twi-ny recommended events

THE DALAI LAMA GLOBAL VISION SUMMIT

Who: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Richard Gere, Sharon Salzberg, Deepak Chopra, Lama Tsultrim Allione, Serene Jones, Jan Willis, Dr. Mark Epstein, Amishi Jha, Rabbi Michael Lerner, B. Alan Wallace, the Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, Sofia Stril-Revor, Daniel Goleman, Dr. Alberto Villoldo, Karenna Gore, Robert A. F. Thurman, Dan Harris
What: Six-day online discussion and meditation
Where: Lion’s Roar and Tibet House US
When: October 22-27, free with advance RSVP, 9:00 am
Why: His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been busy during the pandemic, offering special teachings over social media, interacting with students from around the world over Zoom as he helps us all deal with the strife of life in 2020. He is now gathering many of his friends and supporters for the Dalai Lama Global Vision Summit, a free six-day event consisting of talks by nearly two dozen teachers, scientists, interfaith leaders, activists, psychiatrists, and other experts covering the following themes: “The Art of Happiness: Bringing the Best of Human Values into Our Lives”; “Transcendent Wisdom: Buddhist Teachings of the Dalai Lama”; “Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: Creating Harmony Among the World’s Religions”; “The Universe in a Single Atom: The Science of Spirituality”; “My Land, My People: Tibet’s Message of Peace, Compassion, and Sustainability”; and “Ethics for a New Millennium: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for a Better World.”

Among the participants are Richard Gere, Sharon Salzberg, Deepak Chopra, Amishi Jha, Rabbi Michael Lerner, B. Alan Wallace, the Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, Daniel Goleman, Karenna Gore, and Dan Harris. “What an honor to join with Lion’s Roar and this team of positive people who share their dedication, insight, arts, and skills in the spirit energized by His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s bright vision for all of us and our world’s future, helping us see how love, science, art, and common sense triumph over gloom and doom,” Tibet House cofounder and president Robert A. F. Thurman said in a statement. Registration is free and comes with a digital download of Teachings on Compassion from the Dalai Lama and a guided audio meditation by the Dalai Lama, who turned eighty-five in July. For more teachings from His Holiness himself, follow him on Facebook.

REIKO YAMADA: SOUND INSTALLATION ON SILENT FILMS

Reiko Yamada will present the virtual world premiere of the Japan Society commission Sound Installation on Silent Films on October 21 (photo © Carolyn Drake)

Who: Reiko Yamada, Yoko Shioya
What: Livestreamed world premiere performance and artist Q&A
Where: Japan Society online
When: Wednesday, October 21, $15, 8:00 (available on demand through November 4)
Why: Japan Society’s virtual 2020-21 Performing Arts Season kicks off with the commissioned world premiere of Hiroshima-born multimedia artist Reiko Yamada’s Sound Installation on Silent Films. On October 21 at 8:00, Japan Society will livestream the prerecorded performance, filmed live in Yamada’s home, in which she accompanies a trio of silent films with music played on broken accordions. “During the pandemic, our everyday lives have been greatly compromised, leaving us at times painfully dependent on the internet for connection. But while some advances in technology take a center stage in this climate, others that changed the world but have since become commonplace — cinema, instantly available music, global transportation — have been halted,” Yamada said in a statement. “The three antique films that I have selected for this concert — a reel of sumo wrestling matches, an almost abstract animation, and a documentary on the history of railroads in Japan – were the new technologies of their day, light entertainments in the truest sense. Recontextualizing these movies as ‘streaming performances’ supported by music provides me a canvas to present our relationship to entertainment over time.”

The performance will be followed by a live Q&A with Japan Society artistic director Yoko Shioya and Yamada, whose other works include the experimental opera Mask Your Sonic Story, the score for the dance piece You Took a Part of Me, the solo exhibition Small Small Things, and the orchestral composition New Shadows in Raw Light of Darkness. “I have an affinity for the accordion, having used it as a primary instrument in past projects,” Yamada, who is currently based in Barcelona, continues. “Though the accordion has no significant role in the history of Japanese silent film, I find the instrument, even (and perhaps especially) in a dilapidated state, can convey a depth of experience and an almost tactile sense of sound. By filtering my performance live through a computer, I can better isolate the unique personality of each instrument. The films that make up this performance were painstakingly digitized, recaptured like butterflies on pins for a modern audience that may find them rendered alien out of context. Much as each frame of these films has been renovated by both analog and digital processing, I will be transforming these nearly nonfunctional accordions into time machines, linking the performance’s many parts across oceans and centuries.” Tickets for the fifty-minute show are $15; the stream will be available through November 4.

