this week in (live)streaming

OUR LADY OF 121st STREET: A LAByrinth VIRTUAL READING AND BENEFIT

our lady

Who: Elizabeth Canavan, Liza Colón-Zayas, Scott Hudson, Russell G. Jones, Portia, Al Roffe, Felix Solis, David Zayas, Bobby Cannavale, John Doman, Laurence Fishburne, Dierdre Friel, David Deblinger, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Stephen Adly Guirgis
What: Live benefit reading of Stephen Adly Guirgis play
Where: LAByrinth Theater Company website
When: Saturday, May 23, free (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Our Lady of 121st Street is timelier than ever in the age of coronavirus. The 2002 play, which was originally presented by the LAByrinth Theater Company in 2002 and revived at the Signature in 2018, takes place in and around a funeral home in Harlem, where the body of the late Sister Rose has gone missing as people from her past experience an odd kind of reunion. During the pandemic, in-person funerals are a rare event for very limited attendees, and bodies pile up in refrigerated trucks and makeshift tent-morgues. (“What kind of fuckin’ world is this?!” a character says early on.) On May 23 at 8:00, the LAByrinth is staging a live Zoom reunion reading of the play, directed by Elizabeth Rodriguez, who recently starred in Guirgis’s latest gem, Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven.

The all-star cast features most of the original lineup, along with notable additions. Returning from the 2002 production, which was directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, are Elizabeth Canavan as Marcia, Liza Colón-Zayas as Norca, Russell G. Jones as Flip, Portia as Inez, Al Roffe as Pinky, Felix Solis as Balthazar, and David Zayas as Edwin; they are joined by Scott Hudson as Gail from the 2003 iteration at the Union Square Theatre, John Doman as Father Lux and Dierdre Friel as Sonia from the Signature revival, Laurence Fishburne as Rooftop from the 2004 LA debut of the show, and Bobby Cannavale from Guirgis’s The Motherfucker with the Hat as Victor. LAByrinth cofounder David Deblinger, who portrayed Gail in the 2002 version, will read the stage directions. As a bonus, Pulitzer Prize winner Guirgis (Jesus Hopped the A Train, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot) will receive the LAByrinth’s Dave Hogue Award. The performance, a benefit for the LAByrinth, will stream live, then be available for twenty-four hours only. “This reading, featuring both original cast members from the LAB company and others whose work we’ve long admired, will help our community come together and hopefully raise some much-needed funds to get us through these unprecedented, tough times,” company artistic director John Ortiz said in a statement. I’ve seen three productions of the play by three different companies, and I was blown away each time; I can’t wait to see it again, amid these challenging times.

THE MAKING OF AMARILLO RAMP (introduced by Lee Ranaldo)

©Holt/Smithson Foundation, Licensed by VAGA at ARS, New York. Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Nancy Holt follows the creation of husband Robert Smithson’s Amarillo Ramp in documentary (© Holt/Smithson Foundation)

Who: Lee Ranaldo
What: Online film screening and introduction
Where: Holt/Smithson Foundation Vimeo and Instagram Live
When: Friday, May 22, free, 2:00 (streams for twenty-four hours)
Why: The Holt/Smithson Foundation, which continues and expands the legacies of husband-and-wife artists Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, have been livestreaming rare films by and about the couple on Friday afternoons at 2:00, leaving them up on Vimeo and IGTV for twenty-four hours. On May 22, the foundation will present Holt’s The Making of Amarillo Ramp, a documentary that goes behind the scenes of the creation of Smithson’s last earthwork, 1973’s Amarillo Ramp, consisting of rocks and dirt that was meant to emerge from an artificial lake in Amarillo but is now eroding in a dry basin. Holt shot the film in 1973, but it wasn’t edited and completed until 2013; Smithson died at the age of thirty-five in a plane crash while surveying the work, which was finished by Holt, Tony Shafrazi, and Richard Serra, while Holt passed away in 2014 at the age of seventy-five. The thirty-two-minute 16mm film will be introduced by musician, composer, visual artist, writer, producer, and Sonic Youth cofounder Lee Ranaldo, who in 1998 released the experimental album Amarillo Ramp (for Robert Smithson), which features the title track in addition to “Non-Site #3,” “Notebook,” “Here,” and a cover of John Lennon’s “Isolation,” which fits in all too well with the current pandemic; Smithson was a land artist working outside, amid large expanses of deserted areas, and Ranaldo has just released a new video for “Isolation,” with footage taken during the coronavirus crisis.

THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA: ANTISEMITISM RUN AMOK

NMAJH panel discussion uses The Plot Against America as a jumping-off point

NMAJH panel discussion uses The Plot Against America as jumping-off point to discuss modern-day anti-Semitism

Who: Michael Berenbaum, Pamela S. Nadell
What: Livestream panel discussion
Where: National Museum of American Jewish History Facebook page
When: Thursday, May 21, free with advance registration, 6:00
Why: We recently finished watching HBO’s six-part series The Plot Against America, based on Phillip Roth’s 2004 novel, and it scared the hell out of us. The story presents an alternate history in which Charles Lindbergh beats Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 to become president of the United States, but the famous aviator turns out to be a far-right America-first anti-Semite. Just as the main character’s wife begs him to leave New Jersey and head to Canada, my wife has been urging us to find safer environs, to escape Donald Trump and move to Portugal or another country, since anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise in the United States and around the world. On May 21 at 6:00, the Philadelphia-based National Museum of American Jewish History will host the timely panel discussion “The Plot Against America: Antisemitism Run Amok,” with independent consultant and Jewish Studies professor Michael Berenbaum and Women’s & Gender History professor Pamela S. Nadell. Admission is free with recommended RSVP; if you want to ask questions, you have to watch the program on Facebook and not on the NMAJH website.

