this week in (live)streaming

MTC CURTAIN CALL: THE PAST IS THE PAST

Who: Jovan Adepo, Ron Cephas Jones
What: New reading of previously produced MTC play
Where: Manhattan Theatre Club
When: February 18-28, free with RSVP
Why: Manhattan Theatre Club is inaugurating its “Curtain Call” series, in which the institution hosts new readings of older plays it previously presented onstage, with, appropriately enough, Richard Wesley’s The Past Is the Past. Originally produced in April/May 1975, the play, directed by Lloyd Richards, starred Earl Bill Cobbs and Eddie Robert Christian as a father and son, respectively, reconnecting after many years. MTC is bringing it back for a virtual reading February 18–28, featuring two-time Emmy winner Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us, Truth Be Told) as father Earl Davis and Jovan Adepo (Fences, The Stand) as son Eddie Green, directed by Oz Scott (Bustin’ Loose, Mr. Boogedy). MTC would go on to work with Wesley, who wrote the screenplays for the comedies Uptown Saturday Night and Let’s Do It Again, on such other shows as The Sirens, The Last Street Play, and The Talented Tenth. The free series continues in March with Richard Greenberg’s 1997 Pulitzer finalist and Obie-winning Three Days of Rain, directed by Evan Yionoulis and reuniting the original cast of Patricia Clarkson, John Slattery, and Bradley Whitford, followed by Charlayne Woodard’s 1997 one-woman show, Neat, and Nilo Cruz’s 2006 Beauty of the Father, directed by Michael Greif.

RONALD K. BROWN/EVIDENCE: COMPANY HITS FROM THE PAST 35 YEARS

The Joyce Theater
Thursday, February 18, $25, 8:00 (available on demand through March 4 at midnight)
www.joyce.org
www.evidencedance.com

It’s hard for to believe that it was fifteen years ago that I had a lunch interview with Ronald K. Brown, discussing the twentieth anniversary of his Brooklyn-based troupe, EVIDENCE. Brown is now celebrating the company’s thirty-fifth anniversary with a special virtual evening at the Joyce, presented live from the empty theater over the institution’s online portal, JoyceStream. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Brown has been an integral part of the community since the beginning, giving back in numerous ways, strengthening that engagement during these difficult times. “For thirty-five years, the mission of EVIDENCE has been to promote understanding of the human experience in the African Diaspora through dance, music, history, and tradition to remind us of our individual and collective responsibility and liberation,” the company explains on its website. “The fact that art and social justice share a common foundation continues to push us forward in spite of the continuing turmoil of a global pandemic and nationwide protests against police brutality. Now more than ever we need each other and it is beneficial for us to find ways to call one another and see each other virtually, whenever we can. Social distance does not mean social disconnection. EVIDENCE continues to do the work that says: We know what’s right in our heart and we need to keep that front and center.”

Mercy is part of Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE anniversary celebration at the Joyce (photo by Julietta Cervantes)

In conjunction with the Joyce Theater Foundation, Northrop, DANCECleveland, and Cuyahoga Community College, EVIDENCE will present an evening of greatest hits, which will stream live from the Joyce stage on February 18 at 8:00 and be available on demand through March 4 at midnight. The program includes an excerpt from Grace, originally choreographed for Alvin Ailey in 1999, an exhilarating, rapturous work, filled with an innate, infectious spirituality, with music by Duke Ellington, Roy Davis Jr., and Fela Anikulapo Kuti, that celebrated its own twentieth anniversary at the Center for the Art of Performance UCLA this past November; 2003’s For You, a solo tribute to the late American Dance Festival codirector Stephanie Reinhart, set to a song by Donny Hathaway; 2016’s She Is Here, a solo for women, honoring teachers and mothers; the “Palo y Machete” introductory multimedia solo from 2007’s One Shot: Rhapsody in Black & White, inspired by the legacy of Pittsburgh photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris; the powerful “March” excerpt from 1995’s Lessons, set to the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (“All I’m saying is simply this: that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Long as there is extreme poverty in this world, no man can be totally rich even if he has a billion dollars.”); and 2019’s Mercy, an emotional and moving work about justice and compassion set to Meshell Ndegeocello’s version of Oumou Sangare’s “Shirk.” The evening is dedicated to Brown’s longtime booking agent, Pam Green, who is retiring after more than twenty years with the company. In addition, Brown is holding monthly virtual community classes on March 6, April 3, and May 8 at noon; registration is $15 per class.

