this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

IN THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR WITH RUBEN SANTIAGO-HUDSON

in the directors chair

Who: Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Stephen M. Kaus
What: Livestream discussion with exclusive footage
Where: Manhattan Theatre Club Facebook Live
When: Thursday, May 21, free, 5:00
Why: In 2017, Manhattan Theatre Club presented the August Wilson’s Jitney at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, the first American Century Cycle play Wilson wrote but the last to reach Broadway. The production, which earned the Tony for Best Revival of a Play and featured John Douglas Thompson, André Holland, Ray Anthony Thomas, Brandon J. Dirden, Carra Patterson, Michael Potts, Harvy Blanks, Anthony Chisholm, and Keith Randolph Smith, was directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who has acted in, directed, and/or recorded the complete ten-play cycle and was friends with the playwright; he was Wilson’s personal choice to portray him in the autobiographical one-man show How I Learned What I Learned once Wilson got ill and then passed away, in 2005 at the age of sixty. On May 21 at 5:00 on MTC’s Facebook page, Santiago-Hudson will discuss his directorial choices, accompanied by clips from the Broadway run that he will review in depth; he will be joined by MTC director of artistic producing Stephen M. Kaus. Santiago-Hudson won a Tony for his performance in Wilson’s Seven Guitars, has written Lackawanna Blues and Your Blues Ain’t Sweet Like Mine, and has directed such other plays as Paradise Blue and Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.

“Endings. (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals. CACONRAD” at RIBOCA2

caconrad

Who: CAConrad
What: Livestreamed reading and talk
Where: RIBOCA2 website
When: Thursday, May 21, free with advance registration, noon
Why: In July 2017, I sat down with poet CAConrad for a private (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals session in the middle of Madison Square Park. On May 21 at noon, CAConrad will host a virtual reading and discussion that might feel like it’s one on one, since so many of us are still sheltering in place. The Zoom program is part of the 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, which was supposed to open in Latvia last week but has been moved online in wake of the coronavirus pandemic. CAConrad, who was born in Kansas, was raised in Pennsylvania, and is the author of such books as The City Real & Imagined, ECODEVIANCE: (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness, and While Standing in Line for Death, has been posting a poem a day on their Facebook and Instagram pages, a series they call “CORONADAZE.” For RIBOCA2, they are presenting “Endings. (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals. CACONRAD,” which will explore how we can transform this contemporary moment, contemplate the end of a world, and maintain personal creative space through it all. To prepare for the free event, you are strongly encouraged to read (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals: The Basics in 3 Parts, which can be found here.

JUSTICE IN ACTION: EDUCATIONAL INEQUITY PT. 2

Ruth Messinger will lead online panel discussion on educational inequality

Who: Ruth Messinger, Brad Lander, Mark Winston Griffith, Emma Rehac
What: Justice in Action discussion
Where: Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan Zoom link
When: Thursday, May 21, free (donations accepted) with advance registration, 2:00
Why: The JCC’s Justice in Action program continues May 21 at 2:00 with the livestreamed panel discussion “Educational Inequity Pt. 2,” which will examine how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting inequality in the school system, based on race, class, power, and other elements. JCC Social Justice Activist in Residence Ruth Messinger and New York City councilmember Brad Lander will be joined by School Colors podcast host Mark Winston Griffith and IntegrateNYC student director Emma Rehac. Free advance RSVP is required, although donations are accepted; registrants will receive a Zoom link thirty minutes before the session begins.

THE PRODUCER’S PERSPECTIVE LIVE! DADDY LONG LEGS REUNION!

daddy long legs

Who: Megan McGinnis, Adam Halpin, Paul Alexander Nolan, Paul Gordon, John Caird, Michael Jackowitz
What: Livestreamed reunion of cast, crew, creatives benefiting the Actors Fund
Where: Broadway Podcast Network on YouTube and Facebook Live
When: Thursday, May 21, free (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: In May 2016, I raved about director John Caird and composer and lyricist Paul Gordon’s Daddy Long Legs, saying it was “absolutely lovely” and proclaiming that “Megan McGinnis gives one of the most charming and engaging performances of the season.” Directed by John Caird at the Davenport Theatre, the show centered on an American orphan’s coming-of-age as a young woman in a male-dominated society in the early twentieth century. On May 21 at 8:00, McGinnis, who played Jerusha Abbott, Adam Halpin, who costarred as Jervis Pendleton, producer Michael Jackowitz, Caird, who also wrote the book, and Gordon will have a virtual reunion as part of Ken Davenport’s ongoing series “The Producer’s Perspective.”

