Who: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Stacey Abrams, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Ayanna Pressley, Jennifer Carroll Foy, Chelsea Clinton, Shana Knizhnik, Sam Bagenstos, Margo Schlanger, Jon Batiste, Phoebe Bridgers, Sophia Bush, Kathleen Hanna, Kesha, Margo Price, Resistance Revival Chorus, Aminatou Sow, Michael Stipe, Hayley Williams, Rosario Dawson, Gloria Steinem, Regina King, Chelsea Handler What: Virtual rally celebrating the legacy of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Where:Demand Justice When: Monday, October 12, free with RSVP, 8:00 Why: On her deathbed, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told her granddaughter, “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” While there’s nothing legal about such a declaration, it is still deeply meaningful, particularly as the fight to replace her with Amy Coney Barrett begins in earnest on Monday with the start of her confirmation hearings. On Monday night, Demand Justice, “a progressive movement fighting to restore the ideological balance and legitimacy of the federal courts by advocating for reform and vigorously opposing extreme nominees,” is hosting “Honor Her Wish,” an all-star virtual event that asks, “How can you protect RBG’s legacy?” The lineup of those advocating for “No confirmation until inauguration” ranges from politicians and activists to writers and musicians to former RBG law clerks and includes appearances and/or performances by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Stacey Abrams, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jon Batiste, Phoebe Bridgers, Sophia Bush, Kathleen Hanna, Kesha, Margo Price, Resistance Revival Chorus, Michael Stipe, Rosario Dawson, Gloria Steinem, Regina King, and Chelsea Handler, among others. It’s free to RSVP, but donations will be accepted to support the Supreme Court Preservation Fund; Demand Justice also supplies links for you to email your senator and sign a petition. As the organization states, “With the queen of dissent gone, it is our duty to carry the torch Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed to us.”
Alright, alright, alright! Virtual reunions have been all the rage during the pandemic lockdown, from Josh Gad’s “Reunited Apart” YouTube series, which has brought back the casts of such films as Back to the Future, Splash, Ghostbusters, The Goonies, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, to Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley’s daily Stars in the House get-togethers with the casts of Mean Girls, Fun Home, One Day at a Time, Les Misérables, Sweeney Todd, and many others in addition to live reunion readings of plays, all free but with donations encouraged.
Sean Penn recently raised money for CORE, which promotes Covid-19 testing and other community programs, with a celebrity script reading of Fast Times at Ridgmont High with superstars who were not in the movie (Jennifer Aniston, Dane Cook, Morgan Freeman, Jimmy Kimmel, Shia LaBeouf, John Legend, Ray Liotta, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts, as well as Penn not as Spicoli). With the election approaching, script readings and reunions have reached a new level as they seek to help flip red states to blue, including a terrific live virtual reading of The Princess Bride (with Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Carol Kane, Chris Sarandon, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest, director Rob Reiner, and others) for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, followed by a Veep reunion, headed by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
On October 11 at 7:30, the original cast of Richard Linklater’s classic 1993 film, Dazed and Confused, will reunite to support the Voto Latino Foundation and the March for Science. The live reading will feature all your favorites: Matthew McConaughey as Wooderson, Ben Affleck as O’Bannion, Parker Posey as Darla, Jason London as Pink, Joey Lauren Adams as Simone, Adam Goldberg as Mike, Anthony Rapp as Tony, Rory Cochrane as Slater, Marissa Ribisi as Cynthia, Cole Hauser as Benny, Deena Martin as Shavonne, Esteban Powell as Carl, Christine Harnos as Kaye, Wiley Wiggins as Mitch, Michelle Burke as Jodi, Mark Vandermeulen as Tommy, Sasha Jenson as Don, Jeremy Fox as Hirschfelder, Christin Hinojosa as Sabrina, Catherine Morris as Julie, and Nicky Katt as Clint. The film has always been a quote lover’s dream, but several of them will take on a new meaning given the state of the country today. Cynthia: “Maybe the ’80s will be, like, radical or something. I figure we’ll be in our twenties and it can’t get worse.” Simone: “You act like you’re so oppressed. You guys are kings of the school. What are you bitching about?” Mike: “I feel like I’m being stalked by a Nazi.” Tony: “Neo-McCarthyism, I like that.” And Ms. Stroud: “Okay, guys, one more thing. This summer when you’re being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don’t forget what you’re celebrating, and that’s the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic white males didn’t want to pay their taxes.” Patton Oswalt, who hosted the Princess Bride reunion and moderated the postshow Q&A, will perform the same duties here.
