar) could not be any more charming as the prince, a man-child who has not learned how to walk up steps yet and doesn’t know how to stand up for himself. Just watching Urie’s and Foster’s eyes are worth the price of admission.

SNL veteran Gasteyer (The Rocky Horror Show, Wicked) is phenomenal as the nasty Queen Aggravain, nailing the Mamalogue; Tony nominee Chase (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Nice Work If You Can Get It) has a ball portraying the dimwitted Sir Harry; Tony nominees Ashmanskas (Shuffle Along, Something Rotten!) and Breaker (Passing Strange, Shrek) form a fine duo as the wizard and the jester, who knows his secret; Kelly (An Enemy of the People, The Warriors) is wacky as the king, portrayed over the years by Jack Gilford, Buster Keaton, Milo O’Shea, Tom Smothers, and David Greenspan; and Daniels (Company, The Book of Mormon) is sweet and lovable as the endearing Lady Larken.

David Zinn keeps it simple with his set, consisting of vaguely medieval beribboned poles and family-crest-style banners slyly referenceing New York City; the orchestra plays in the back of the stage, performing Bruce Coughlin’s enchanting orchestrations. Lorin Lotarro’s playful choreography keeps up the often-frenetic pace, while Andrea Hood’s costumes add elegant color, all superbly lit by Justin Townsend, with expert sound by Kai Harada.

Sir Harry (Will Chase) and Lady Larken (Nikki Renée Daniels) share only part of their story with Queen Aggravain (Ana Gasteyer) and Prince Dauntless the Drab (Michael Urie) (photo by Joan Marcus)

Not everything works. Several songs feel extraneous, a handful of comic moments are repeated, and a few bows are left untied — the show could probably be trimmed down to a tight hundred minutes without intermission instead of two hours and twenty minutes with a break. But who’s to complain when that means more time with Foster and Urie, delivering such lines as “Alas! A lass is what I lack. / I lack a lass; alas! Alack!??” and “In my soul is the beauty of the bog. / In my mem’ry the magic of the mud.”

Early on, the jester asks, “What is a genuine princess?” It’s a question that relates more than ever to the state of the world in the twenty-first century. And one deBessonet, Sherman-Palladino, and Foster go a long way toward redefining.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HARLEM WEEK 50: CELEBRATE THE JOURNEY

HARLEM WEEK
Multiple locations in Harlem
August 7-18, free
harlemweek.com

Fifty years ago, actor and activist Ossie Davis cut a ribbon at 138th St. and the newly renamed Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. (formerly Seventh Ave.), opening what was supposed to be a one-day, one-time-only event known as Harlem Day; Davis called it “the beginning of the second Harlem Renaissance.” Among the cofounders were Davis, his wife, Ruby Dee, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Ornette Coleman, Lloyd E. Dickens, David Dinkins, Basil Paterson, Tito Puente, Charles Rangel, Max Roach, Vivian Robinson, “Sugar Ray” Robinson, Hope R. Stevens, Bill Tatum, Barbara Ann Teer, and Rev. Wyatt T. Walker.

The festival has blossomed over the last half century into the annual favorite Harlem Week, a summer gathering packed full of live performances, film screenings, local vendors, panel discussions, a job fair, fashion shows, health screenings, exhibits, and more. This year’s theme is “Celebrate the Journey”; among the highlights are the Uptown Night Market, the Percy Sutton Harlem 5K Run & Health Walk, Great Jazz on the Great Hill, Harlem on My Mind Conversations, a Jobs & Career Fair, the Children’s Festival, the Concert Under the Stars, and the centerpiece, “A Great Day in Harlem.” Below is the full schedule; everything is free.

Wednesday, August 7
Climate Change Conference, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, West 125th St., 6:00

Thursday, August 8
Uptown Night Market, 133rd St. & 12th Ave., 4:00 – 10:00

Harlem Summerstage, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, 5:30

HW 50 Indoor/Outdoor Film Festival, 7:00

Friday, August 9
Senior Citizens Day, with health demonstrations and testing, live performances, exhibits, panel discussions, the Senior Hat Fashion Show, and more, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

Saturday, August 10
NYC Summer Streets Celebrating Harlem Week’s 50th Anniversary, 7:00 am – 3:00 pm

