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

IN CONVERSATION: YOSHITOMO NARA + PEDRO ALONZO

yoshitomo nara, no war, acrylic on wood, 2019 (courtesy of the artist, blum & poe, and pace gallery)

Who: Yoshitomo Nara, Pedro Alonzo
What: Live discussion
Where: Dallas Contemporary online
When: Saturday, March 20, free with RSVP, 9:00
Why: In celebration of the opening of the Yoshitomo Nara career survey “i forgot their names and often can’t remember their faces but remember their voices well,” running at Dallas Contemporary from March 20 to August 22, the Japanese artist will speak with adjunct curator Pedro Alonzo about the show, which features paintings, drawings, and sculptures from 2006 to the current day, including many works that have never been on view before. Nara will discuss his artistic process, continuing sociopolitical themes, and new, more introspective pieces he made specifically for this exhibition. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY: SPRING FORWARD

Who: Stephen Petronio Company
What: Virtual birthday party
Where: SPC Zoom
When: Saturday, March 20, free with RSVP, 5:00
Why: In April 2013, Newark-born, New York City–based dancer and choreographer Stephen Petronio threw himself quite a New Orleans–style funeral at the Joyce for Like Lazarus Did (LLD 4/30). On March 20, he will rise up again for the spring equinox, celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday in style over Zoom. The virtual gathering will include an excerpt from SPC’s 2006 piece, Bloom, featuring music by Rufus Wainwright with the Young People’s Chorus of NYC; the world premiere of his latest short dance film, Pandemic Portraits (SPC previously presented #GimmeShelter last May and Are You Lonesome Tonight in July); and a reading and discussion of Petronio’s new book, In Absentia, consisting of personal journal entries about dealing with the current state of the world, written while Petronio was quarantining at the Petronio Residency Center in the Catskills. Signed and numbered copies of the limited edition book are available for $250. Petronio is a charming, effervescent character, so it’s always worth being in his company. Happy birthday!

NEGATIVE LIBERTY / POSITIVE LIBERTY

The Invisible Dog Art Center
51 Bergen St.
Thursday – Sunday, March 18 – April 18, free with advance RSVP
www.theinvisibledog.org
www.theamericanvicarious.org

The american vicarious and the Invisible Dog Arts Center follow up their socially distanced Static Apnea with Negative Liberty / Positive Liberty, an immersive performance installation for one audience member at a time. The piece explores Latvian-born British philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s Oxford lecture delivered on Halloween 1958, “Two Concepts of Liberty: Negative & Positive.” while also incorporating Anthony Barboza’s 1966 photograph, Pensacola, Florida, of a neon sign depicting the word Liberty with a broken “E” and dangling “R,” revealing the fragility of freedom, as they both relate to current events. Berlin writes:

“To coerce a man is to deprive him of freedom – freedom from what? Almost every moralist in human history has praised freedom. Like happiness and goodness, like nature and reality, the meaning of this term is so porous that there is little interpretation that it seems able to resist. I do not propose to discuss either the history or the more than two hundred senses of this protean word, recorded by historians of ideas. I propose to examine no more than two of these senses – but those central ones, with a great deal of human history, behind them, and, I dare say, still to come. The first of these political senses of freedom or liberty (I shall use both words to mean the same), which (following much precedent) I shall call the ‘negative’ sense, is involved in the answer to the question ‘What is the area within which the subject – a person or group of persons – is or should be left to do or be what he is able to do or be, without interference by other persons?’ The second, which I shall call the positive sense, is involved in the answer to the question ‘What, or who, is the source of control or interference, that can determine someone to do, or be, one thing rather than another?’ The two questions are clearly different, even though the answers to them may overlap.”

Conceived and directed by Christopher McElroen (Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley, Static Apnea), the installation features performers Sarah Ellen Stephens and Olivia Gilliatt, with scenography by Troy Hourie, video design by Adam J. Thompson, sound by Andy Evan Cohen, and lighting by Lucrecia Briceno. Admission is free to each eight-minute session but must be reserved in advance; slots are already filling up, so you’d best sign up fast. In addition, Barboza is included in the Whitney exhibition “Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop,” which continues through March 28.

ROMEO Y JULIETA

The Public Theater’s bilingual radio play Romeo y Julieta was rehearsed over Zoom (screenshot courtesy the Public Theater)

Who: Saheem Ali, Lupita Nyong’o, Juan Castano, Alfredo Michel Modenessi, Rebeca Ibarra, more
What: Online premiere listening party for bilingual audio production of Romeo y Julieta
Where: The Greene Space and the Public Theater
When: Thursday, March 18, free with RSVP, 6:45 (stream available for one year)
Why: Unsurprisingly, audio plays have made a comeback during the pandemic, with theaters in lockdown. Keen Company’s Season of Audio Theater has included finkle’s 1993 and Pearl Cleage’s Digging in the Dark, with James Anthony Tyler’s All We Need Is Us up next. Playing on Air, which predated the Covid-19 crisis, has posted such nonvisual works as Cary Gitter’s How My Grandparents Fell in Love, Daniel Reitz’s Napoleon in Exile, Naveen Bahar Choudhury’s Skin, and Dominique Morisseau’s Jezelle the Gazelle, featuring such actors as Julie White, Jesse Eisenberg, Marsha Mason, Ed Asner, Jane Kaczmarek, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and others.

