this week in music

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.

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.

MILES AND MILES AND MILES OF HEART: LOVE SONGS FOR THE MOST ROMANTIC NIGHT OF THE YEAR

Who: KT Sullivan, Natalie Douglas, Jeff Harner, Marissa Mulder
What: Love songs for Valentine’s Day
Where: Mabel Mercer Foundation
When: Sunday, February 14, free, 7:00 (available for one week)
Why: English cabaret superstar Mabel Mercer, winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, passed away in 1984 at the age of eighty-four; the next year, the Mabel Mercer Foundation was founded “to preserve and advance an endangered part of American musical heritage: the intimate art of cabaret performance and the Great Songbook of its repertoire.” That mission takes center stage on February 14 at 7:00 when KT Sullivan, the foundation’s artistic director, will host the Valentine’s Day concert “Miles and Miles and Miles of Heart: Love Songs for the Most Romantic Night of the Year,” featuring Natalie Douglas, Jeff Harner, and Marissa Mulder performing such standards as “The Nearness of You,” “All the Way,” “Because of You,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man,” “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Love Is Here to Stay,” and “My Funny Valentine.” Admission is free, although donations are welcome if you can afford it, helping the foundation in this time of Covid to continue as a “central source of information for artists, presenters, promoters, and the general public about Ms. Mercer and the art form she exemplified.”

LiveLabs — ONE ACTS: ON LOVE

Who: Tẹmídayọ Amay, Keith David, Antwayn Hopper, Chiké Johnson, Patrice Johnson, Zonya Love, Anastacia McCleskey
What: Seven short vignettes focusing on the eight different types of love
Where: MCC Theater
When: Thursday, February 11, $7, 6:30 (available on demand through February 13 at midnight); open mic night February 12, free with RSVP, 5:30
Why: MCC’s LiveLabs series of one-act virtual plays has included Talene Monohan’s Monty Python-esque farce Frankie & Will, directed by Jaki Bradley and starring real-life partners Ryan Spahn and Michael Urie, the latter a playwright attempting to write his own plague version of “King Leir”; Aziza Barnes’s Pues Nada, directed by Whitney White and starring Ito Aghayere, Alfie Fuller, Karen Pittman, and Kara Young, a very funny satire dealing with some strange goings-on at a bar in East LA (complete with puking and a brutal murder), inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies; Matthew Lopez’s poignant and honest The Sentinels, directed by Rebecca Taichman and starring Jane Alexander, Denee Benton, and Katrina Lenk as three 9/11 widows whose significant others all worked in the Twin Towers and who meet in a diner on the anniversary of the tragedy every year, the action moving backward in time, with Priscilla Lopez as the waitress and reading stage directions; and C. A. Johnson’s When, directed by Taylor Reynolds and starring Antoinette Crowe-Legacy and Kecia Lewis as a daughter going through a breakup and her Downton Abbey-obsessed mother on a long Zoom call that gets pretty personal. The plays run between twenty-five and forty-five minutes each, followed by a discussion facilitated by Ianne Fields Stewart.

The series continues February 11-13 with Mfoniso Udofia’s On Love, exploring eight types of love through seven short vignettes, poems, and songs, consisting of Philautia: Self Love, Ludus: Playful Love, Storge: Family Love, Eros: Erotic Love, Agape: Love within Community, Pragma: Enduring Love, Philia: Friendship Love, and Mania: Obsessive Love. The terrific cast features Tẹmídayọ Amay, Keith David, Antwayn Hopper, Chiké Johnson, Patrice Johnson, Zonya Love, and Anastacia McCleskey; Awoye Timpo (The Homecoming Queen, The Revolving Cycles Truly and Steadily Roll’d) directs the play, Udofia’s online follow-up to such previous works as Sojourners, runboyrun, and Her Portmanteau. Tickets are only seven dollars. In addition, MCC is hosting a free On Love open mic Zoom night on February 12 at 5:30, where you can sit back and watch or share your own spoken word, poem, or song.

THE ORCHESTRA NOW: SCHOENBERG & BACH / NEW & CLASSIC WORKS FOR STRINGS

The Orchestra Now (TŌN) will present livestreamed concerts from the Fisher Center this month (photo courtesy the Orchestra Now)

Who: The Orchestra Now (TŌN)
What: Two livestreamed concerts
Where: Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard
When: Sunday, February 7, free – $35, 2:00, and Sunday, February 21, free – $35, 2:00
Why: The Orchestra Now (TŌN), which features young musicians handpicked from around the world, will be presenting two live programs this month, broadcast from the Fisher Center at Bard in Annandale-on-Hudson. On February 7 at 2:00, “Schoenberg & Bach” features Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Lutosławski’s Funeral Music, Teresa Carreño’s Serenade for Strings, and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), conducted by Leon Botstein. On February 21 at 2:00, “New & Classic Works for Strings” consists of a timely world premiere by Sarah Hennies, Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver, Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, and Grieg’s Holberg Suite, conducted by James Bagwell. Tickets to each concert are free to $35 depending on what you can afford, and each will be available on demand on the STAY TŌNED digital platform beginning the Thursday following the live performance.