In announcing the event, Davenport explained, “I discovered the secret of happiness. It’s a virtual reunion of Daddy Long Legs! In 2015, we streamed Daddy Long Legs live to the world, and it became the very first Broadway or off-Broadway show to take our performance virtual. We were seen by over 150k people in 135 countries around the world. And when all the press articles started appearing on our efforts, and when our box office went up, and when our two stars started getting recognized on the street, we knew we were on to something with this streaming thing. And now, five years later, streamin’ is the only thing we have. Since my out-of-the-box-thinking and super courageous artists on Daddy Long Legs were so instrumental in ushering in the idea of theater-to-stream, I couldn’t think of a better group to reunite online during these cray-cray times.” You can watch the show on BroadwayHD (use code DLLBHD) to prepare for the reunion, which is free, but donations will be accepted for the Actors Fund Covid-19 Emergency Relief efforts. Davenport has been one of the busiest theater people around, hosting informal virtual interviews nearly every night, with such luminaries as Stephen Schwartz, Sierra Boggess, Alex Brightman, Ashley Park, Alan Cumming, David Henry Hwang, Marilu Henner, Jenn Colella, Santino Fontana, and more from wherever they are sheltering in place, with Des McAnuff, Kelly Devine, Michael Greif, and others appearing soon. The talks are archived here.

A NIGHT OF COVENANT HOUSE STARS

covenant house

Who: Jon Bon Jovi, Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Rachel Brosnahan, Stephen Colbert, Martin Short, Dolly Parton, Dionne Warwick, Stephanie J. Block, Tony Shalhoub, Charlie Day, Chris O’Dowd, Zachary Levi, Zachary Quinto, Robin Thicke, Deborah Cox, Quentin Earl Darrington, Ariana DeBose, Darius de Haas, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Eden Espinosa, Jordan Fisher, Stephanie Hsu, Randy Jackson, Capathia Jenkins, Jeremy Jordan, Ramona Keller, Alex Newell, Karen Olivo, Dawn O’Porter, Laura Osnes, Benj Pasek, Jodi Picoult, Shereen Pimentel, Andrew Rannells, Keala Settle, Jake David Smith, Will Swenson, Bobby Conte Thornton, Ana Villafane, Frank Wildhorn, Broadway Inspirational Voices, Covenant House Youth, more
What: Virtual benefit for Covenant House
Where: Amazon Prime Video, Broadway on Demand, Facebook, iHeartRadio Broadway, Stars in the House, Twitch, YouTube
When: Monday, May 18, free with advance registration (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: Covenant House’s annual gala goes virtual this year with A Night of Covenant House Stars on May 18 at 8:00. It’s free to watch, although you can donate to help homeless youth specifically during Covid-19. The mission of Covenant House, which was founded in 1972 and now has locations in thirty-one cities in six countries, is that “through a combination of support strategies, including educational programs, job training and placement, medical services, mental health and substance abuse counseling, legal aid and beyond, we help young people embrace the great promise of their lives, overcome steep barriers to independence, and strive to achieve their aspirations.” The ninety-minute concert will feature performances by such stars as Stephanie J. Block, Jon Bon Jovi, Dolly Parton, Jeremy Jordan, and Laura Osnes with appearances by Rachel Brosnahan, Stephen Colbert, Meryl Streep, Zachary Quinto, Diane Keaton, Tony Shalhoub, and more, cohosted by Audra McDonald and John Dickerson. While we’re all stuck at home, there are too many young people who don’t have anywhere to go, before, during, and after the pandemic. Covenant House seeks to change that.