On October 14 at 9:00, another too-cool reunion will be taking place, raising money for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party as it tries to switch the state, which voted for Trump in 2016, to Biden this time around. And once again it will be a quote-laden classic directed by Reiner, the 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, with Michael McKean (David St. Hubbins), Christopher Guest (Nigel Tufnel), Harry Shearer (Derek Smalls), Reiner (who also played Marty DiBergi), and host and moderator Oswalt. “Democratic enthusiasm in Pennsylvania is already turned up to eleven,” Pennsylvania Democratic Party executive director Jason Henry said in a statement.
Although this one is not a table read, Spinal Tap also still has a relevant take on the U.S. of A. after all these years. St. Hubbins explains, “I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn’t believe anything.” Speaking about a new album cover, St. Hubbins says, “Well, I think it looks like death. It looks like mourning,” to which their manager, Ian Faith (Tony Hendra), responds, “Death sells.” And then there’s this exchange: St. Hubbins: “It’s such a fine line between stupid, and uh . . .” Tufnel: “Clever.” St. Hubbins: “Yeah, and clever.” Tickets for the Dazed and Confused and Spinal Tap reunions are pay-what-you-wish; as we approach the end of the campaign (and maybe the end of our nation), don’t forget these key words from St. Hubbins: “Well, I don’t really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It’s like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how — what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it? So, what’s the end, you know, is my question to you.”
PEAK HD kicks off with SITI Company and STREB Extreme Action’s Falling & Loving (photo courtesy PEAK Performances)
Who:SITI Company,STREB Extreme Action What: Online premiere of dance-theater collaboration Where:Peak HD When: Sunday, October 11, free, 8:00 Why: In September 2019, SITI Company and STREB Extreme Action joined forces for Falling & Loving, an adaptation of love sonnets and plays by Charles L. Mee, who has written such works for SITI as bobrauschenbergamerica,Hotel Cassiopeia,Under Construction, and American Document. The piece, codirected by SITI’s Anne Bogart and STREB’s Elizabeth Streb at PEAK Performances’ Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University in New Jersey, featured six actors from SITI and six dancers from STREB, along with a Guck Machine providing color, humor, and danger. (SITI recently announced a legacy plan that will follow its thirtieth and final season, 2020-22.) The collaboration was Mee’s idea, bringing together Bogart’s Viewpoints and Suzuki Method and Streb’s PopAction technique. Falling & Loving will have its online premiere October 11 at 8:00, kicking off PEAK HD’s inaugural digital season, in conjunction with WNET’s All Arts.
“The obstacles we’re facing today are catastrophic and coated in painful loss, but this is not new for the performing arts,” PEAK executive director Jedediah Wheeler said in a statement. “The performing arts in America are filled with the most tough-minded, forward-thinking, get-it-done people I have ever experienced in the world. So PEAK HD comes as a celebration of the deep, purposeful, important creativity that exists not just in the U.S. but worldwide, and it’s an intense creative process with multiple experienced minds focused on it. The day we can open the Kasser’s doors to 465 people (and simultaneously capture these performances for broadcast) — that will be another celebration. But the doors that are open are the doors of our ideas. Everybody is welcome. All seats are available. There is no social distancing to the imagination.” The lineup continues November 8 with the Martha Graham Dance Company and the International Contemporary Ensemble’s Appalachian Spring and The Auditions from November 2019, December 13 with Gandini Juggling and Alexander Whitley’s Spring from December 2019, January 10 with Grand Band (Kate Moore’s Sensitive Spot, Julia Wolfe’s my lips from speaking, Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerrilla, and Three Fragile Systems by Missy Mazzoli with Joshua Frankel’s Emergent System and Faye Driscoll) from February 2020, and February 14 with the Richard Alston Dance Company’s Detour,Shine On, and Brahms Hungarian also from February 2020.