IN THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR WITH RUBEN SANTIAGO-HUDSON

in the directors chair

Who: Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Stephen M. Kaus
What: Livestream discussion with exclusive footage
Where: Manhattan Theatre Club Facebook Live
When: Thursday, May 21, free, 5:00
Why: In 2017, Manhattan Theatre Club presented the August Wilson’s Jitney at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, the first American Century Cycle play Wilson wrote but the last to reach Broadway. The production, which earned the Tony for Best Revival of a Play and featured John Douglas Thompson, André Holland, Ray Anthony Thomas, Brandon J. Dirden, Carra Patterson, Michael Potts, Harvy Blanks, Anthony Chisholm, and Keith Randolph Smith, was directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who has acted in, directed, and/or recorded the complete ten-play cycle and was friends with the playwright; he was Wilson’s personal choice to portray him in the autobiographical one-man show How I Learned What I Learned once Wilson got ill and then passed away, in 2005 at the age of sixty. On May 21 at 5:00 on MTC’s Facebook page, Santiago-Hudson will discuss his directorial choices, accompanied by clips from the Broadway run that he will review in depth; he will be joined by MTC director of artistic producing Stephen M. Kaus. Santiago-Hudson won a Tony for his performance in Wilson’s Seven Guitars, has written Lackawanna Blues and Your Blues Ain’t Sweet Like Mine, and has directed such other plays as Paradise Blue and Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.

“Endings. (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals. CACONRAD” at RIBOCA2

caconrad

Who: CAConrad
What: Livestreamed reading and talk
Where: RIBOCA2 website
When: Thursday, May 21, free with advance registration, noon
Why: In July 2017, I sat down with poet CAConrad for a private (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals session in the middle of Madison Square Park. On May 21 at noon, CAConrad will host a virtual reading and discussion that might feel like it’s one on one, since so many of us are still sheltering in place. The Zoom program is part of the 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, which was supposed to open in Latvia last week but has been moved online in wake of the coronavirus pandemic. CAConrad, who was born in Kansas, was raised in Pennsylvania, and is the author of such books as The City Real & Imagined, ECODEVIANCE: (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness, and While Standing in Line for Death, has been posting a poem a day on their Facebook and Instagram pages, a series they call “CORONADAZE.” For RIBOCA2, they are presenting “Endings. (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals. CACONRAD,” which will explore how we can transform this contemporary moment, contemplate the end of a world, and maintain personal creative space through it all. To prepare for the free event, you are strongly encouraged to read (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals: The Basics in 3 Parts, which can be found here.

JUSTICE IN ACTION: EDUCATIONAL INEQUITY PT. 2

Ruth Messinger will lead online panel discussion on educational inequality

Who: Ruth Messinger, Brad Lander, Mark Winston Griffith, Emma Rehac
What: Justice in Action discussion
Where: Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan Zoom link
When: Thursday, May 21, free (donations accepted) with advance registration, 2:00
Why: The JCC’s Justice in Action program continues May 21 at 2:00 with the livestreamed panel discussion “Educational Inequity Pt. 2,” which will examine how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting inequality in the school system, based on race, class, power, and other elements. JCC Social Justice Activist in Residence Ruth Messinger and New York City councilmember Brad Lander will be joined by School Colors podcast host Mark Winston Griffith and IntegrateNYC student director Emma Rehac. Free advance RSVP is required, although donations are accepted; registrants will receive a Zoom link thirty minutes before the session begins.

SAFE AND SOUND VIRTUAL BENEFIT CONCERT

safe and sound

Who: Aloe Blacc, Matt Berninger, Young the Giant, Grouplove, Nathan Willet, David Sabastian, Phantom Planet, Milk Carton Kids, NoMBe, Beach Bunny, Bryan Greenberg, Leif Vollebekk, David Ryan Harris, Frank Turner, Jae-Mi, Bill Waves, Sierra Sellers, Giada De Laurentiis, Dave Burd aka Lil Dicky, S.P.Y. youth musicians Lena Adams, Yeya, Metamorphosis, Relly D, Kaliheir, Gabriel
What: Virtual benefit concert for Safe Place for Youth (S.P.Y.)
Where: Safe and Sound YouTube
When: Tuesday, May 19, free with advance RSVP (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: The mission of LA-based nonprofit organization Safe Place for Youth (S.P.Y.) “is to inspire, nurture, and empower the resilient human spirit of homeless youth by providing immediate and lasting solutions, one young person at a time.” It becomes even more critical in this time of coronavirus, so on May 19, an eclectic group of musicians will participate in Safe and Sound, a virtual benefit concert in which artists such as Matt Berninger, Young the Giant, Phantom Planet, Milk Carton Kids, and Frank Turner will perform from their homes. The event will be hosted by Dave Burd aka Lil Dicky, with Giada De Laurentiis taking over during intermission with a quarantine cooking demonstration. “We are excited about the Safe and Sound concert and all of the support we have received from the community and this amazing lineup of artists,” S.P.Y. founder and executive director Alison Hurst said in a statement. “Our team of dedicated professionals are on the frontline every day, working hard to provide safety to our young people. The funds and awareness raised during this concert will help us to carry out our commitment to our mission of ending youth homelessness, in our community and beyond.” The event is free with advance RSVP, but donations are encouraged.