this week in (live)streaming

THE GAZE: “. . . NO HOMO”

New online media series The Gaze rehearses on Zoom before debuting July 30

Who: Sharon Lawrence, Yvette Cason, Devere Rogers, Galen J. Williams, Jason “Freckle” Green, Eugene Byrd, T. C. Carson, Larry Powell
What: Premiere of new digital series
Where: Facebook, YouTube, Twitch
When: Thursdays, July 30 – August 27, free with RSVP, 10:00
Why: Many theater festivals are going virtual these days because of the pandemic lockdown, and joining the parade is the Evergreen Festival, albeit this one is an all-new, fictional work of metatheater itself, created by actor and playwright Larry Powell. The five-week series follows the life and career of openly queer Black actor Jerome Price over the course of fifty years, beginning with “…NO HOMO.” On its GoFundMe page, Powell explains, “In between protests, self-care, virtual funerals, and starting a full-on performing arts academy all in the span of a couple of months . . . in partnership with Angelica Robinson’s Tell Me a Story Productions and with a small army of multicultural artists and activists, I made this piece of artivism. ⁣The Gaze is a cycle of plays that examines the process of building culturally specific and queer works of color in historically white spaces. It tackles hard topics like racism head-on. It wrestles with the question: Why strain to be free under a gaze fixed on your imprisonment when it’s you who is holding the key? Why stay? Go where?” The impressive cast features Yvette Cason, Devere Rogers, Galen J. Williams, Jason “Freckle” Green, Eugene Byrd, T. C. Carson, and Sharon Lawrence as Evergreen Theatre Festival interim artistic director Miranda Cryer; you can learn more about her and the festival in the below prologue as well as watch a tech rehearsal here.

Presented as the online gathering “Fire Circle: A Celebration of Black, LGBTQIA & BIPOC Lives” with DJs and postshow discussions with artists and activists, each episode can be seen for free on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch from Thursday nights at 10:00 until the next Sunday at 11:59 pm. “Building this work has brought me through the poison of the past to the medicine of the present moment. This work puts the pain into the fire so that it may alchemize into power,” Powell recently posted on social media. “Theater is sacred ritual and it extends into all forms of media. It cannot be left behind. It is the foundation and basis of all forms. Find the theater in anything you do and there you will find the boundless strength and resilience of the human spirit.”

MARTIN LUTHER ON TRIAL: A VIRTUAL PRESENTATION

martin luther on trial

Who: Paul DeBoy, Kersti Bryan, John FitzGibbon, Mark Boyett, Fletcher McTaggart, Jamil A. C. Mangan, Max McLean
What: Virtual dramatic reunion reading from Fellowship for Performing Arts
Where: Online link sent day before event
When: Sunday, August 2, free with RSVP, 4:00
Why: In December 2016, Fellowship for Performing Arts presented Martin Luther on Trial at the Pearl Theatre, in honor of the five hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Now, during the pandemic lockdown, FPA, which approaches theater from a Christian perspective — other works include The Screwtape Letters, Paradise Lost, and A Man for All Seasons — is bringing back the original cast for Martin Luther on Trial: A Virtual Presentation, a live reunion reading on August 2 at 4:00. In a program note from the Pearl production, cowriter and FPA artistic director Max McLean explained, “In 1517, a young Augustinian monk nailed 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. This act launched the Protestant Reformation, or Revolt, depending on your point of view. Regardless of where you come down, few will disagree that Martin Luther left an indelible imprint on Western Civilization. That imprint — from Justification by Faith alone, to the scandal of a splintered Christianity, and his role in the German-Jewish question — is still with us today.” The returning ensemble features Paul DeBoy as the Devil, Kersti Bryan as Katie Von Bora, John FitzGibbon as St. Peter, Mark Boyett as Hitler, St. Paul, Josel, Freud, Hans Luther, and Pope Francis, Fletcher McTaggart as Martin Luther, and Jamil A. C. Mangan as Tetzel, Confessor, Martin Luther King Jr., Philip Melanchthon, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Michael the Archangel. Set in the afterlife as Lucifer makes his case for Luther’s soul, the play, originally directed by Michael Parva onstage, was written by Chris Cragin-Day and McLean. The free reading will be followed by a live Q&A moderated by McLean.