THE 34th ANNUAL TIBET HOUSE US BENEFIT CONCERT

Who: Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Phoebe Bridger, Tenzin Choegyal, Cage the Elephant, Brittany Howard, Chocolate Genius, Valerie June, Rubin Kodheli, Angélique Kidjo, Annie Lennox, Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop, Black Pumas, Jesse Paris Smith, Patti Smith, Tessa Thompson, Saori Tsukada, Eddie Vedder, Tenzin Choegyal, Drepung Gomang Monks, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
What: Annual benefit concert for Tibet House US
Where: Mandolin streaming platform
When: Wednesday, February 17, $25-$250, 8:00 (available for forty-eight hours)
Why: The annual Tibet House US benefit fundraiser always features a wide-ranging group of special guests, gathering under the leadership of artistic director Philip Glass. The thirty-fourth annual event is no exception, although this year there is yet more talent, which will be streaming in live and prerecorded from around the world instead of joining together at Carnegie Hall. The roster includes appearances and performances by Laurie Anderson, Phoebe Bridger, Cage the Elephant, Brittany Howard, Chocolate Genius, Angélique Kidjo, Annie Lennox, Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Tessa Thompson, Eddie Vedder, and others, as well as an introductory message from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. All proceeds benefit Tibet House US, “a nonprofit educational institution and cultural embassy that was founded at the request of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who at the inauguration in 1987 stated his wish for a long-term cultural institution to ensure the survival of Tibetan civilization and culture, whatever the political destiny of the six million people of Tibet itself.” Tickets start at $25, with additions of a Katak blessing scarf, limited edition benefit poster, event T-shirt, mala beads, and more at higher levels.

AARON SORKIN IN RESIDENCE

Aaron Sorkin will have something to say as host of Metrograph film series

Metrograph Digital
February 16-19, members only
metrograph.com

Back in the before times, you had to trudge to independent movie theaters all over the city to catch special screenings and live events, from BAM and the Museum of the Moving Image to the Quad, Lincoln Center, Film Forum, the Angelika, IFC, Metrograph, and others. But now you can watch everything from the friendly confines of your home, on your comfy couch, streamed from all over the world. One of the best deals is Metrograph Digital, the online platform of the Lower East Side cinema. For $5 a month or $50 a year, you gain access to great programming, including live screenings, previews, and talks. Up next is “Aaron Sorkin in Residence,” in which the fifty-nine-year-old Manhattan native and award-winning screenwriter, director, and playwright introduces five films that he wrote and/or directed, along with four films that influenced him. The four-day series begins February 16 at 6:30 with David Fincher’s Facebook flick, The Social Network, which Sorkin scripted and makes a cameo in. That will be followed by a trio of livestreamed double features: Moneyball and The Hot Rock, Molly’s Game and Downhill Racer, and The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Inherit the Wind. Sorkin, the mastermind behind such television series as The West Wing, The Newsroom, and Sports Night and author of such plays as A Few Good Men and adaptations of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Farnsworth Invention, will take part in a conversation with fellow activist Bradley Whitford, who won an Emmy for his role as Josh Lyman in The West Wing and starred as Danny Tripp in Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, following the Chicago 7 screening.

Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg are a couple of high-profile whiz kids in David Fincher’s The Social Network

THE SOCIAL NETWORK (David Fincher, 2010)
Tuesday, February 16, 6:30
metrograph.com

Nominated for eight Oscars and winner of three, The Social Network stars Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale, Adventureland) as computer whiz kid Mark Zuckerberg, the boy genius who developed what became Facebook while attending Harvard. The film is told primarily in flashback as Zuckerberg is being sued for having allegedly stolen the idea from the Winklevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer). Zuckerberg is depicted as a spiteful, mean-spirited, self-indulgent person trying to prove to his ex-girlfriend (Erica Albright) that he will amount to something. Justin Timberlake is outstanding as the fast-moving, smooth-talking Sean Parker, the founder of Napster who loves living the high life. For a young man who created a social media platform where people collect friends, Zuckerberg made a lot of enemies on his way to the top. The film was written by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing), who makes an appearance as an ad executive meeting with Zuckerberg, and directed by David Fincher, who has made such other terrific films as Fight Club, Zodiac, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. “To compare your own work to Citizen Kane takes a lot of confidence . . . or something. But David Fincher kept drawing comparisons, and when Fincher talks about movies, I find it best to agree,” Sorkin says of the film.