THE FALL REUNION READING SERIES: SKELETON CREW BY DOMINIQUE MORISSEAU

Most of the original cast of Skeleton Crew will reunite for four live readings (photo © Ahron R. Foster)

Who: Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Jason Dirden, Wendell B. Franklin, Nikiya Mathis, Adesola Osakulumi, Caroline Clay
What: Virtual reunion reading
Where: Atlantic Theater Company YouTube
When: October 22-24, free (suggested donation $25)
Why: The Atlantic Theater kicks off its virtual Fall Reunion Reading Series with Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew, which had its world premiere in 2016 at Atlantic Stage 2. Four live readings will take place October 22-24 over YouTube, featuring original cast members Jason Dirden as Dez, Wendell B. Franklin as Reggie, Nikiya Mathis as Shanita, and Adesola Osakulumi as the dancer, with Caroline Clay replacing Lynda Gravatt as Faye; Ruben Santiago-Hudson is back as director. The play, which transferred to the Atlantic’s bigger Linda Gross Theater, is set at an automobile stamping factory during the recession of 2008; it is part of Detroit native Morisseau’s Detroit Project, a trilogy that also includes Detroit ’67 and Paradise Blue. In addition, on October 25 at 4:00, for “Live with Atlantic! Remix,” two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage will interview Morisseau, who has also written Pipeline, Sunset Baby, Blood at the Root, and Follow Me to Nellie’s as well as the book for Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of the Temptations. The series continues November 5-7 with Rajiv Joseph’s Guards at the Taj, with Omar Metwally and Arian Moayed.

DEBATE: BALDWIN VS BUCKLEY

Historic debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. will be re-created live this week

Who: Teagle F. Bougere, Eric T. Miller, Spencer Hamp, Charlie O’Rourke, Kevin Cristaldi, Daniel Marconi
What: Online play re-creating famous televised debate
Where: BRIC YouTube, Spectrum 1993, Optimum 951, and Verizon 47
When: October 22-24, free with advance RSVP, 7:30 (extended through November 15 on YouTube)
Why: On February 18, 1965, James Baldwin and William F. Buckley Jr. faced off in a televised debate at the Cambridge Union at the University of Cambridge in England, answering the question “Has the American Dream been achieved at the expense of the American Negro?” MP Norman St. John Stevas introduced the event by saying it could be “one of the most exciting debates in the whole hundred and fifty years of the union history” as he noted that undergraduates had packed the debate hall and were flocking outside to be a part of this seminal happening, which began with arguments from students David Heycock and Jeremy Burford, setting up the two sides of the issue. The forty-year-old Baldwin, essayist, activist, playwright, and author of Go Tell It on the Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, and Another Country, and the forty-year-old Buckley, author of Up from Liberalism and Rumbles Left and Right: A Book About Troubling People and Ideas and founder of the conservative National Review, then made their cases, standing in front of a microphone at a podium one at a time. You can watch the original debate below.

Now the american vicarious, in collaboration with BRIC, is re-creating that fascinating evening with Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley, three live, online presentations taking place October 22-24 at 7:30; admission is free with RSVP. [ed note: It can now be viewed on YouTube through November 15.] Teagle F. Bougere will portray Baldwin, with Eric T. Miller as Buckley; the cast also features Spencer Hamp, Charlie O’Rourke, Kevin Cristaldi, and Daniel Marconi, with costumes by Elivia Bovenzi, lighting by Zach Weeks, sound by Andy Evan Cohen, and video and graphic design by Adam J. Thompson. The debate tackles many issues that are still relevant today, from systemic racism to white supremacy to voter suppression; it is also not anything like the recent debates between Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden and then Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. It harkens back to a day when civilized, intellectual discourse was still part of politics and everyday life in an America that is not so recognizable anymore — or has it not really changed that much, for better or worse?