LIBERTY OR JUST US: A CITY PARK STORY

Theatre for the New City hopes to take latest summer musical offscreen and into parks

Theater for the New City hopes to take latest summer musical offscreen and into parks

Who: Crystal Field, Matthew Angel, JC Augustin, Alexander Bartenieff, Celeste Bradsher, Celestina Bradsher, Cheryl Gadsen, Michael-David Gordon, Sam Gutierrez, Ben Harburg, Dan Kelley, Terry Lee King, T. Scott Lily, Mark Marcante, Jessy Ortiz, Allison Patrick, Emily Pezzella, Justin Rodriguez, Michael Sanders, Ebonaya Smallwood, Natasha Velez, Juan Villegas, Lei Zhou
What: New oratorio by Crystal Field and Joseph Vernon Banks
Where: Theater for the New City online and individual park websites
When: Saturdays and Sundays, August 1 – September 13, free, 2:00
Why: The original plan was for Theater for the New City to stage its latest Summer Street Theater work, Liberty or Just Us: A City Park Story, at outdoor sites across the five boroughs, from Tenth St. and First Ave. in front of the troupe’s home to St. Mary’s Park, Abe Lebewohl Park, the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park, Fort Greene Park, Travers Park, Tappen Park, and other locations, but Covid-19 had something to say about that. In the show, a large cast of eighteen actors and a keyboardist (trimmed down from a six-piece band) follows a park manager as he navigates through the coronavirus pandemic while dealing with privatization, police brutality, land grabbing, and prejudice; the details were developed through workshops with park managers, a teacher, a protest organizer, a Black policeman, and even a clown. TNC cofounder and artistic director and Obie winner Crystal Field wrote the book and lyrics and directs; the music is by Joseph Vernon Banks. Liberty or Just Us: A City Park Story has been adapted both for online viewing and for socially distanced outdoor presentations, should New York City’s rules about performances and gatherings change. There will also be an opportunity to occasionally sing along, with words projected onscreen.

HAM4CHANGE: A VIRTUAL FUNDRAISER EVENT

ham4change

Who: Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Christopher Jackson, Jonathan Groff, Brian d’Arcy James, Rory O’Malley, Andrew Rannells, Neil Haskell, Andrew Chappelle, Thayne Jasperson, Morgan Marcell, Javier Muñoz, Seth Stewart, Betsy Struxness, Sasha Hutchings
What: Livestreamed fundraisers with behind-the-scenes look at Hamilton, trivia, games, prizes, original content, and more
Where: Looped Live
When: Saturday, August 1, $10.75, 1:00; Sunday, August 9, 1:00; Saturday, August 15, 7:00
Why: Even with Broadway shut down, Hamilton continues to have an impact on theater and the world at large, particularly through criticism of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s treatment of slavery in the show, particularly in conjunction with the filmed version now streaming on Disney+. In the meantime, original cast members of the musical have organized Ham4Change, three online presentations to raise money for When We All Vote, LEAP (Law Enforcement Accountability Project), BEAM (Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective), Until Freedom, Color of Change, Dance4Hope, Know Your Rights Camp, BAI (Black AIDS Institute), and the African American Policy Forum. The program, featuring trivia, games, prizes, original content, and more, begins August 1 with Hamilton originals Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Christopher Jackson, and Jonathan Groff and special guests Brian d’Arcy James, Rory O’Malley, Andrew Rannells, Neil Haskell, Andrew Chappelle, Thayne Jasperson, Morgan Marcell, Javier Muñoz, Seth Stewart, and Betsy Struxness, hosted by Sasha Hutchings. Tickets are $10.75; VIP packages include Virtual Meet & Greets with many of the stars ($75) and Digital Fan Experiences with Groff, Muñoz, and Struxness ($1,000 each). The series continues August 9 at 1:00 and August 15 at 7:00; participants have yet to be announced.

