this week in (live)streaming

SEJANUS, HIS FALL

Who: Shirine Babb, Grantham Coleman, Keith David, Manoel Felciano, Denis O’Hare, Matthew Rauch, Laila Robins, Liv Rooth, Stephen Spinella, Emily Swallow, Raphael Nash Thompson, Tamara Tunie, James Udom, Nathan Winkelstein
What: Livestreamed benefit reading of Ben Jonson’s Sejanus, His Fall
Where: Red Bull Theater website and Facebook Live
When: Monday, May 17, free with RSVP (suggested donation $25), 7:30 (available on demand through May 21 at 7:00); live discussion May 20 at 7:30
Why: “To the no less Noble by VIRTUE than BLOOD, Esme Lord Aubigny. My Lord — If ever any Ruine were so great as to survive, I think this be one I send you, The Fall of SEJANUS. It is a Poem, that (if I well remember) in your Lordships sight suffered no less Violence from our People here, than the Subject of it did from the Rage of the People of Rome; but with a different Fate, as (I hope) Merit: For this hath out-liv’d their Malice, and begot it self a greater Favour than he lost, the Love of Good Men. Amongst whom, if I make Your Lordship the first it thanks, it is not without a just Confession of the Bond Your Benefits have, and ever shall hold upon me. Your Lordships most faithful Honourer, Ben Jonson.” So wrote English Renaissance playwright Ben Jonson in the dedication for his 1603 tragedy, Sejanus, His Fall, about Lucius Aelius Seianus, a confidant of Tiberius Caesar Augustus. On May 17 at 7:00, Red Bull Theater will present a live reading of the play, newly adapted and directed by associate artistic director Nathan Winkelstein and featuring Shirine Babb, Grantham Coleman, Keith David, Manoel Felciano, Denis O’Hare, Matthew Rauch, Laila Robins, Liv Rooth, Stephen Spinella, Emily Swallow, Raphael Nash Thompson, Tamara Tunie, and James Udom.

“Ben Jonson’s Sejanus is perhaps best known for being Jonson’s least known play,” Winkelstein said in a statement. “It was a colossal failure in its time and has received, to my knowledge, only two professional productions in the last one hundred years in England, and no such full productions in America — ever. At its core, Jonson’s play is a takedown of corrupt governance in sublime language surpassed only by Shakespeare – who, incidentally, is believed to have appeared in the original production. That resonance remains today. Why then is it so rarely taken up by theatermakers? Well, in my opinion, it’s intensely overwritten. My challenge has been to bring this resonance to the fore while eliminating the, apologies to Jonson, fluff. And over the course of the past four years, I’ve worked to craft a playing script that has constant forward momentum. I look forward to working with the crackerjack team to bring this adaptation to life.”

Admission is free with a suggested donation of $25; the stream will be available through May 21 at 7:00. In addition, Red Bull is hosting a live Bull Session on May 20 at 7:30 with Winkelstein, scholar Henry S. Turner, and members of the company. “The plays of Ben Jonson are naturally central to all our work at Red Bull, and — as we had to delay our in-person production of The Alchemist — this spring we’re excited to be presenting two plays by Ben Jonson live online — one of his greatest comedies and one of his most infamous tragedies — Volpone and Sejanus,” Red Bull founder and artistic director Jesse Berger said. “Both plays have wonderful characters, terrific language, and exciting plots with surprising twists and turns — in short, the best of the best of Jacobean theater — all in Jonson’s inimitable, sharp-witted style.” Volpone, or the Fox will be premiere June 14, starring André De Shields, Jordan Boatman, Sofia Cheyenne, Franchelle Stewart Dorn, Clifton Duncan, Amy Jo Jackson, Peter Francis James, Hamish Linklater, Roberta Maxwell, Sam Morales, Kristin Nielsen, and Mary Testa.

MCC THEATER: MISCAST21

Who: Annaleigh Ashford, Robin de Jesús, Renée Elise Goldsberry, LaChanze, Kelli O’Hara, Billy Porter, Idina Menzel, Melissa Barrera, Gavin Creel, Leslie Grace, Cheyenne Jackson, Jai’Len Josey, Aaron Tveit, Kelly Marie Tran, Patrick Wilson, McKinley Belcher III, Nick Blaemire, Sandra Caldwell, Juan Castano, Trip Cullman, Hugh Dancy, Halley Feiffer, Dominique Fishback, Jennifer Garner, Paige Gilbert, Lucas Hedges, Evan Jonigkeit, Alex Lacamoire, Donja R. Love, Zosia Mamet, Laurie Metcalf, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ana Nogueira, Marisa Tomei
What: Virtual edition of MCC Theater’s annual Miscast gala
Where: MCC YouTube
When: Sunday, May 16, free (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: We’ve all been there: We’re in a theater watching a show when we realize that it’s just not going to work because of a bad casting decision. MCC Theater has been spoofing on that situation with its annual Miscast fundraising galas, in which they purposely match talented performers with the wrong song. On May 16 at 8:00, Miscast21 will go virtual, adding a geographic dimension to the wrongness. Admission is free, though donations will be accepted to help support MCC in its mission “to develop and produce exciting work Off-Broadway, as well as [its] Youth Company and partnerships with NYC public high schools, and MCC’s literary development work with emerging playwrights.”

