this week in theater

SIZE MATTERS: ROBERT MONTANO’S SMALL AT THE SIGNATURE

Robert Montano shares his compelling story of working as a teenager at Belmont in Small(photo by Valerie Terranova)

SMALL
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through July 25, $49-$119
smalltheplay.com

In the one-man 1963 Twilight Zone episode “The Last Night of a Jockey,” Mickey Rooney stars as Michael Grady, a failed jockey who, given one final chance, declares, “I wanna be big!”

In classic Rod Serling style, be careful what you wish for.

In the Drama Desk–nominated one-man show Small, Robert Montano expertly relates his real-life teenage desire to become a jockey, but, as a growing adolescent, he prays to remain small.

The fourteen-year-old Montano, known as Bobby, is only four-foot-six, the smallest kid in his class in Hempstead, Long Island. He is tired of being pushed around and dreams of something better. One day he goes to the racetrack with his mother, Gloria, a God-fearing Puerto Rican woman who sells jewelry at Fortunoffs and likes to gamble a bit, much to the consternation of her husband, Salvatore, an Italian American art professor who is prone to the drink. A client of Gloria’s, Roberto A. Pineda, is racing at Belmont Park, and she takes her son with her to place a little bet and to meet the jockey. Bobby is instantly smitten with Pineda and the Sport of Kings and begs his parents and Pineda to let him work there.

They agree, organizing his schedule around school. At the track, he meets a bigoted trainer, a bloated owner, an attractive stable hand, and other characters as he learns the ropes and pays his dues. He wants to get on a horse and race, but by the time that becomes a possibility, he has grown several inches and put on a few pounds, so his struggle to maintain the weight qualifications become a fierce battle, especially as he finds out about dangerous ways to do so.

“I was ready to put a coffee table on my head, bind my feet, whatever I had to do to stay small,” he says.

Robert Montano’s Small is back for a well-deserved encore run (photo by Valerie Terranova)

Written by Montano and directed by Jessi D. Hill (Surely Goodness and Mercy, Vanishing Point) and previously presented by Penguin Rep at 59E59 in 2023, Small unfolds like an exciting horse race all its own. Upon first seeing Christopher and Justin Swader’s set, a wooden stable with real props of the trade (by Buffy Cardoza), I was reminded of visiting the paddock before a race — I’ve been to Belmont numerous times, including several times for the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown. The training scenes mirror the cadence of the horses parading in the paddock before they enter the starting gate. And when Bobby does begin getting on the horses, the pace quickens like a race, as Bobby jockeys for position, speeds up, slows down, and seizes the moment to forge ahead. As much as he wants to win, he also learns there are prices to pay and choices you can’t take back.

Montano gives a tour-de-force performance, seamlessly embodying more than a dozen wide-ranging characters as he gets the opportunity to live out his dream. Montano is an engaging performer, generous and brave, not shying away from his faults as he commands our attention with his charming demeanor. It’s dynamic storytelling even for those audience members who know the outcome. Jamie Roderick’s lighting and Brian Ronan’s sound enhance the action, whether Bobby is at the track, home with his parents, trying to make the weight — he refers to the scale, depicted as a bright white light on the floor, as “the monster” — or partying at a disco, where he discovers there may be something very different in his future.

Right outside the theater is a large board with information about Montano’s career, including archival photographs and his actual jockey uniform; if you want to be surprised by his life story, don’t check it out until after the play, when you can enjoy it with a newfound perspective.

With most tickets only $49–$69, Small is one of the best bets around. Or, as Serling said in the closing narration for “The Last Night of a Jockey”: “You can make a parimutuel bet on this, win, place, or show, in or out — of the Twilight Zone.”