HUMAN RESOURCES
Telephone audio play
Thursdays at 12:01 am through Sundays at 11:59 pm through November 1, $7 minimum www.woollymammoth.net
We’ve all been there. Whatever our class, race, gender, religion, ethnicity, politics, geographic location, or height, we call up a customer service hotline and spend an annoying amount of time shuttled between mechanical voices, with no resolution in sight and no one to scream at. The DC-based Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company has taken that infuriating scenario and transformed it into a unique and fun theatrical piece, an audio rabbit hole that is well worth a deep dive.
Human Resources is a telephone play with no visuals and no live people, only recordings. For as little as seven dollars, you receive not a ticket but an access code that allows you to explore all that can be found at 800-804-1573, the number for the Telephonic Literary Union. Organized as a kind of choose-your-own-adventure narrative with texting (landlines will limit your experience), the show encourages you to track various threads either in one call or over several during the course of ninety-six hours, from 12:01 am Thursday to 11:59 pm Sunday. The goal is acquiring the super-secret happiness access code, which requires plenty of patience.
Right from the start, you are given the option of filing a claim for unhappiness (because of financial pressure, loneliness, race relations in America, mask fogging, or guilt over buying products from Amazon), seeking self-care with a travel agent through the Department of Conscious Rearrangement, or holding for technical support. You might end up hearing actor Jin Ha recite a poem by Wendell Berry in multiple accents, booking a mental escape pod vacation, or being offered the opportunity to reach parties in the Office of Essential Workers, which includes some of the creators of Human Resources: The thoroughly entertaining play was developed by Brittany K. Allen, Christopher Chen, Hansol Jung, Sarah Lunnie, Stowe Nelson, Zeniba Now, and Yuvika Tolani and features Marc Bovino, David Greenspan, Mia Katigbak, Brian Quijada, Ikechukwu Ufomadu, and Ha.
Although I was given the chance to leave a message at the end of some threads, the calls always got cut off at that moment; I’m not sure whether that was on purpose or a technical flaw, but it was the only element that left me frustrated. Oh, wait; maybe that’s the point: the inability to make any real connection or achieve any kind of legitimate progress with an actual human.
I don’t want to give anything else away, but take your time and wander through the handful of alternatives. When you do reach a dead end, call back and frolic down another path. Eventually you will find yourself hearing a very strange conversation that just might lead you to the promised land.
Kate Ladenheim + the RAD Lab’s Babyface is part of Edgecut: Captivity live 3D experience online at NYLA on Saturday
Who: Carrie Sijia Wang, Emily Twines, Theater in Quarantine, Kate Ladenheim + the RAD Lab, Rourou Ye, Sadi Oortmood, Sylvain Souklaye, XUE What: 3D live experience Where:New York Live Arts When: Saturday, October 10, livestream free, interactive experience $7-$20, noon – 5:00 Why: The cutting-edge series EdgeCut is teaming up with New York Live Arts for Captivity, five hours of short performance works, talkbacks, and networking taking place online from noon to 5:00 on October 10. Curated by Heidi Boisvert and Kat Mustatea, the EdgeCut program, which originally convened at the New Museum’s NEW INC incubator for art, tech, and design for in-person presentations, is now seeking to expand and redefine the virtual 3D experience during the pandemic lockdown, exploring the question “How do we create collective experience and transformative gatherings in this moment of ‘a crisis within a crisis’ that speak to transition, change, healing, humanity?” The works, chosen through an open call focusing on captivity, sanity, and humanity, include Kate Ladenheim + the RAD Lab’s Babyface, Rourou Ye’s The Absent Umbra, Theater in Quarantine’s The Neighbor, Carrie Sijia Wang’s The System 2.0, Sadi Oortmood’s Invisible Creativity, Emily Twines’s lookingGlass, Sylvain Souklaye’s Black Breathing, and Xue’s Endless Return Rave. Virtual attendees can roam from room to room and engage with others, but be patient, as there’s a maximum of fifteen at any one time in the Nowhere platform. The full Captivity experience can be accessed with advance tickets of $7 to $20, but they are extremely limited, so act fast; it can also be watched for free via livestream but without the participatory elements.