BROADWAY BARES: ZOOM IN

broadway bares

Who: Broadway performers and celebrity guests Jane Krakowski, Nathan Lane, Beth Leavel, Judith Light, Christopher Sieber, Wesley Taylor, more TBA
What: Broadway Bares charity event
Where: Broadway Cares, YouTube, other outlets
When: Saturday, August 1, free, 9:30
Why: Since 1992, theater actors and special celebrity guests have been taking it off for charity in the ever-popular Broadway Bares gala, stripteasing to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. From an inaugural take of eight grand that first year, the event raised more than two million dollars in 2019. Founded by Jerry Mitchell, who directed the 1992 production with the cast of The Will Rogers Follies at Splash bar, the show goes online this year, offering viewers prime seating to zoom in and enjoy the festivities, which will include new, socially distanced dances as well as past highlights. “We’re so excited to bring the heat of Broadway Bares to screens around the world for the first time with Broadway Bares: Zoom In,” Tony winner Mitchell (Kinky Boots, Hairspray, The Full Monty) said in a statement. “This year’s performers have gone full-out in both their show-stopping dance moves and desire to make a difference. You’ve got to Zoom In because it’s sure to make your laptop tingle and your cell phone vibrate!” You can watch for free via multiple online sites, but donations are strongly encouraged, with proceeds helping those affected by HIV/AIDS, Covid-19, and other critical illnesses in addition to organizations focusing on social justice and anti-racism. The first round of celebrity stars have been announced, and it’s pretty cool: Jane Krakowski, Nathan Lane, Beth Leavel, Judith Light, Christopher Sieber, and Wesley Taylor, with more to come.

ELIZABETH GILBERT BOOK CLUB FEATURING EMILY BERNARD

elizabeth gilbert book club

Who: Elizabeth Gilbert, Emily Bernard
What: Live literary discussion
Where: Elizabeth Gilbert Instagram Live
When: Wednesday, July 29, free, 3:00
Why: “Black Is the Body is one of the most beautiful, elegant memoirs I’ve ever read,” bestselling author and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert writes in a blurb for Emily Bernard’s new book, Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine (Penguin Random House, $16, December 2019). “It’s about race; it’s about womanhood; it’s about friendship; it’s about a life of the mind and also a life of the body. But more than anything, it’s about love. . . . I can’t praise Emily Bernard enough for what she has created in these pages.” You’re likely to hear plenty more praise when the Nashville-born-and-raised Bernard joins the Connecticut-born Gilbert, the bestselling author of such books as Eat Pray Love, The Signature of All Things, and City of Girls, for the next edition of “The Elizabeth Gilbert Book Club: Conversations on Instagram” on July 29 at 3:00. Bernard, who previously edited Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendships and Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten and wrote Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance: A Portrait in Black and White, won the Los Angeles Times’ Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose for Black Is the Body, which contains such chapters as “Scar Tissue,” “Teaching the N-Word,” “Skin,” and “White Friend.” The live talk will be archived on Gilbert’s Instagram page in case you miss it on Wednesday; you can watch her previous talks with Dr. Michelle Harper (The Beauty in Breaking) and Mikki Kendall (Hood Feminism: Note from the Women that a Movement Forgot) there, and you can catch Bernard’s LA Times prize acceptance speech here. “I’m so looking forward to this encounter,” Gilbert exclaims in her announcement of the event. So are we.

TWI-NY TALK — JANET BIGGS: AUGMENTATION AND AMPLIFICATION

ary Esther Carter reunites with A.I. Anne, Richard Savery, and Janet Biggs for Fridman Gallery pandemic commission (photo courtesy Janet Biggs)

Mary Esther Carter reunites with A.I. Anne, Richard Savery, and Janet Biggs for site-specific Fridman Gallery commission (photo courtesy Janet Biggs)

Who: Mary Esther Carter, Richard Savery, A.I. Anne, Janet Biggs
What: Final presentation of “SO⅃OS: a space of limit as possibility”
Where: Fridman Gallery online
When: Thursday, July 30, $5 for access to all twelve performances, 8:00
Why: In July 2019, I experienced multimedia artist Janet Biggs’s workshop presentation of her work-in-progress performance of How the Light Gets In, an extraordinary collaboration at the New Museum exploring the ever-growing relationship between humans and technology, with singer and dancer Mary Esther Carter; machine learning program A.I. Anne; composer and music technologist Richard Savery; drummer Jason Barnes, who lost an arm in an accident so uses a robotic prosthesis; marathon runner Brian Reynolds, a double (below-knee) amputee who is fitted with carbon fiber running prostheses; and violinists Earl Maneein and Mylez Gittens.

The Pennsylvania-born, Brooklyn-based Biggs has traveled to unusual places all over the world for her video installations, including a sulfur mine in the Ijen volcano in East Java (A Step on the Sun), the Taklamakan desert in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China (Point of No Return), a coal mine in the Arctic (Brightness All Around), the crystal caverns below the German Merkers salt mine (Can’t Find My Way Home), and the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah (Vanishing Point). She’s also all set to go to Mars after several simulated adventures.