I can assure you that this one is a big winner.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

A LESS-THAN-GLEEFUL POSTMORTEM: CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY ON BROADWAY

Andrea Martin was one of many celebrity guests reading about other celebrities in Celebrity Autobiography (photo by Evan Zimmerman)

CELEBRITY AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Shubert Theatre
225 West Forty-Fourth St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave
Closed June 21, $49-$329
celebrityautobiography.com

The trouble was obvious from the start. Eugene Pack’s Celebrity Autobiography made its Broadway debut at the Shubert on May 18; when I saw it on June 1, the audience was so sparse that they roped off the mezzanine and moved everyone down to the orchestra; still, there were plenty of empty seats. Scheduled to run through August 16, the show closed early, after the June 21 performance.

Which is a shame, because it was a lot of fun, with great rotating casts and a ton of laughs. But perhaps its eyes were bigger than its stomach.

Since 1998, Celebrity Autobiography has been a hit in cities around the world, packing them in at clubs from New York and Los Angeles to London and Sydney. For its Broadway run, it announced an enticing list of stars who would participate in the show’s novel structure, which is neither drama nor comedy and nearer to stand-up. A row of celebrities stand at mics, reading excerpts from the memoirs of other celebrities, with their tongues either firmly placed in their cheeks or attacking the often mind-boggling prose with virtuoso gusto.

Perhaps in our celebrity-obsessed, social-media-dependent culture, it was too much, too mean-spirited. Certainly, the top ticket price of $329 was exorbitant wishful thinking, but it was well worth the $49 for the cheap seats.

I caught a lovely group of actors having an infectiously fabulous time onstage, even when the histrionics did get excessive. Ralph Macchio kicked things off with David Hasselhoff’s Don’t Hassel the Hoff, allowing time for the audience to burst out in gleeful guffaws. Robert Sean Leonard cast sly glances about as he read from Ryan Seacrest and Geraldo Rivera. Mario Cantone couldn’t contain himself as he did wicked impressions while sharing passages from Carol Channing’s Just Lucky I Guess and Kathleen Turner’s Send Yourself Roses. Pamela Adlon took on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oprah. Gina Gershon channeled Celine Dion and Cher. Nia Vardalos brought down the house with her interpretation of Khloe Kardashian.

The most hilarious mashup was the back and forth between Macchio/Justin Bieber and Andrea Martin/Kylie Jenner discussing Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The sports section was highlighted by Pack reading from Tiger Woods’s How I Play Golf, which sounded more like a sex manual. Dayle Reyfel, who developed the show with Pack in the late 1990s and directed the Broadway edition with him, brings us Dolly Parton’s thoughts.

Adding in the poetry of Matthew McConaughey and Suzanne Somers didn’t fit and in the latter case was particularly cruel. A segment dedicated to Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton was a dishy delight but couldn’t possibly appeal to younger audiences.

Was that enough to kill off the Broadway run? Not in my opinion, as most of the ninety minutes were filled with a plethora of humor, helping us forget about the horrors occurring outside in the real world, far beyond star culture.

Among the others who got to appear in the show before its shuttering were Brooke Adams, Lewis Black, Matthew Broderick, Danny Burstein, Katie Couric, Christopher Jackson, Eric McCormack, Ray Romano, Phil Rosenthal, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Tony Shalhoub, Keenan Thompson, and Rita Wilson; those waiting in the wings included Jason Alexander, Christie Brinkley, Bob Costas, Griffin Dunne, Susan Lucci, Billy Porter, and Tiler Peck.

In 2009, Celebrity Autobiography won a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience; it is still a unique theatrical experience, though maybe not unique enough for 2026 audiences.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HOME IS WHERE YOU PITCH YOUR TENT: CAMPING AT HERE ARTS CENTER

Ari (Colby Minifie) and Brit (Alice Kremelberg) hold on to each other for dear life in Victoria Lynne Barclay’s Camping (photo by Maria Baranova)

CAMPING
HERE Arts Center
Dorothy B. Williams Theatre
145 Sixth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 11, $10.50-$126 (GA $31.50)
here.org
coltcoeur.org

My decades of camping with grade school and junior high besties — all guys — were never quite like this.