Performing at the event, which will be broadcast on YouTube, are Annaleigh Ashford, Robin de Jesús, Renée Elise Goldsberry, LaChanze, Kelli O’Hara, Billy Porter, Idina Menzel, Melissa Barrera, Gavin Creel, Leslie Grace, Cheyenne Jackson, Jai’Len Josey, Aaron Tveit, and Kelly Marie Tran; among those making appearances will be Patrick Wilson, Trip Cullman, Hugh Dancy, Halley Feiffer, Dominique Fishback, Jennifer Garner, Paige Gilbert, Lucas Hedges, Donja R. Love, Zosia Mamet, Laurie Metcalf, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Marisa Tomei. Be sure to check out the online auction, where you can pick up signed Playbills, overseas trips, private coaching sessions, personalized video messages, and limited edition totes and T-shirts. You’ll also find on MCC’s YouTube page videos of pandemic performances by Heather Headley, Joshua Henry, Adrienne Warren, Rob McClure, Beanie Feldstein, Norbert Leo Butz, Phillipa Soo, Robert Fairchild, and others.

STEFANIE BATTEN BLAND: KOLONIAL

Stefanie Batten Bland’s Kolonial streams through BAC Digital through May 17

Who: Stefanie Batten Bland
What: World premiere of BAC commission
Where: Baryshnikov Arts Center digital
When: Through Monday, May 17, 5:00, free
Why: In a March 2019 interview with her alma mater, Goddard College, choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland said, “I am a storyteller; I mean, I don’t shy away from that. I love being able to tell stories that we can find ourselves in. I don’t know if they’re necessarily linear stories, but I think that’s another way that we can validate who we are, when we identify with someone, or with something, and I kinda like to go about it through a common goal. So I’ll often ask audience members and performers to work towards a goal, and that could be like lifting something up together.” Born and raised in Soho, Bland has been busy during the pandemic, even without the ability to present pieces in front of an in-person audience. With Company SBB, she created This Moment for Works & Process at the Guggenheim, Current for Duke Performances, and Unnatural Contradictions for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, set in the Osborne and Woodland Gardens. In addition, Mondays at Two explored how the health crisis affected members of the company, which was founded in France in 2008 and established in New York City three years later. Her latest dance film is the fantastical Kolonial, commissioned by Baryshnikov Arts Center and filmed in BAC’s Jerome Robbins Theater. The twenty-minute work is set in a dark, ominous, postapocalyptic world where seven people are trapped in bubble pods, their clothing in tatters, a threatening musical drone hovering over them. As a baleful blue morphs into a more hopeful orange, the music shifts, along with the characters’ emotional physicality.

Kolonial is directed and choreographed by Bland and codirected and filmed by Jean Claude Dhien, with scenic installation by Conrad Quesen, costumes by Shane Ballard, and music by Grant Cutler; it is performed by Bland, Miguel Anaya, Yeman Brown, Rachel Watson Jih, Jennifer Payán, Paul Singh, and Latra A. Wilson. “It’s something that’s in the now, that’s happening right now,” Bland says in her video introduction. “It’s a story of isolation, of separation, of being on display, of viewership, of voyeurism, of desire to touch. And isn’t that also a story of before . . . and before . . . and before.” It’s a bold and powerful work, with haunting sound and imagery, that ultimately finds there just might be light at the end of the tunnel. But then what? Kolonial is available for free though May 17; be sure to also check out the May 11 conversation with Bland and writer and curator Eva Yaa Asantewaa.

PLATFORM 2021: THE DREAM OF THE AUDIENCE

Reggie Wilson, Eiko Otake, Joan Jonas, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Okwui Okpokwasili have made new films for Danspace Project’s online Platform 2021

Who: Ishmael Houston-Jones, Eiko Otake, Joan Jonas, Okwui Okpokwasili, Reggie Wilson, Judy Hussie-Taylor, Lydia Bell, Kristin Juarez, more
What: Annual Platform presentation
Where: Danspace Project Zoom
When: May 15 – June 18, free (live events require advance RSVP)
Why: Danspace Project’s annual Platform series, in which specially chosen curators put together programs of dance, literature, conversation, and more, was cut short last year because of the pandemic lockdown. The 2021 edition, curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor and aptly titled “The Dream of the Audience,” is fully digital, with new short films made during residencies at Danspace Project, live discussions, looks back at previous Platforms, and archival footage. It takes as its inspiration Teresa Hak Kyung Cha’s 1977 poem “Audience Distant Relative”: “you are the audience / you are my distant audience / i address you / as i would a distant relative / as if a distant relative / seen only heard only through someone else’s / description.” Platform 2021 kicks off May 15 at 7:00 with a live Zoom launch featuring Ishmael Houston-Jones, Eiko Otake, Joan Jonas, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Reggie Wilson, moderated by Hussie-Taylor, all of whom have previously curated an edition of Platform. Below is the full schedule; live Zoom events require advance RSVP.