The Percy Sutton Harlem 5K Run & Health Walk, West 135th St., 8:00 am

Choose Healthy Life Service of Renewal and Healing, noon

Great Jazz on the Great Hill, Central Park Great Hill, 4:00

Harlem Week/Imagenation Outdoor Film Festival: Black Nativity (Kasi Lemmons, 2013), 7:00

Sunday, August 11
A Great Day in Harlem, with Artz, Rootz & Rhythm, the Gospel Caravan, AFRIBEMBE, and Concert Under the Stars featuring the Harlem Music Festival All-Star Band, music director to the stars Ray Chew, and special guests, General Grant National Memorial, Riverside Dr., noon – 7:00

Monday, August 12
Youth Conference & Hackathon, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

Children’s Corner — Books on the Move: “Mommy Moment,” 10:00 am

Tuesday, August 13
Economic Development Day, noon – 3:00

Arts & Culture/Broadway Summit, 3:00

Harlem on My Mind Conversations, 7:30

Wednesday, August 14
NYC Jobs & Career Fair, CCNY, 160 Convent Ave., 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

Harlem on My Mind Conversations, 7:00

Thursday, August 15
Black Health Matters/HARLEM WEEK Summer Health Summit & Expo, with free health screenings, prizes, breakfast, and lunch, the Alhambra Ballroom, 2116 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd., 9:00 am – 3:00 pm

Harlem Summerstage, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building Plaza, 5:00

Banking & Finance for Small Business & Entrepreneurs, Chase Community Banking Center, 55 West 125th St., 6:00 – 9:45

Harlem on My Mind Conversations, 8:45

Saturday, August 17
NYC Summer Streets Celebrating HARLEM WEEK’s 50th Anniversary, 109th St. & Park Ave. – 125th St. & Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd., 7:00 am – 3:00 pm

NYC Children’s Festival, with storytelling, live performances, dance, hip hop, theater, poetry, arts & crafts, double dutch competitions, face painting, technology information, health services, and more, Howard Bennett Playground, West 135th St., noon – 5:00

Summer in the City, with live performances, fashion shows, and more, West 135th St., 1:00 – 6:00

Alex Trebek Harlem Children’s Spelling Bee, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, 515 Malcolm X Blvd., 2:00

Harlem Week/Imagenation Outdoor Film Festival, Great Lawn at St. Nicholas Park, West 135th St. 6:00

Sunday, August 18
NYC Health Fair, West 135th St., noon – 5:00

Harlem Day, with live performances, food vendors, arts & crafts, jewelry, hats, sculptors, corporate exhibitors, games, a tribute to Harry Belafonte, and more, West 135th St., 1:00 – 7:00

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE MEETING: THE INTERPRETER

Frank Wood and Kelley Curran appear onstage and onscreen in The Meeting: The Interpreter (photo by Carol Rosegg)

THE MEETING: THE INTERPRETER
Theatre at St. Clement’s
423 West 46th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through August 25, $39-$135
meetinginterpreterplay.com
www.stclementsnyc.org

Frank Wood and Kelley Curran are terrific in the world premiere of The Meeting: The Interpreter. However, I’m completely flummoxed by the play, which explores the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting from multiple angles, literally and figuratively.

On that day, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, publicist Rob Goldstone, and Russian-American businessman Ike Kaveladze met at the Fifth Ave. building to discuss the Magnitsky Act, gathering dirt on Hillary Clinton, and/or the adoption of Russian children by Americans; the meeting figured prominently in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on possible Russian interference and collusion in the 2016 presidential election.

Also present was a Russian-born interpreter (Wood) who had worked for the UN, the US government, and private individuals for more than twenty years and had what is known as public trust clearance. The name of the interpreter is never revealed in the play and critics have been asked not to use it in any articles about the show, even though it is listed in the Wikipedia entry about the meeting and the interpreter has his own LinkedIn page.

In the program, it points out, “This is a work of dramatic interpretation, and any resemblance to actual people and events is strictly coincidental”; however, nearly every other character is mentioned by name, including Congressman Mike Quigley, Congressman Eric Swalwell, Congressman Mike Conaway, Sen. Charles Grassley aide Samantha Brennan, Sen. Dianne Feinstein general counsel Heather Sawyer, and the interpreter’s lawyer, Larry H. Krantz, who take part in a Senate Judiciary Committee interview of the interpreter on November 8, 2017, with dialogue taken directly from the transcripts. In a tour de force with numerous comic moments, Curran plays every role other than the interpreter.