Victoria Lynne Barclay’s Camping is an intense, exhilarating, frustrating, and moving story of female friendship that unfolds in the same green tent over the course of many years as two women who’ve known each other since infancy share their hopes and dreams, choosing different paths as time progresses and their lives change — or don’t.

The two-character play begins when Ari (Colby Minifie) and Brit (Alice Kremelberg) are fifteen years old, in ninth grade, waiting for two boys to show up to relieve them of their virginity. Ari has brought a ham sandwich, condoms, and a towel for the blood.

“I just want it to be over. I want it to be like two hours from now right now,” Brit says. The girls wrestle, crack jokes, and betray their innocence — Brit admits she has never been kissed — as they contemplate what is about to happen, something that they feel destined to experience together. After it’s over, their conversation is both very funny and unsurprising — they don’t fully understand what just occurred and how they’re supposed to feel. “We should have rescheduled,” Ari says. Brit replies, “‘Hello thank you for coming-or-probably-not-coming-we’re-not-sure-we’re-going-to-check-the-condom-outside but we’re afraid we will need to reschedule.’”

They were expecting fireworks, but instead they are left wondering if sex of any kind will ever be pleasurable.

“I guess I just thought I was supposed to like find something out? Something that wasn’t sore?” Ari explains. “I thought I was supposed to, like, not learn something, just like find this, like . . . unfound part of myself.”

Three years later, they are Girl Scout troop leaders dealing with a thirteen-year-old who demands a party for getting her period, and in anger she threw her bloody towel at Brit, echoing the towel Brit had when first having sex. Not recognizing the similarities between them and the younger girls, Brit asks not so rhetorically, “Can we just leave them here in the woods?” Brit answers, “They’ll kill each other within hours. . . . Tell them it’s how they get their like, their, Wilderness Survival badge. Hunt for your food with the towel. Kill each other in cold blood and clean it up with the towel. Survive, but be forever irreversibly changed because of the towel. Then you get a cute badge.” It’s a none-too-subtle truth about women and original sin.

But soon their relationship takes a major turn when Ari casually mentions that she will be leaving the following month to go to Ohio University, which devastates Brit, who believed their plan was to stay in town and attend Shawnee State together. “Do you hate it here that much?” Brit asks. “You hate it here,” Ari counters, to which Brit argues, “We hate it here. That’s the fucking point. When you leave and I stay I’m just a miserable loser who hates her hometown. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

As time goes on, Ari and Brit return to the tent at significant moments of their lives, examining the choices they’ve made — or were made for them — rehashing old wounds, and trying to find out why and where it all went astray. One choice in particular looms over them like a curse.

“Why didn’t you give your brother his tent back?” Ari asks when they are thirty. “It’s the only place in my life where anything exciting has ever happened,” Brit replies.

Ari (Colby Minifie) and Brit (Alice Kremelberg) share their hopes and dreams, along with their failures and disappointments, in Camping at HERE Arts Center (photo by Maria Baranova)

The Colt Coeur production is beautifully directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt (Still, Eureka Day, Downstairs) in the confined, claustrophobic space of the tent, which is at the center-middle of the stage, darkness on either side, like a window the audience is peering into as if voyeurs. (The set is by Krit Robinson, with clever costumes by Sarita P. Fellows and props by Thomas Jenkeleit.) At ninety minutes, it could use some trimming, although being in the presence of these two young women is continually exciting.

Ari and Brit were born and raised in a trailer park community; the tent serves as an oasis, a hideaway from a bleak, limiting life. Vittoria Orlando’s lighting and Salvador Zamora’s sound regularly remind us, and them, that there is an outside world that the two friends are escaping from, at least temporarily, a place where they can be themselves, talk about sex, drugs, and music, about love, loss, and longing, to hold each other closely.