Oscar nominees Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill take a different approach with the Oakland A’s in Moneyball

MONEYBALL (Bennett Miller, 2011) & THE HOT ROCK (Peter Yates, 1972)
Wednesday, February 17, 6:30 & 9:30
metrograph.com

After winning 102 games during the 2001 season but then falling to the New York Yankees in the American League Division Series in five tough games, the cash-poor Oakland A’s also lost three of their most prominent players, Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen, to free agency. To rebuild the team with limited funds, general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) turns to an unexpected source: Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a young stat geek who believes that on-base percentage is the key to the game. The A’s scouts find it hard to believe that Beane is looking at has-been catcher Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt), aging outfielder David Justice (Stephen Bishop), and underperforming submariner Chad Bradford (Casey Bond) to get the A’s to the World Series, as does manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who refuses to use the new players the way Beane insists. But when the A’s indeed start winning after a few more questionable deals pulled off by Beane and Brand, the entire sport world starts taking a much closer look at what is soon known as “moneyball.”

Based on the 2003 bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, Moneyball is an exciting film even though the vast majority of it occurs off the field. Pitt is wonderfully understated as Beane, a former five-tool prospect for the Mets and divorced father of a twelve-year-old girl (Kerris Dorsey). Pitt earned an Oscar nod for Best Actor for his portrayal of the real-life Beane, a confident but nervous man who may or may not have a big chip on his shoulder. Hill was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as wiz-kid Brand, a fictional character inspired by Paul DePodesta, who refused to let his name and likeness be used in the film; Brand instead is an amalgamation of several of the people who work for Beane. Director Bennett Miller (The Cruise, Capote) takes the viewer into a number of fascinating back-room dealings, including a revealing scene in which Beane tries to acquire Ricardo Rincon from the Cleveland Indians, furiously working the phones to pull off the deal. Also nominated for Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Adapted Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, Moneyball firmly belongs in the playoff pantheon of great baseball movies, with the added bonus that you don’t have to be a fan or know a lot about the game to get sucked into its intoxicating tale.

Sorkin is pairing the film with Peter Yates’s fab 1972 caper comedy, The Hot Rock, in which Robert Redford, George Segal, Ron Leibman, and Paul Sand attempt to steal a gem from the Brooklyn Museum for Moses Gunn; the film is highlighted by a memorable turn from Zero Mostel. Sorkin says about the double feature, “These two films have almost nothing in common except that I saw The Hot Rock when I was very young and I’ve liked posses ever since. A gang of lovable misfits trying to do something impossible. Steal a diamond, win the World Series with the lowest payroll in baseball . . . same thing.”

Jessica Chastain in fully in charge in gambling thriller Molly’s Game

MOLLY’S GAME (Aaron Sorkin, 2017) & DOWNHILL RACER (Michael Ritchie, 1969)
Thursday, February 18, 6:30 & 9:30
metrograph.com

Jessica Chastain is sexy and sensational as Molly Bloom in Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, Molly’s Game. Sorkin earned his third screenplay Oscar nomination for his adaptation of Bloom’s 2014 memoir, Molly’s Game: From Hollywood’s Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker. Bloom, not to be confused with the character in James Joyce’s Ulysses, is a freestyle skier preparing for the Olympics when a terrible accident suddenly ends her career. She soon finds herself working for an asshole real estate developer (Jeremy Strong), both in the office and running a big-time poker game featuring major celebrities and businessmen. Despite her attempts to keep it all legal, she is busted by the feds and is hesitantly represented by lawyer Charles Jaffey (Idris Elba), who wants her to name names to stay out of jail. The film is nearly two and a half hours but flies by; two-time Oscar nominee Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, The Tree of Life) is mesmerizing as she manages a ragtag bunch of wealthy men playing hands worth tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars, portrayed by a cast that includes Bill Camp, Chris O’Dowd, Brian d’Arcy James, and Michael Cera as Player X, who is in it not to win it but to destroy lives. Kevin Costner is Molly’s hard-driving father.

Sorkin has paired the film with Michael Ritchie’s 1969 sports drama Downhill Racer, in which Robert Redford stars as a selfish and sexy skier determined to become a champion while at odds with his father (Walter Stroud) and coach (Gene Hackman). One of four screenplays written by novelist James Salter, Downhill Racer is an underrated gem, with lots of superb skiing. Sorkin notes in a spoiler alert, “The only thing these two films have in common is competitive skiing. But the moment at the end of Downhill Racer, when everyone’s celebrating Redford’s record-breaking run while Hackman has his eye on a skier who’s about to beat Redford’s run but ends up wiping out just before the finish line, helped give me the idea for the opening of Molly’s Game.”

Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong) are on the case in The Trial of the Chicago 7

THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 (Aaron Sorkin, 2020) & INHERIT THE WIND (Stanley Kramer, 1960)
Friday, February 19, 6:30 & 9:30
metrograph.com

In an eerily timely drama based on real events, Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 goes behind the scenes of the protests, arrest, and trial of eight men accused of inciting a riot at the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in the Windy City: Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen), Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp), Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong), David Dellinger (John Carroll Lynch), Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins), John Froines (Daniel Flaherty), and Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). The trial is overseen by seriously biased judge Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella), with Mark Rylance as defense counsel William Kunstler, Ben Shenkman as defense counsel Leonard Weinglass, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as assistant federal prosecutor Richard Schultz, J. C. MacKenzie as chief federal prosecutor Tom Foran, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Black Panther leader Fred Hampton (whose story is now being told in Judas and the Black Messiah), Michael Keaton as US attorney general Ramsey Clark, and John Doman as Clark’s successor, John N. Mitchell. The film can be a bit scattershot, but it humanizes these legendary figures and reveals a corrupt justice system that wanted to shut these men up so much that Judge Hoffman even had Seale bound and gagged at one point.

To accompany his latest film, Sorkin has chosen one of the greatest courtroom movies ever made, Stanley Kramer’s 1960 classic, Inherit the Wind. Nominated for four Oscars (but not Best Picture?!?), the film fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, a battle in a Tennessee town over the right to teach evolution in school. Kramer takes on creationism and McCarthyism in the film, which pits Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) against Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March), channeling Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, in an acting tour de force that also includes Gene Kelly, Dick York, Harry Morgan, Claude Akins, Noah Beery Jr., Norman Fell, and Richard Deacon. “The Bible is a book. It’s a good book, but it is not the only book,” Drummond says. And reporter E. K. Hornbeck (Kelly) explains, “I do hateful things for which people love me, and I do lovable things for which they hate me. I’m admired for my detestability. Now don’t worry, little Eva. I may be rancid butter, but I’m on your side of the bread.” The double feature comes at a time when the former president has just been acquitted of inciting a riot at the Capitol, evolution is still a heavily debated topic in schools, and much of America believes the media is fake news; you can expect those issues and more to be discussed in the conversation between Sorkin and West Wing star Bradley Whitford that follows the live screening of The Trial of the Chicago 7.

SORRY, WRONG NUMBER

Who: Marsha Mason, Heidi Armbruster, Chuck Cooper, Jasminn Johnson, Matt Saldivar, Lauren Molina, Marc delaCruz, Sarah Lynn Marion, Dan Domingues
What: All-star benefit reading of Sorry, Wrong Number
Where: Keen Company YouTube
When: Thursday, February 18, $25, 7:00 (available through February 21 at midnight)
Why: “Operator, I’ve been dialing Murray Hill four-oh-oh-nine-eight now for the last three quarters of an hour and the line is always busy. I don’t see how it could be busy that long. Will you try it for me, please?” Agnes asks at the beginning of Lucille Fletcher’s 1943 radio play, Sorry, Wrong Number. As the operator calls the number, Agnes adds, “I don’t see how it could be busy all this time. It’s my husband’s office; he’s working late tonight and I’m all alone here in the house. My health is very poor and I’ve been feeling so nervous all day.” But instead of getting her husband on the other end of the line, she overhears a murder plot, and she’s determined to do something about it, despite her condition. The noir thriller was adapted into a 1948 film by Fletcher, directed by Anatole Litvak and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster; Agnes Moorehead had the lead role in the original May 1943 radio production.

The Drama Desk– and Obie-winning Keen Company is now adapting the play for an all-star benefit live presentation taking place February 18 at 7:00. (The link will be active through February 21 at midnight.) The cast features four-time Oscar, Grammy, and Emmy nominee Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl, Steel Magnolias), Tony winner Chuck Cooper (Choir Boy, The Life), Heidi Armbruster (Disgraced, Poor Behavior), Jasminn Johnson (Blues for an Alabama Sky, Seven Guitars), and Matthew Saldivar (Junk, Saint Joan). “Since the early days of the pandemic, I became increasingly fascinated with old-time radio and the ways these early pioneers inspired their audience to use their imagination in new ways,” company artistic director Jonathan Silverstein said in a statement. “One of the most popular of these dramas is Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number, a taut thriller that set the bar for suspense on the radio. I look forward to welcoming patrons to this special fundraising event, which will make you think twice before making your next phone call.”

Fletcher was married to Bernard Herrmann, wrote the libretto for Herrmann’s opera Wuthering Heights, and penned the radio script for The Hitch-Hiker for Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre of the Air; it was later adapted by Rod Serling for a classic Twilight Zone episode with Inger Stevens. Welles considered Sorry, Wrong Number “the greatest radio script ever written.” The reading is directed by Silverstein and includes live foley effects by Nick Abeel; it will be preceded by a musical preshow with Lauren Molina, Marc delaCruz, and Sarah Lynn Marion performing American standards, hosted by Dan Domingues, and will be followed by a live talkback with members of the cast and crew. All proceeds benefit Keen’s Hear/Now audio theater season and the Keen Playwrights Lab.