Meanwhile, the Public Theater has presented Anne Washburn’s Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017 as well as the four-part Free Shakespeare on the Radio: Richard II, adapted and directed by Saheem Ali. Ali has now teamed up with playwright Ricardo Pérez González on Romeo y Julieta, a bilingual audio adaptation based Alfredo Michel Modenessi’s Spanish translation of Shakespeare’s heart-wrenching tragedy.

Colorful illustrations by Erick Dávila add visuals to bilingual radio play (courtesy the Public Theater)

The play alternates between English and Spanish; thankfully, you don’t hear every line in both languages, or else the show would be four hours long. However, the Public provides the script on its website so you can follow along and see the full translation. (The website also offers a visual guide to the cast and characters, a bilingual synopsis, colorful illustrations by Erick Dávila, and a trailer.) Presented in conjunction with WNYC Studios and the Greene Space, the radio play premieres on March 18 at 6:45 with much virtual fanfare, kicking off with a preshow greeting and cocktail demonstration (Mezcal Negroni or nonalcoholic Mojito), hosted by WNYC’s Rebeca Ibarra. Then the group listening party starts at 7:00, followed by a live talkback and Q&A with Ali, actors Lupita Nyong’o, who plays Juliet, and Juan Castano, who stars as Romeo, and translator Modenessi, moderated by Ibarra. Everything is free with advance RSVP, but you have to supply your own drinks.

The rest of the cast consists of Carlo Albán as Benvolio, Karina Arroyave as the apothecary, Erick Betancourt as Abram, Michael Braugher as Balthasar, Carlos Carrasco as Lord Montague, Ivonne Coll as the nurse, John J. Concado as Peter, Hiram Delgado as Tybalt, Guillermo Diaz as Gregory, Sarah Nina Hayon as Lady Montague, Kevin Herrera in the ensemble, Modesto Lacen as Prince Escalus and Capulet’s cousin, Florencia Lozano as Capulet, Irene Sofia Lucio as Mercutio, Keren Lugo as Sister Joan, Benjamin Luis McCracken as Paris’s page, Julio Monge as Friar Lawrence, Javier Muñoz as Paris, and David Zayas as Sampson. The original score by Michael Thurber is performed by Jon Lampley on trumpet, Eddie Barbash on alto saxophone, and Mark Dover on bass clarinet; bassist Thurber will also entertain the audience during intermission. The stream of the radio play will be available for one year.

THE SHOW GOES ON: CASA VALENTINA

Harvey Fierstein and the cast of Casa Valentina will reunite for MTC’s “The Show Goes On”

Who: Harvey Fierstein, Reed Birney, John Cullum, Gabriel Ebert, Tom McGowan, Patrick Page, Nick Westrate, Mare Winningham
What: Cast reunion and watch party
Where: Manhattan Theatre Club YouTube
When: Thursday, March 18, free, noon
Why: In November, Manhattan Theatre Club kicked off a new monthly series, “The Show Goes On,” revisiting previous productions with members of the cast and crew watching filmed excerpts and talking about their experiences. In November, director Trip Cullman, narrator Rebecca Naomi Jones, music director Justin Levine, and costar Will Swenson looked at 2012’s Murder Ballad, which also featured Karen Olivo and John Ellison Conlee. In December, actors Jon Hoche and Paco Tolson explored 2016’s Vietgone, by Qui Nguyen. In January, writer-director John Patrick Shanley and star Timothée Chalamet discussed 2016’s Prodigal Son. And in February, Stephanie Berry, who played, Aunt Mama, shared insight into 2018’s Sugar in Our Wounds, written by Donja R. Love and directed by Saheem Ali.

The March edition of “The Show Goes On,” each of which runs between fifteen and twenty minutes, reunites the cast of 2014’s Casa Valentina, Harvey Fierstein’s first drama in more than a quarter century. The play, inspired by a true story, takes place in June 1962 at a Catskills bungalow where men spend weekends cross-dressing and acting like women, a safe haven where they can celebrate their feminine side. Joining in the watch party will be Fierstein and most of the original cast: Reed Birney, John Cullum, Gabriel Ebert, Tom McGowan, Patrick Page, Nick Westrate, and Mare Winningham. At the time, I wrote, “Cross-dressing might be somewhat de rigueur these days on Broadway (Kinky Boots, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, Cabaret, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), but Fierstein, [director Joe] Mantello, and an extremely talented and beautiful cast offer a very different take on this misunderstood culture, treating it with humor, intelligence, honor, courage, and, perhaps most important, dignity.” Like its title says, the show does go on, living on YouTube after its initial airing.