THE ENCOUNTER ONLINE (with live Q&A)

You can now experience Simon McBurney’s extraordinary, immersive The Encounter online

Who: Simon McBurney, Takumã Kuikuro, others
What: Virtual presentation of The Encounter
Where: St. Ann’s Warehouse website
When: May 15-22, free (donations accepted); live Zoom Q&A May 20 at 2:30, free with advance RSVP
Why: In the fall of 2016, Simon McBurney’s extraordinary play The Encounter, about photojournalist Loren McIntyre’s adventures in the Amazon, opened at the Golden Theatre. The mostly one-man show required every audience member to wear headphones; in my review, I wrote, “The play is also very much about contact, from McIntyre meeting the Mayoruna to how each audience member experiences it individually, a solitary yet communal experience.” With theaters closed and people sheltering in place, the idea of “contact” has changed. With that in mind, from May 15 at 2:00 through May 22 at 5:00, St. Ann’s Warehouse and McBurney’s terrific company, the London-based Complicité, are streaming for free a recorded version of the full play (with a new introduction by McBurney), taking you places you’ve never been in numerous ways; you will need your headphones to immerse yourself in the full effect of the 3D sound design. “We are, as a consequence of this pandemic, bodily cut off from one another. Disconnected. Isolated,” McBurney said in a statement. “But perhaps this sense of our separation, one from another, is simply a heightening of what we felt before this all began. We are thinking now, not only about how long this will last, but also what happens on the other side. To reconnect we need, perhaps, to learn to listen more closely. To each other. To our communities. To other cultures. To nature itself. The Encounter is at its heart a story about listening, not hearing but listening — to other, older narratives which, at the deepest level, form who we are, and if we do, we can imagine how we can begin again.”

On May 20 at 2:30, McBurney, an ingenious writer, director, and actor who has appeared in such films as The Golden Compass, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Mission Impossible — Rogue Nation and has brilliantly adapted such other literary works as Haruki Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes, Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles, and John Berger’s To the Wedding, will participate in a live Zoom Q&A with Brazilian filmmaker Takumã Kuikuro and special guests; the discussion is free but advance RSVP is required here. I cannot recommend this presentation — a benefit for St. Ann’s — highly enough.

VIRTUAL CINEMA: SPACESHIP EARTH LIVE Q&A

A group of biospherians shelter in place in a geodesic dome in Spaceship Earth

Who: David Teague, Marley Mcdonald, Brian Becker
What: Zoom Q&A about Spaceship Earth
Where: Maysles Documentary Center website
When: Saturday, May 16, free, 4:00
Why: Big Brother meets Silent Running and The Martian in Spaceship Earth, Matt Wolf’s new documentary that takes on new meaning in the age of coronavirus. Currently, most of America is sheltering in place, stuck in their homes. In Spaceship Earth, which is streaming on the Maysles Documentary Center website, Hulu, and other online platforms, Wolf (Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project) takes us behind the scenes of the development of Biosphere 2, the 1991 project that was supposed to be all about sustainability and biodiversity, with a crew of eight planning on living within the large dome in Oracle, Arizona, for two years, in a kind of self-imposed lockdown or quarantine. Wolf goes back to the beginning, to an avant-garde theater troupe that eventually morphed into a group of unique individuals determined to save the planet, under the leadership of ecologist, writer, activist, and engineer John “Johnny Dolphin” Allen, who founded the hippie Theater of All Possibilities in San Francisco, and moneyman Ed Bass, whose family was in the Texas oil business.

In new interviews and archival footage, Wolf introduces us to Allen, Margret “Firefly” Augustine, William “Freddy” Dempster, Marie “Flash” Harding, Mark Nelson, Kathelin Gray, Tony Burgess, Kathy Dyhr, and others who were involved in the project, which had some cultlike elements, in addition to the eight men and women who became biospherians (Jane Poynter, Taber MacCallum, Abigail Alling, Bernd Zabe, Linda Leigh, Mark Van Thillo, Roy Walford, and Sally Silverstone). Among the major influences were William S. Burroughs, R. Buckminster Fuller, and the Whole Earth Catalog. And just wait till you see Stephen Bannon enter the picture.

Perhaps what’s most fascinating about Spaceship Earth is how far away 1991 seems, and how little we have learned since then. The film will continue streaming at the Maysles site through May 22; on May 16 at 4:00, there will be a live Zoom Q&A with editor David Teague, associate editor Marley Mcdonald, and archival/story producer Brian Becker.