Who: Michael Menchaca, Claudia Zapata What: Online launch of The Wall (link goes live October 22) Where:El Museo del Barrio Zoom When: Thursday, October 22, free with advance RSVP, 6:00 Why: On October 22, Texas-born artist Michael Menchaca will launch the online version of his three-channel video project The Wall, as part of El Museo del Barrio’s “Estamos Bien — La Trienal 20/21.” Previously presented live at the American University Museum in DC last year, The Wall, which features music from Jorge Ramos Avalos’s January 2019 video op-ed “Trump Is the Wall,” addresses issues of borders and immigration using gaming and video art as seen through Chicanx aesthetics. The event will include a discussion between Menchaca, Smithsonian American Art Museum curatorial assistant Claudia Zapata, and curators from El Museo del Barrio. “With the virtual presentation of The Wall, my intention is to offer a space for contemplation on one of the central campaign promises of the forty-fifth U.S. president as he seeks reelection,” Menchaca said in a statement. The on-site exhibition “Estamos Bien — La Trienal 20/21” is scheduled to open at El Museo on March 13.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Who: Jelani Alladin, Jacqueline Antaramian, Antonio Banderas, Laura Benanti, Kim Blanck, Ally Bonino, Danielle Brooks, Jenn Colella, Elvis Costello, Daniel Craig, Alysha Deslorieux, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Holly Gould, Danai Gurira, Stephanie Hsu, David Henry Hwang, Oscar Isaac, Nikki M. James, Alicia Keys, John Leguizamo, John Lithgow, Audra McDonald, Grace McLean, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kelli O’Hara, Mia Pak, Suzan-Lori Parks, David Hyde Pierce, Phylicia Rashad, Liev Schreiber, Martin Sheen, Phillipa Soo, Meryl Streep, Trudie Styler, Sting, Will Swenson, Shaina Taub, Kuhoo Verma, Ada Westfall, Kate Wetherhead What: Virtual celebration and fundraiser Where:Public Theater,Facebook,YouTube When: Tuesday, October 20, free (donations accepted), 8:00 Why: Originally planned for June 1 but delayed because of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Public Theater is now holding its gala fundraiser online on October 20. “Forward. Together.” features appearances and performances by a wide range of actors, musicians, playwrights, and other creators, sharing songs and stories, from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Antonio Banderas, Elvis Costello, Daniel Craig, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and John Leguizamo to Danielle Brooks, Jenn Colella, Audra McDonald, Phillipa Soo, Meryl Streep, and Suzan-Lori Parks, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. One of the highlights will be Jelani Alladin performing a brand-new song from the Public Works production of Hercules. The cochairs are Kwame Anthony Appiah, Candia Fisher, Joanna Fisher, Laure Sudreau, and Lynne Wheat, honoring Audrey and Zygi Wilf and Sam Waterston; the evening is directed by Kenny Leon, with music direction by Ted Sperling.
Admission is free but donations will be accepted; twenty-five percent of the proceeds will go to eight Public Works partner organizations and Hunts Point Alliance for Children. You can also participate in the online auction, where you can bid on such items as a virtual conversation with Queen Latifah and Lee Daniels, a coffee chat with Liev Schreiber, ten years of premium reserved tickets to the Delacorte for Shakespeare in the Park, a private Zoom cooking class with Andrew Carmellini, and lunch (on Zoom or in person) with Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis. The Public has presented several outstanding productions during the pandemic, including The Line,What Do We Need to Talk About?, and the current audio play Shipwreck, so give if you can to help support this ongoing dream from Joe Papp.