THE NOURISH PROJECT

THE NOURISH PROJECT
WP Theater
January 28 – February 7, free, 7:30
wptheater.org

New York City’s WP (formerly Women’s Project) Theater seeks to soothe and feed your soul with The Nourish Project, an interactive virtual presentation continuing through February 7. Conceived and directed by associate artistic director Rebecca Martínez, who was part of the team that took us on an audio tour through the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine community in Sanctuary and helmed one of the microplays in the sensational Here We Are series, The Nourish Project is a multidisciplinary production featuring dance, music, storytelling, poetry, food, and more from a collective of BIPOC creators. Admission is free, but there are three levels of suggested donations if you can afford it, from $10 to $100; when you register, you have to select an element — water, earth, fire, or air — that will determine which breakout room you go to about halfway through the show.

Natalie Benally is one of several BIPOC creators participating in The Nourish Project (photo courtesy WP Theater)

The seventy-minute experience includes songs by Edna Vazquez, opening and closing words written by Jaisey Bates, a cooking demonstration and song from Joaquin Lopez, poems by Latrelle Bright and Camryn Bruno, element hostings by Natalie Benally, Nikiko Masumoto, Jono Eiland, and Bright, dance by Brittany Grier, Megan J. Minturn, and Joya Powell, and other contributions from Siobhan Juanita Brown, Sage Chanell, Madeline Sayet, Dr. Michelle Tom, and Meghan “Sigvanna” Topkok. Along the way, you will be asked intimate questions in the chat, and you are encouraged to turn your camera on at several points to share a few objects visually. You will also hear such lines as “I, the spirit in constant motion, wafting across the planet ever present, holding everything that ever was” and “We are storied bodies, made of stars.” The Nourish Project is earnest, New Agey, reverential, and crunchy, with flourishes of organic spirituality and ASMR, but if that’s your thing, give it a shot. These days, you gotta find comfort and community wherever you can.

WORKS & PROCESS: ISOLATION TO CREATION DOCUSERIES

Works & Process at the Guggenheim
WNET’s All Arts
Wednesdays, January 27, February 3, 10, 17, free, 8:00
allarts.org/schedule
www.worksandprocess.org

“When we really didn’t know what this pandemic was going to be, times got really, really, really rough. And then, around late March, the entire ecosystem just completely collapsed,” Works & Process general manager Duke Dang says in The Way Forward, the film that kicks off the docuseries Isolation to Creation, which premieres on WNET’s All Arts channel on January 27 at 8:00. The half-hour film follows the creative process of a group of artists who found their previously commissioned works postponed so they had to adapt to the shutdown of indoor venues, in this case the 273-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater under the Guggenheim rotunda, where Works & Process has been hosting sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes looks at dance, theater, opera, and music productions since 1984. The organization quickly transitioned to the new digital world, presenting a wide range of daring and beautiful virtual pieces, more than six dozen so far, all under ten minutes and premiering Sunday and Monday nights, filmed outdoors or from wherever the artists are sheltering in place.

In The Way Forward, Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie, Archie Burnett, Omari Wiles and Kya Azeen of Les Ballet Afrik, Joshua Bergasse, Sara Mearns, Chris Celiz, José Cruzata, Jamar Roberts, Dr. Wendy Ziecheck, and others discuss the metamorphosis to virtual productions, including Covid-19 testing, forming quarantine bubbles in the Hudson Valley (at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, Mount Tremper Arts, and Petronio Residency Center), and collaborating while socially distancing. “It’s a complete launch into the unknown for us, and Duke especially just grabbed it and ran,” W&P producer Caroline Cronson explains. The series, directed by Nic Petry of Dancing Camera, continues February 3, 10, and 17 as the artists get ready for showtime, preparing their works in such styles as Afrik, ballet, ballroom, break, flex, Krump, modern, tap, and vogue. W&P has been more than a breath of fresh air during the coronavirus crisis, streaming exhilarating short pieces that remind us of the power of and intrinsic need for art and all that it brings us, particularly when we’re stuck in our homes, and Isolation to Creation enhances that experience in a big way, holding us over until we can once again return to the Peter B. Lewis Theater and be together in the same space.