VIRTUAL ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2021

On March 14, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio stated, “I am not ready today at this hour to say, let’s have a city with no bars, no restaurants, no rec centers, no libraries. I’m not there.” But he was there the next day, shutting down the city while allowing St. Patrick’s Day revelers one last chance to become superspreaders, letting them have one final party night on March 16. A year later, Gotham has suffered 775,000 cases and more than 30,000 deaths, so for 2021, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade will be virtual, but restaurants are back open. For those who are not planning on cramming into any pubs quite yet, there are several online gatherings to celebrate the patron saint of Ireland.

The parade, a New York City institution since 1762, will be virtual in 2021, honoring first responders and essential workers. There will be events all day long, from a livestreamed mass and a composite of previous parades to live entertainment and interviews.

The Gingold Theatrical Group, which is dedicated to the work of George Bernard Shaw, is hosting a livestreamed Irish Poetry Slam with Robert Cuccioli, Tyne Daly, Melissa Errico, Jessica Hecht, Daniel Jenkins, Andrea Marcovicci, Tonya Pinkins, Thom Sesma, Renee Taylor, Sally Wilfert, Karen Ziemba, and others taking part in an open mic night beginning at 6:00 (admission is free with advance RSVP), with people contributing poetry, songs, toasts, jokes, monologues, sayings, and more, preferably by or inspired by Irish writers. “Ordinarily, we’d be having our annual Golden Shamrock Gala on the seventeenth, but . . . nope!” Gingold artistic director David Staller said in a statement. “This shindig will take place over Zoom! Not Irish? Not a problem. On St. Pat’s, we’re ALL a little Irish. This is just a party. Not a performance. Not a fundraiser. Just a chance for us all to raise a glass and be ‘together.’”

Meanwhile, Knowledge Workings Theater Company, started in 2018 by Joe Queenan, T. J. Elliott, and Marjorie Phillips Elliott, is holding its Second Annual Virtual (Not Necessarily Virtuous) St. Patrick’s Day Celebration. Anyone can participate by making their own video, following specific instructions on YouTube here and seeing what contributors posted last year. It’s free, but it you want to donate, Knowledge suggests you do so to the Irish Rep, which is presenting JM Synge’s The Aran Islands, starring Brendan Conroy, March 16-28, including 3:00 and 8:00 screenings March 17.

On Wednesday night at 8:00 GMT, Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day Festival concludes with Barróg Lá Fhéile Phádraig, featuring performances by Lisa O’Neill, Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Caoimhe Ní Fhlatharta, Seamus and Ronan Ó Flatharta, Diarmuid and Brian Mac Gloin, Cormac Begley, Ronan O’Snodaigh and Myles O’Reilly, Doireann, and Siún Glackin and Mohammad Syfkhan, sharing a big virtual hug extending across the Atlantic.

OKLAHOMA! RE-IMAGINING A CLASSIC BROADWAY MUSICAL

Who: Daniel Fish, Ted Chapin, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Patrick Vaill, Gabrielle Hamilton, Foster Hirsch
What: Discussion of reworking of classic Broadway musical
Where: The National Arts Club Zoom
When: Monday, March 15, free with RSVP, 7:30
Why: In 2018, Daniel Fish presented his seventy-fifth-anniversary adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beloved Oklahoma! The longtime downtowner reimagined the show with diverse casting, an intimate setting that included chili during intermission, significant tweaking of the score, and a controversial solo dance to replace Agnes de Mille’s dream ballet. In my review, I called the show, which started at St. Ann’s Warehouse before moving to Circle in the Square, an “extraordinary adaptation . . . Fish has created a masterful retelling of the 1943 original, immersing the audience in the optimism that came with the southern territory becoming a state in 1906 — but uncovering a deep layer of darkness in the rich farmland soil.”

On March 15 at 7:30, the National Arts Club is hosting the live Zoom panel discussion and Q&A “Oklahoma! Re-imagining a Classic Broadway Musical,” featuring the Tony-nominated Fish; Rodgers & Hammerstein president Ted Chapin (about halfway through the show, the woman next to me muttered, “How could Ted Chapin let this happen?”); Rebecca Naomi Jones, who played Laurey; Patrick Vaill, who portrayed Jud; Bessie winner Gabrielle Hamilton, who performed the dance that opens the second act; and moderator Foster Hirsch. (The show was nominated for eight Tonys, winning for Best Orchestrations [Daniel Kluger] and Best Revival of a Musical.) Registration is free, but donations will be accepted for the NAC Artist Fellows program.