SHIPWRECK: A HISTORY PLAY ABOUT 2017

All-star cast of audio play Shipwreck rehearses over Zoom (photo courtesy the Public Theater)

Public Theater
Five-part audio presentation
Started streaming October 16, free (closed captions added by October 26)
publictheater.org

“I haven’t had a Trump-free twenty-four hours in, oh, I think it’s been over a year,” Allie says in Anne Washburn’s Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017, a satiric audio drama streaming for free from the Public Theater. She has no idea what she’s in for. Shipwreck premiered in February from DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and was scheduled to run at the Public as well, but it has now been repurposed by Washburn and original director Saheem Ali for online listening, divided into three parts in addition to an introductory program note and a water cooler discussion. The show takes place in an eighteenth-century upstate farmhouse, where a group of liberal friends have gathered in the wake of James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017. Jools (Sue Jean Kim) and Richard (Richard Topol) have invited Mare (Mia Barron) and Jim (Rob Campbell), Luis (Raúl Esparza) and Andrew (Jeremy Shamos), Lawrence (Bruce McKenzie), and Allie (Brooke Bloom) to spend the weekend at their new country home, as they agree and disagree about such topics as white privilege, Lord of the Rings, the big bad city, conspiracy theories, chaos voters, Comey’s personality, racism, Jim Jones, liberal dreams, the rule of law, and what’s for dinner. Also making critical appearances are Comey (Joe Morton), George W. Bush (Phillip James Brannon, sounding more like Barack Obama), and Donald J. Trump (Bill Camp), along with his secretary (Jenny Jules). Washburn (Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play; A Devil at Noon) gets the absurdist tone just right, nailing sarcasm and irony, hypocrisy and elitism by a group of friends who are sure they know best, especially when they find out that one of them might not have voted blue in 2016. “Who are those self-obsessed white people?” my wife called out at one point from the other room, not knowing what I was doing.

Director Saheem Ali leads online rehearsal for Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017 (photo courtesy the Public Theater)

One of the key exchanges, and a terrific example of Washburn’s knack for incisive, realistic dialogue, occurs when a conversation uncomfortably turns to Black people and Trump. Allie begins, “You know who wasn’t surprised by all this? The Black people. They saw Trump coming.”

Mare: “Yeah . . .”
Andrew: “Yes, so I read in the media.”
Allie: “When we were all so freaked out, how could this happen!? They were like: Yeah . . . we know why.’ And now all heads swivel towards the Black people: What else do they know?”
Andrew: “Is that what the heads are really doing?”
Richard: “Racism, systemic racism played a part, it totally played a part obviously but big obvious scapegoats aren’t going to help us out of this situation.”
Andrew: “Okay wait wait can we hold up for a moment. ‘The Black People.’ ‘The Black People. . . .’”
Jools: “‘The Black People. . . .’”
Jim: “Nope, Allie, it doesn’t sit right.”
Allie: “I mean yes, of course it doesn’t. There’s a certain deliberate . . . tart irony there, no? Like we’re all so woke we can — I can’t, I don’t know if I can fully unpack it but no, I’m not saying ‘the Black People’ like I think it’s okay it’s so obviously not-okay.”
Mare: “So ironic racism is fine is what you’re saying.”
Jools: “Didn’t we have that little talk about using ‘unpack’ in normal conversation among actual humans?”
Allie: “Sometimes jargon is useful. . . . Black People. Black People saw this coming. That sounds weird to me like pseudo-mythic: ‘Black People,’ ‘Green People,’ ‘People of the Mist,’ ‘Zoners.’”
Andrew: “African American is an option.”
Allie: “Obviously, only African American is kind of I mean I know it’s not my place but it’s a lot of syllables and it’s a little bit formal like you’re trying too hard and I thought didn’t we have an unspoken agreement that we were as a group implicitly avoiding that brand of ultra-performative white liberalism also because there’s no distinction there and do Black people or people who are ‘black’ use the term? I’m confused about that and okay I know this is my own personal private but there’s no distinction between people who were brought here in chains three hundred years ago in the hold of a ship and and all of that and people from, like, Namibia who wandered over twenty years ago and sure it’s racist here but they have generations of intact cultural identity for back-up these are not the same people.”
Mare: “Okay, Allie . . .”
Jim: “Oh, you’ve forgotten Colonialism.”
Allie: “I mean yes, Colonialism, yes, but it’s not the same. Colonialism doesn’t eviscerate . . . ‘black people’ sounds like, flat and kind . . . yes yes you’re right Colonialism can I mean it depends on who but no but in general, yes, Colonialism, terrible but it isn’t the same it’s just not but ‘black people’ that’s . . .”
Andrew: “I kind of beg to differ . . .”
Allie: “. . . crude . . . maybe I mean crude . . . they’re — no one’s black nobody’s white it’s a built-in oppositional it’s absurdly reductive when we’re all just, when we’re really all just . . . a spectrum of tan.”