Saturday, May 15
Platform Launch with Ishmael Houston-Jones, Eiko Otake, Joan Jonas, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Reggie Wilson, moderated by Judy Hussie-Taylor, RSVP required, 7:00

Monday, May 17
On the Online Journal: Archival footage of Ishmael Houston-Jones and Miguel Gutierrez, Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd

Friday, May 21
Film Premiere: Ishmael Houston-Jones, Try, in collaboration with Keith Hennessy, josé e. abad, Kevin O’Connor, and Snowflake Calvert, RSVP required, 5:00

Monday, May 31
On the Online Journal: Archival footage of Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born, Sitting on a Man’s Head

Friday, June 4
Film Premiere: Okwui Okpokwasili, RSVP required, 5:00

Monday, June 7
On the Online Journal: Archival footage of Eiko Otake’s A Body in Places and Joan Jonas’s Moving off the Land, with new written works by writer-in-residence Maura Nguyen Donohue

Conversations without Walls: Revisiting Eiko Otake’s A Body in Places and Ishmael Houston-Jones and Will Rawls’s Lost & Found Platforms, with Lydia Bell and Kristin Juarez, RSVP required, 5:00

Friday, June 11
Film Premiere: Eiko Otake & Joan Jonas, filmed at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, RSVP required, 5:00

Monday, June 14
On the Online Journal: Archival footage of Reggie Wilson’s . . . they stood shaking while others began to shout, with new written works by writer-in-residence Maura Nguyen Donohue

Conversations without Walls: Revisiting Reggie Wilson’s “Dancing Platform, Praying Ground: Blackness, Churches, and Downtown Dance” and Owkui Okpokwasili’s “Utterances from the Chorus,” with Lydia Bell and Kristin Juarez, RSVP required, 5:00

Friday, June 18
Film Premiere: Reggie Wilson, collaboration with members of Fist & Heel Performance Group, RSVP required, 5:00

TALES FROM THE WINGS: A LINCOLN CENTER THEATER CELEBRATION!

Who: Jordan Donica, Rosemary Harris, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Ruthie Ann Miles, Seth Numrich, Steven Pasquale, Paulo Szot, Ayad Akhtar, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Bartlett Sher
What: Benefit fundraiser for Lincoln Center Theater
Where: Lincoln Center Theater YouTube
When: Thursday, May 13, free with RSVP, 7:00 (available through May 17)
Why: With arts venues opening up across the city this summer and fall, Lincoln Center Theater takes a look back and ahead in its virtual fundraiser “Tales from the Wings.” Premiering on YouTube on May 13 at 7:00, the show will feature appearances by Jordan Donica, Rosemary Harris, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Ruthie Ann Miles, Seth Numrich, Steven Pasquale, Paulo Szot, Ayad Akhtar, Lileana Blain-Cruz, and Bartlett Sher sharing stories about working at the Vivian Beaumont, the Mitzi E. Newhouse, and the Claire Tow. The evening will also include excerpts from previous productions and a sneak peek at the upcoming 2021-22 season. The benefit will be available on demand through May 17; admission is free, although donations are welcome.

STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY: 2021 JOYCE THEATER DIGITAL SEASON

Who: Stephen Petronio Company
What: Digital Joyce season
Where: Joyce Theater online
When: May 13, 8:00 – May 26, 11:59 pm, $25
Why: When Manhattan-based Stephen Petronio Company had to cancel its May 2020 season at the Joyce because of the pandemic lockdown and went virtual instead, few anticipated that the May 2021 season would have to be online as well. But SPC is back with a new JoyceStream program, available on demand May 13-26, highlighting how busy Petronio has been in the last year, creating works at the Petronio Residency Center and Hudson Hall in upstate New York during the coronavirus crisis. Petronio, who hosted his intimate sixty-fifth birthday party over Zoom in March, will be presenting five works conceived or reimagined over the last year in bubble residencies. Two versions of the new duet Are You Lonesome Tonight, with Ryan Pliss and Mac Twining, will be shown, part of a new suite of dances set to the music of Elvis Presley; one was filmed onstage by Petronio and John Fitzgerald, the other outdoors by Petronio and Blake Martin. Petronio’s 1993 solo to another Presley tune, Love Me Tender, has been updated for online viewing, performed by Nicholas Sciscione and filmed by Fitzgerald.