SHADOW’S WHISPERS

SHADOW’S WHISPERS
Opgenomen in Zuiderstrandtheater, Den Haag
February 15-17, €15,00, 2:00 (streaming begins 1:15)
www.ndt.nl

Following its terrific livestreamed production of Yoann Bourgeois’s I wonder where the dreams I don’t remember go, performed in an empty Opgenomen in Zuiderstrandtheater in its home in Den Haag, Nederlands Dans Theater is back with the two-part program “Shadow’s Whispers,” taking place February 15-17 at 2:00 EST.

London-based Israeli choreographer and composer Hofesh Shechter, who previously created Clowns and Vladimir for NDT, returns with the world premiere of From England with Love, for a team of ten dancers, along with Imre van Opstal and Marne van Opstal’s brand-new Baby don’t hurt me; the pair previously made The Grey for NDT 2 and Take Root for NDT 1.

Tickets are about $18 at the current exchange rate. The seventy-five-minute program will be performed live three times, then be gone, so catch it while you can. And be sure to check in early, as NDT will be streaming special behind-the-scenes goodies, including a live Q&A, starting forty-five minutes before showtime each day.

XIValentine: A VIRTUAL VARIETY SHOW

Company XIV
Premieres Sunday, February 14, $125-$325, 8:00
companyxiv.com

For fifteen years, Brooklyn-based baroque burlesque troupe Company XIV has been dazzling audiences with sexy dance, music, and acrobatics in dramatic, fabulous costumes, re-creating fairy tales and other stories (Cinderella, Snow White, Queen of Hearts, Seven Sins) with an unabashed joy. During the presentation, the cast members make their way through the crowd, interacting with blissful guests who are sitting on lush couches, classy chairs, and intimate booths, eating and drinking as the performers spin from the ceiling, swirl on poles, reinterpret familiar standards, and dance in glittery, revealing outfits. It’s more of a happening than a mere show. So what to do during a pandemic lockdown, when Company XIV is unable to welcome audiences to its fashionable home on Troutman Ave. in Bushwick?

Founder and artistic director Austin McCormick has moved things online with XIValentine, a virtual holiday extravaganza premiering February 14 at 8:00 and available on demand for thirty days. Joining in on the raunchy reverie are aerialist, pole dancer, and soprano Marcy Richardson, aerialist, musician, and dancer Nolan McKew, powerhouse singer Storm Marrero, magician Matthew Holtzclaw, dancer and acrobat Nicholas Katen, actor and singer Brandon Looney, juggler Sam Urdang, dancer and choreographer Nicole von Arx, singer and specialty performer Syrena, and dancers Lilin, Scott Schneider, and Melissa Anderson, along with an appearance by canine cutie Macaron McCormick. The scenic design and costumes are by the amazing Zane Pihlström, who has never met a swath of red velvet and sequins he couldn’t turn into something fabulous.

Nolan McKew and Company XIV are preparing a special experience for Valentine’s Day

At its in-person productions, Company XIV offers different levels of ticketing; the more you pay, the more you get, including greater interaction with the cast and better food and drink. The troupe is attempting to recapture that feeling by offering four ways to experience the fifty-minute XIValentine. The thirty-day streaming pass is $125; the Be Mine package comes with chocolate truffles, The Male Nude or 1000 Pin-Up Girls book, and a canvas tote for $160; the Champagne Package features glasses, candles, bar soap, a bath bomb, and a quilted tote for $195; and the Lust Package consists of a rabbit mask, a gold riding crop, black nipple covers, a black beeswax corset candle, passionfruit CBD gummies, a chocolate fondue set, and both a quilted and canvas tote, for $325. Did we point out that things can get pretty kinky with Company XIV, both on- and offstage? In addition, if you live in New York City, you can get Champagne and cocktails delivered to your building. It’s always an expensive night out with Company XIV, and now it’s an expensive night in, but there’s nothing else like it.

If it’s all a bit much, you can go for the virtual edition of the seasonal favorite Nutcracker Rouge, where a $50 ticket provides you with a twenty-four-hour streaming pass to access eight acts (performed by Richardson, Lilin & LEXXE, Troy Lingelbach, Katen & McKew, Demi Remick, Christine Flores, Làszlò Major & Looney, and Jourdan Epstein, Pretty Lamé & Jacoby Pruitt), while $75 extends the pass to fourteen days and adds two weeks of bespoke cocktail lessons.