Writer Catherine Gropper, who met the interpreter by chance in the winter of 2020, and director Brian Mertes seem to go out of their way to make every scene unnecessarily complicated; although some work, most are head-scratchingly bizarre. The play begins with the credits rolling on a screen at the front of the stage, as if we are watching a movie, followed by a shot of Wood and Curran sitting at a long desk like newscasters. Brennan begins the November 8 hearing, but after a few minutes, the screen shifts over to stage left — where it remains the entire time — and the two actors, seated with their backs to us, look behind them, acknowledging the audience as the cluttered desk they are sitting at is turned around.

Throughout the ninety-minute show, a camera operated by three people slowly circles the stage. Live projections from that camera appear on the screen, giving the audience different perspectives on the actors, each wearing a white shirt, dark pants, and a blazer. One of the camera operators wears an Awolnation T-shirt, for the LA band that has released such albums as Back from Earth, Megalithic Symphony, and The Phantom Five and whose name refers to a country that has gone “absent without leave.” There’s confusion about where to look as the actors move from the main table, to small seats, to a recording booth, and to a makeup cabinet. Wood sifts through a bucket of sand. Curran staples a tie to a box. The actors break out into a dance. They snap their fingers and drum on the table. The video feed turns to abstract animation. Wood peels a plastic sheet off the studio glass. Part of the meeting is re-created with creepy dolls. (The cramped set is by Jim Findlay, with costumes by Olivera Gajic, lighting by Barbara Samuels, sound and music by Dan Baker & Co., projections by Yana Biryukova, puppets and animation by Julian Crouch, and camera by Tatiana Stolporskaya.)

World premiere production uses unique ways to tell its story (photo by Carol Rosegg)

It’s as if Gropper (Embers, Miss Crandall’s Classes) and Mertes (The Myopia, Massacre) approached each scene with the question: What can we do to complicate the action and confuse the audience this time? If that were their intention, they have succeeded marvelously.

The Meeting: The Interpreter might have worked much better at a small, experimental theater like La MaMa, the Wooster Group’s Performing Garage, or BAM’s Fishman Space. It gets lost at Theatre at St. Clement’s, where it is playing to a more traditional crowd. For me, it’s a cursed venue; of the dozen or so shows I’ve seen there, I’ve only been able to recommend two.

Tony winner Wood (Toros, The Red Letter Plays: In the Blood, The Iceman Cometh) once again reveals himself to be New York City’s best deadpan actor; he commits to his underwritten character in a way that makes the interpreter endearing even when doing something utterly nonsensical. Curran (Mother of the Maid, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, BAD NEWS! I was there . . .) delivers another fine performance, fully investing herself in her responsibilities as a political shape shifter. It’s a shame there isn’t more cohesiveness to the narrative; the plot doesn’t have to be spelled out to the letter, but then it is, in a text-only finale that tells us what we already knew about the Trump Tower meeting, the Mueller Report, and the presidential election of 2016 before we entered the theater.

“I left part of myself there, at Trump Tower. Normally, I wouldn’t care. Unless something shakes me to my core,” the interpreter says in a rare moment of poignant insight. “I don’t open up so easily. Maybe it’s why I interpret for others. Actually, I’m a private man.”

The play itself could use an interpreter, but maybe that’s the point?

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

PHILIPPE PETIT: TOWERING!!

Philippe Petit will look back at his historic walk between the Twin Towers at special events at St. John the Divine (photo courtesy Man on Wire)

Who: Philippe Petit, Sting, Anat Cohen, Molly Lewis, Sophie Auster, Tim Guinee, Lorenzo Pisoni, Evelyne Crochet, Shawn Conley, James Marsh, Michael Miles, and students of Ballet Tech
What: Live performances celebrating fiftieth anniversary of Twin Towers high-wire walk
Where: The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Ave. at 112th St.
When: Wednesday, August 7, and Thursday, August 8, $50-$500 (VIP $1800), 8:30
Why: It was an unforgettable moment in my childhood. On August 7, 1974, French tightrope artist Philippe Petit, six days shy of his twenty-fifth birthday, pulled off what he called “le coup”: After six years of secret planning, he snuck up to the top of the South Tower of the recently built World Trade Center and walked on a 131-foot-long wire he had strung to the other, 1,350 feet aboveground, traversing it eight times over forty-five minutes using a balancing pole. The crossing was completely unauthorized; spectators and security officers alike were stunned. It was a spectacular achievement that went viral well before there was anything like social media. It was all over the news, on television and in the papers, and it was all anyone was talking about.