Petronio’s seven-year Bloodlines series, in which he reinterprets classic works by major choreographers, continues with an adaptation of Trisha Brown’s 1973 autobiographical Group Primary Accumulation; for the first time, one of the four dancers is male. And the troupe will debut the full-company piece New Prayer for Now Part 1, with music by Monstah Black that was inspired by Harry Thacker Burleigh’s spiritual “Balm in Gilead” and Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

Two versions of Are You Lonesome Tonight are part of Stephen Petronio Company online Joyce season

The evening will also include Dancing Camera’s short film Pandemic Portraits, which delves into company members’ individual responses to the health crisis and lockdown, and a look at Petronio’s In Absentia, a limited-edition illustrated book, made in collaboration with Sarah Silver and Rafael Weil, that explores Petronio’s thoughts since March 2020. You can watch a Joyce talkback with Petronio, Carolyn Lucas of Trisha Brown Dance Company, and Dante Puleio of Limón Dance Company here as the three artistic directors discuss their online Joyce seasons with moderator Aaron Mattocks; Trisha Brown continues through May 12 and Limón through May 19.

TWI-NY AT TWENTY: ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Who: Works by and/or featuring Moko Fukuyama, Joshua William Gelb, Gabrielle Hamilton, Jace, Elmore James, Jamal Josef, Katie Rose McLaughlin, Sara Mearns, Zaire Michel, Zalman Mlotek, Alicia Hall Moran, Patrick Page, Barbara Pollack, Seth David Radwell, Jamar Roberts, Tracy Sallows, Xavier F. Salomon, Janae Snyder-Stewart, Mfoniso Udofia, Anne Verhallen
What: This Week in New York twentieth anniversary celebration
Where: This Week in New York YouTube
When: Saturday, May 22, free with RSVP, 7:00 (available on demand through June 12)
Why: In April 2001, I found myself suddenly jobless when a relatively new Silicon Alley company that had made big promises took an unexpected hit. I took my meager two weeks’ severance pay and spent fourteen days wandering through New York City, going to museums, film festivals, parks, and tourist attractions. I compiled my experiences into an email I sent to about fifty friends, rating each of the things I had done. My sister’s husband enthusiastically demanded that I keep doing this, and This Week in New York was born.

Affectionately known as twi-ny (twhy-nee), it became a website in 2005 and soon was being read by tens of thousands of people around the globe. I covered a vast array of events – some fifteen thousand over the years – that required people to leave their homes and apartments and take advantage of everything the greatest city in the world had to offer. From the very start, I ventured into nooks and crannies to find the real New York, not just frequenting well-known venues but seeking out the weird and wild, the unusual and the strange.

For my tenth anniversary, we packed Fontana’s, a now-defunct club on the Lower East Side, and had live music, book readings, and a comics presentation. I had been considering something bigger for twenty when the pandemic lockdown hit and lasted longer than we all thought possible.

At first, I didn’t know what twi-ny’s future would be, with nowhere for anyone to go. But the arts community reacted quickly, as incredible dance, music, art, theater, opera, film, and hybrid offerings began appearing on numerous platforms; the innovation and ingenuity blew me away. The winners of twi-ny’s Pandemic Awards give you a good idea of the wide range of things I covered; you can check out part one here and part two here.

I devoured everything I could, from experimental dance-theater in a closet and interactive shows over the phone and through the mail to all-star Zoom reunion readings and an immersive, multisensory play that arrived at my door in a box. Many of them dealt with the fear, isolation, and loneliness that have been so pervasive during the Covid-19 crisis while also celebrating hope, beauty, and resilience. I’ve watched, reviewed, and previewed more than a thousand events created since March 2020, viewing them from the same computer where I work at my full-time job in children’s publishing.

Just as companies are deciding the future hybrid nature of employment, the arts community is wrestling with in-person and online presentations. As the lockdown ends and performance venues open their doors, some online productions will go away, but others are likely to continue, benefiting from a reach that now goes beyond their local area and stretches across the continents.

On May 22 at 7:00, “twi-ny at twenty,” produced and edited by Michael D. Drucker of Delusions International and coproduced by Ellen Scordato, twi-ny’s business manager and muse, honors some of the best events of the past fourteen months, including dance, theater, opera, art, music, and literature, all of which can be enjoyed for free from the friendly confines of your couch. There is no registration fee, and the party will be available online for several weeks. You can find more information here.

Please let me know what you think in the live chat, which I will be hosting throughout the premiere, and be sure to say hello to other twi-ny fans and share your own favorite virtual shows.

Thanks for coming along on this unpredictable twenty-year adventure; I can’t wait to see you all online and, soon, in real life. Here’s to the next twenty!