Who: Ayodele Casel, Billy Griffin, Ricky Ubeda, Stephen Petronio, Lloyd Knight, Nicholas Sciscione, Jamar Roberts, Caleb Teicher, Catherine Hurlin, Peter Walker, Daniel Applebaum, Christopher D’Ariano, Adam Weinert What: Virtual Hudson Valley Dance Festival Where:Dancers Responding to AIDS When: Saturday, October 10, free (donations accepted), 7:00 (available for four days) Why: The Hudson Valley Dance Festival can’t take place in its beautiful Catskill environs, so instead it is happening online, presenting an hour of special works on October 10 at 7:00. “We’ll miss gathering on the banks of the Hudson River and amid the gorgeous fall foliage, but we’re happy to continue the tradition of sharing breathtaking dance that gives back to and celebrates the Hudson Valley community,” Dancers Responding to AIDS founding director Denise Roberts Hurlin said in a statement. “In these unprecedented times, we’re thrilled to come together virtually and provide immediate help to those affected by Covid-19, HIV/AIDS, and other life crises in the area and across the country.” The program includes tap dancer Ayodele Casel’s Oscar Joy, filmed in his home studio; Billy Griffin’s Is That All There Is? with Ricky Ubeda; Stephen Petronio’s Are You Lonesome Tonight, filmed at the Petronio Residency Center, with Lloyd Knight and Nicholas Sciscione; Jamar Roberts’s WPA commission, Cooped, the most explosive dance made during the pandemic lockdown; Caleb Teicher’s Tee Time, an outdoor solo performed by Catherine Hurlin; Peter Walker’s Words in the Fire, with Daniel Applebaum and Christopher D’Ariano; and an excerpt from Adam Weinert’s Monument.
You can watch for free, but donations will go to Broadway Cares in support of the following Hudson Valley organizations: the Albany Damien Center, Alliance for Positive Health, Animalkind, Columbia-Greene Community Foundation, Hudson Valley SPCA, Matthew 25 Food Pantry, Community Hospice, Hudson Valley Community Services, Hudson Valley LGBTQ Community Center, Rock Steady Farm, Roe Jan Food Pantry, TOUCH (Together Our Unity Can Heal), and Troy Area United Ministries.
Moulin Rouge’s Karen Olivo is the guest on “Live at the Lortel” podcast taping on October 15 (photo by Matthew Murphy)
Who: BD Wong, Ty Jones, Maybe Burke, Telly Leung, Tonya Pinkins, Pooya Mohseni, Karen Olivo, Betty Shamieh, Andréa Burns, Eric Ostrow, John-Andrew Morrison, Daphne Rubin-Vega What: Live Zoom podcast tapings Where:Live at the Lortel Zoom When: Thursdays & Fridays at 10:15 am and 12:15 pm, free with advance RSVP Why: The Lucille Lortel Theatre’s second season of its “Live at the Lortel” podcast, which focuses on BIPOC and LGBTQ creators and the fight against systemic racism and hatred, got under way October 2 with an in-depth conversation with BD Wong, which you can listen to here. The talks, hosted by Eric Ostrow with cohosts John-Andrew Morrison and Daphne Rubin-Vega, are done live for later release, featuring a discussion and an audience Q&A. The live taping schedule continues October 8 at 10:15 with transgender actor, writer, and human rights advocate Maybe Burke, October 9 with Telly Leung at 10:15 and Tonya Pinkins at 12:15, October 15 with Pooya Mohseni at 10:15 and Karen Olivo at 12:15, and October 16 with Betty Shamieh at 10:15 and Andréa Burns at 12:15. If you miss the live recording, you can catch the podcast later, as a new one is posted online every Friday. Season one included such theater luminaries as Condola Rashad, Christine Baranski, Judy Kuhn, Michael Urie, Jonathan Groff, Jocelyn Bioh, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Kate Hamill, John Benjamin Hickey, Donja R. Love, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Kathleen Chalfant, John Glover, Lee Sunday Evans, Marsha Mason, Halley Feiffer, Duncan Sheik, and Charles Busch, which you can listen to here.