At more than two and a half hours not including the intro and postshow talk, the play requires patience on the part of the listener, especially as we’re all so bombarded with 24/7 images from television and the internet and addicted to our phones. Radio plays were once an important and necessary form of entertainment, and the Public is doing what it can in these pandemic times to bring it back, first with its presentation of Richard II in July, which suffered because of commercials on WNYC, and now with the superior Shipwreck, a history play about today, and tomorrow. Get those headphones ready.

STEVIE NICKS 24 KARAT GOLD THE CONCERT

Who: Stevie Nicks
What: New concert film
Where: Tavern on the Green and other locations
When: Wednesday, October 21, and Sunday, October 25, $20, 7:30
Why: In an August 10 journal entry on Facebook about Covid-19, Stevie Nicks wrote, “If I get it, I will probably never sing again. Put me on a ventilator and I will be hoarse for the rest of my life ~ I don’t have much time . . . I am 72 years old. . . . Everyone gathering at the beaches ~ in the bars ~ block parties ~ etcetera ~ Let’s get drunk and make out and by the way ‘Can I have the other half of your drink?’ ~ We are heading for a crash. People are dying because people aren’t wearing their masks.” Off the road because of the pandemic lockdown, Nicks is now offering fans of her solo career and work with Fleetwood Mac the chance to gather together in person and enjoy her music — masked and socially distanced — with two special screenings of the film Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert, taking place at theaters, drive-ins, and other exhibition spaces across the country. Here in New York City, the film, which features such songs as “Rhiannon,” “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” “Edge of Seventeen,” “Stand Back,” and “Landslide” and takes audiences behind the scenes of the tour, will be shown outside at Tavern on the Green in Central Park on October 21 and 25 at 7:30; tickets are $20, and all attendees must wear masks and follow official city Covid-19 regulations.

Doors open at 7:00, and the venue will seat groups together as long as social distancing can be maintained, and drinks will be available for cash purchase. You can get a taste of what you’re in for with the above clip of “Gypsy,” performed during the 2016-17 tour, which crossed the United States and also traveled to Canada, Australia, and the UK; directed and produced by Joe Thomas, the film was recorded at the March 2017 shows in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh and includes Nicks sharing personal stories about Tom Petty, Prince, Lindsey Buckingham, and others. “The 24 Karat Gold Tour was one of my favorite tours I’ve ever done,” Nicks wrote on Facebook last month. “It’s a trip. It’s a journey. Come with me!‬”

RUSSIAN TROLL FARM: A WORKPLACE COMEDY

Who: TheaterWorks Hartford, TheatreSquared, the Civilians
What: Live site-specific theatrical digital experience
Where: Zoom
When: October 20-24, $20.20, 7:30 (available on demand October 25 – November 2)
Why: I’ve just watched the first part of Alex Gibney’s Agents of Chaos, a frightening documentary about Russian interference in American elections, primarily through troll farms spreading misinformation and disinformation over social media. Award-winning American playwright Sarah Gancher delves into that ever-growing issue in her new play, Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy. Production on the show began prior to the pandemic, so Gancher (The Lucky Ones, Hundred Days) has reimagined it as a “site-specific work for the internet,” with TheaterWorks Hartford in Connecticut and TheatreSquared in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in association with the Brooklyn-based troupe the Civilians. The play, inspired by actual transcripts from the government-owned Internet Research Agency, aka Glavset, will be performed live on Zoom October 20-24, with tickets going for an appropriate $20.20; the five performances will then be archived for on-demand viewing October 25 – November 2, the eve of the election. “The trolls are out in full force right now,” Gancher said in a statement. “I want everyone on the right and the left to be able to spot them and to see what they’re doing — or at least wonder: What happens to a democracy when the voices of real citizens are drowned out by fictional characters?” The fab cast features Danielle Slavick as Masha, Mia Katigbak as Ljuba, Haskell King as Egor, Ian Lassiter as Steve, and Greg Keller as Nikolai; the play is directed by Jared Mezzocchi and Elizabeth Williamson, with sets and costumes by Brenda Abbandolo, sound and music by Andre Pluess, and lighting by Amith Chandrashaker. In the meantime, I’ll be sitting down for the second part of Agents of Chaos; wish us all luck.