“This is probably the end of my life to step on that wire,” Petit says in James Marsh’s 2008 documentary, Man on Wire. “Death is very close.”

The Twin Towers opened on April 4, 1973, and were destroyed on September 11, 2001.

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A post shared by Philippe Petit (@philippepetit_manonwire)

Petit has also walked the high wire at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Louisiana Superdome, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Paris Opera, the Museum of the City of New York, the Eiffel Tower, and locations in Jerusalem, Tokyo, Vienna, Frankfurt, Belgium, Switzerland, and numerous US cities. In 1982, 1992, and 1996, he performed the feat at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, where he has been an artist in residence for more than four decades.

On August 7 and 8, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of his World Trade Center walk, called the “artistic crime of the century,” Petit has conceived and directed “Towering!!,” a special two-night multidisciplinary happening consisting of nineteen scenes at the cathedral, where he will be joined by clarinetist Anat Cohen, musical whistler Molly Lewis, singer-songwriter Sophie Auster, actors Tim Guinee and Lorenzo Pisoni, classical pianist Evelyne Crochet, bassist and composer Shawn Conley, musician, author, and educator Michael Miles, and students from Ballet Tech dance school.

Petit, who turns seventy-five on August 13, will walk the high wire and share stories about his WTC adventure. In addition, his good friend Sting will play three songs, including “Let the Great World Spin,” which was written specifically for this event, and Marsh will debut a short film about Petit.

Limited tickets are still available for several sections as well as VIP seating, which comes with Champagne and dessert with Petit after the performance. Part of the proceeds support programs at the cathedral and the preservation of Petit’s archives.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE LITTLE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL: CAMARADERIE AND COMMUNITY

The Lark and the Nightingale explores friendship between Juliet and Desdemona

THE LITTLE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
UNDER St. Marks
94 St. Marks Pl.
August 1-17, $20 streaming, $27.50 in person
www.frigid.nyc

One of the most important aspects of William Shakespeare’s canon is how open each play is to interpretation and adaptation. The Bard’s works are regularly retold with changes in time and location, race and gender, style and genre. It’s gotten so that it is rarer to see a traditional production than one involving significant alterations, incorporating such elements as contemporary pop music, modern-day political issues, the rise of a minor character, and zombies.

Presented by FRIGID New York, the 2024 Little Shakespeare Festival offers Willy fans the opportunity to see seven shows that take unique looks at different aspects of Shakespeare’s genius. Running August 1-17 at UNDER St. Marks in the East Village, the fourth annual fest, the theme of which is “Camaraderie and Community,” can be experienced in person or via livestreaming, with most shows clocking in at around sixty minutes.

As You Will is one of seven productions in 2024 Little Shakespeare Festival

Hamlet Isn’t Dead’s When My Cue Comes (August 1, 3, 11, 15, 17) is set in a waiting room filled with forgotten characters, including Reynaldo from Hamlet, Jaques de Boys from As You Like It, the boatswain from The Tempest, and a messenger, from multiple plays; the Bard himself works the front desk. Justin Hay’s solo My Own Private Shakespeare (August 1, 2, 3, 4) follows a Shakespearean actor on the edge. Conor D Mullen, David Brummer, and George Hider return with their unscripted, unpredictable As You Will (August 2, 4, 10, 17). In Ladies & Fools’ Fools in the Forest (August 3, 8, 16), writer Natalie Kane reimagines what happens at the end of As You Like It. Sean Gordon delivers a senior thesis in the one-person show Walter Schlinger’s Romeo and Juliet (August 4, 8, 16). Juliet and Desdemona search for happiness outside of their usual stories in Mindy Mawhirter and Alyssa Cokinis’s The Lark and the Nightingale (August 9, 10, 11, 15, 17). And Megan Lummus proffers a unique interpretation of Much Ado About Nothing (August 9, 10, 11), tinkering with character motivations over ninety minutes.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]