Kremelberg (Dry Land, & All Our Yesterdays) and Minifie (Long Day’s Journey into Night, Epiphany) have an alluring, fiery chemistry that builds as the years fly by; the time shifts are a bit awkward at first, but the two actors help smooth out the narrative bumps with small tweaks to their characters. When Ari and Brit argue over the former’s leaving, Minifie stands tall, barely fitting into the tent, as if she’ll burst through it. Later, when the latter is lamenting her situation, she practically crawls into a fetal position, almost disappearing.

In a program note, Barclay refers to the show as “a love story. It’s hands that smell of Dolce and Gabbana Light Blue after days spent clutching fistfuls of her hair. It’s the rain hitting the earth in a way that reminds you of blood, that makes you think the world’s holding a knife to your underwear. It’s the spins. It’s running out of air because you gulped too much of it while you were sobbing. It’s waking up hot and sticky. It’s desperately falling in love with your best friend inside a camping tent while everything outside rages.” She adds that she spent a lot of time in tents when she was a young bairn in Scotland, growing up and learning about life, and that’s what happens with Ari and Brit.

Camping might not be like the camping my buddies and I used to do, but it’s a trip well worth taking, one that will have you thinking about the paths you took, and those you didn’t.

[There will be talkbacks with Trans Literacy Project founder Maybe Burke following the June 27 performance and with Colt Ceur founding artistic director Campbell-Holt, Kremelberg, and Minifie after the June 30 show. Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

TICKET ALERT: LITTLE ISLAND SUMMER SEASON 2026

Concrete tulip pillars welcome visitors to Little Island, which just announced its summer performance season (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

LITTLE ISLAND SUMMER SHOWS
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
July 29 – September 6, $15-$25 unless otherwise noted, 8:30
littleisland.org

In 2015, Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg cemented their local legacy by donating $113 million to Little Island, a lovely paradise built on the remnants of a ramshackle pier at West Thirteenth St.

Little Island is a warm and welcoming oasis rising more than 60 feet above the Hudson River; it is shaped like a large leaf, bursting with more than 350 species of flowers, trees, and shrubs, a 687-seat amphitheater for live performances known as the Amph, the Play Ground plaza where you can get food and drink, and stage and lawn space called the Glade. More than 66,000 bulbs and 114 trees were initially planted, taking into account the changing seasons and even the differences in light between morning, afternoon, and night. It all sits upon 132 concrete pillars of varying heights that resemble high heels or slightly warped tulip Champagne glasses.

Lovers of the live arts have been waiting impatiently for the announcement of Little Island’s summer schedule, and at last it is here. There are only seven presentations, so it’s not nearly as expansive as previous years, but you better act quickly, because tickets are only $15-$25 (and free for the Summer Legacy Ball). Below is the full schedule.

Wednesday, July 29
Thursday, July 30
Friday, July 31
Justin Vivian Bond: Summer’s Eve, with Justin Vivian Bond, Bernice “Boom Boom” Brooks on drums, Nath Ann Carrera on guitar, Claudia Chopek on violin, Mike Jackson on bass, and Matt Ray on piano

Saturday, August 1
Summer Legacy Ball, hosted by Qween Jean, with honorees Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Boom Boom Balenciaga, Kiara St. James, and Brenda Continental Milan Soulja, preachers Samora Pinderhughes and Dr. Jehbreal Jackson, MCs Julz Romell and Thunda, performer Haus of Telfar, panelists Luna Luis, Tracey Africa Norman, and Mother Pandora West, ball DJ Blaize, and afterparty DJ DANIRO, free

Wednesday, August 5
through
Sunday, August 9
Anthony Roth Costanzo: Minimalism, with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and different formations of Sandbox Percussion, Bryan Wagorn or Vicky Chow on piano, PUBLIQuartet, and mezzo-soprano Rachael Wilson