During the pandemic lockdown, Biggs has been hunkering down at home with her her husband and occasional cinematographer, Bob Cmar, and their cat, Hooper, but that hasn’t kept her from creating bold and inventive new work. On July 30, she will debut the site-specific multimedia performance piece Augmentation and Amplification, concluding the Fridman Gallery’s terrific “SO⅃OS” series, cutting-edge performances made during the coronavirus crisis that incorporate the empty gallery space on Bowery, delving into the feeling of isolation that hovers over us all. (The program also features Daniel Neumann’s Soundcheck, Luke Stewart’s Unity Elements, Abigail Levine’s Fat Chance, Hermes, and Diamanda Galás’s Broken Gargoyles, among others; a five-dollar fee gives you access to all the works.)

In her third conversation with twi-ny, Biggs takes us behind the scenes of her latest innovative, boundary-pushing project.

twi-ny: You’re so used to traveling. What’s it been like being stuck at home?

janet biggs: Working on the performance has been a saving grace for me — to have something to focus on that feels exciting. But it has also had its share of interesting challenges.

twi-ny: How did it come about?

jb: I was asked by experimental sound artist and audio engineer Daniel Neumann if I would be interested in doing a performance for the series he was organizing for Fridman Gallery. The premise was that he would set up the gallery space with audio mics, projectors, and cameras, clean the whole space, and leave. The performer would be given a code to the lock on the gallery so they could safely enter the space by themselves and perform within shelter-in-place guidelines. During the performance, Daniel mixes the sound remotely from his home and livestreams it.

I loved his premise, but I don’t perform. I direct. I said I was eager to figure out a way to direct from home and send both a live performer and an Artificial Intelligence entity into the space. Both Daniel and gallery owner and director Iliya Fridman were excited about my proposal and gave complete support to the idea.

twi-ny: And then you turned to Mary Esther Carter and Richard Savery.

jb: Yes, I reached out to Mary and Richard, both of whom I worked with on the performance you saw at the New Museum. Happily, they were up for the challenge.

Richard Savery, Janet Biggs, and Mary Esther Carter rehearse Augmentation and Amplification over Zoom (photo courtesy Janet Biggs)

twi-ny: Which led you back to A.I. Anne.

jb: Richard has been working on expanding A.I. Anne’s abilities and neural diversity. A.I. Anne was trained on Mary’s voice and named for my aunt, who was autistic and had apraxia. Since the performance last year, A.I. Anne has gained more agency through deep machine learning and semantic knowledge. The entity can now express and respond to emotion. We are also using phenotypic data and first-person accounts of people on the autism spectrum for vocal patterning.

We want to explore neural diversity and inclusion in creative collaborations between humans and machines. Our challenge was how to get A.I. Anne in the gallery so she could perform live. A.I. is a disembodied virtual entity. Richard lives in Atlanta. While A.I. Anne is autonomous, Richard needed to be able to receive a single audio channel of Mary’s voice from the gallery and then send back a single channel audio response from A.I. Anne. With strong wifi and the right software, our tests from Atlanta to the gallery have been successful, so keep your fingers crossed for Thursday.

twi-ny: What was it like collaborating long distance?

jb: I’ve been having rehearsals with Mary and Richard for the last couple weeks via Zoom. We have been able to work out the choreography remotely and even developed some new camera angles due to the constraints of cellphone cameras and apartment sizes. The percussive soundtrack that Mary will dance to was generated by EEG sonification, the process of turning data into sound. Richard developed a process where he could use his brainwaves to control a drumset, creating a kind of brain-beat.

And lastly, I’ve been editing video images. Some will be projected on walls in the gallery and some will be a video overlay, run by the streaming software so that we essentially will have multiple layers of images and live action. If all goes well, I think this will be a pretty exciting performance.

twi-ny: Is that all? You don’t exactly make things easy for yourself.

jb: I’ve been to the gallery myself to see the layout and make some staging/lighting decisions. I will send Daniel a floor plan marked with my staging decisions and a tech-script. Daniel will set up the space (projector angles, lighting, camera and microphone placements) during the day on Thursday and then completely clean the space. Thursday evening, Mary will enter the space alone. Richard will run A.I. Anne from his computer in Atlanta. Daniel will mix the sound and images remotely into a livestream Vimeo channel that the audience can access from their homes. And I’ll be watching from home, holding my breath that everything works!