Wednesday, August 12
through
Sunday, August 16
Cécile McLorin Salvant: Tin Pan Alley, with different lineups including vocalists Lillias White, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and Mikaela Bennett, Billy Stritch on piano, Kyle Poole or Buddy Williams on drums, George Coleman on sax, Sullivan Fortner on piano, and Paul Sikivie on bass

Wednesday, August 19
through
Sunday, August 23
Louis Cato: The Harlem Renaissance, with bandleader Louis Cato on guitar, vocalist Catherine Russell, Louis Fouché on alto sax, Alphonso Horne on trumpet, Philip Kuehn on bass, Jeffrey Miller on trombone, Tivon Pennicott on tenor sax, Mathis Picard on piano, and Evan Sherman on drums, featuring recorded interviews with Ron Carter, Catherine Russell, and others

Saturday, August 29
and
Sunday, August 30
Julio Torres & Martine Gutierrez: Marina, conceived by Julio Torres & Martine Gutierrez, written and directed by Julio Torres, composed by Lia Ouyand Rusli, choreographed by Ryan McNamara, and starring Martine Gutierrez, River L. Ramirez, Spike Einbinder, Brandon Flynn, Scully James, and more, commissioned for the Whitney Biennial

Wednesday, September 2
through
Sunday, September 6
Thomas Bartlett: Allen Ginsberg at 100, with various configurations including curator Thomas Bartlett on piano, consultant Laurie Anderson, poet Anne Waldman, Oren Bloedow on guitar, Jason Burger on drums, vocalists Jennifer Charles and Davóne Tines, Spencer Murphy on bass, and Douglas Wieselman on sax, featuring special guests Rufus Wainwright on September 2, Bill Frisell on September 3, and others to be announced

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]

COPLAND & TWAIN, COPELAND & COREA, DUNBAR & HUGHES, AND MORE: CELEBRATING AMERICA’S 250th IN CHELSEA

Pianist Min Kwon reimagines “America the Beautiful” at Chelsea Music Festival

CHELSEA MUSIC FESTIVAL: EVERY STORY COUNTS
St. Paul’s German Church and other venues
June 20-27, $65-$150, season pass $500
chelseamusicfestival.org

“This season, our theme, ‘Every Story Counts,’ draws inspiration from the phrase ‘Every Vote Counts,’ where each person’s vote is dignified and counted in a democracy,” 2026 Chelsea Music Festival artistic directors Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur said in a statement. “This summer, we celebrate the power of music and storytelling to preserve and elevate the voices of people from all walks of life in America. As we contemplate America’s 250th anniversary, we welcome the voices of composers, musicians, artists, chefs, and creators who contribute to the cultural fabric of this country and strive to elevate our shared humanity. Our hope is to continue providing a stage and safe haven for the exchange of ideas and differences, and a fertile ground for artistic collaborations between the performing, visual, and culinary arts.”

The seventeenth annual event, running June 20–27, consists of nine special presentations, with seventeen New York premieres and two world premieres; tickets for some are near capacity or already sold out, so you better hurry if you want to be part of this year’s fest.

Invitation to Love — Opening Night with Clara Osowski
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 20, $85, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

Mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski and pianists Dimitri Dover and Melinda Lee Masur lead a six-piece ensemble in an evening of works that explore the American immigrant experience and the poetry of Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar, comprising Mark Carlson’s Stars — The Dream Keeper, Aaron Copland’s Three Old American Songs, Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Three Songs, Libby Larsen’s This Unbearable Stillness: Songs from the Balcony, Reinaldo Moya’s DREAM Songs, Frederick Piket’s The Dream Keeper, Damien Sneed’s All Night, All Day and I Dream A World, and Steven Ward’s Invitation to Love.

Mark Twain–inspired Southern Sunday Brunch
City Winery Bistro
25 Eleventh Ave.
Sunday, June 21, $100, 12:30
chelseamusicfestival.org

Food and drink aren’t the only things on the menu at this City Winery brunch with Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur, joined by director, writer, and producer Bill Barclay for a talk about the making of Copland & Twain (see below), along with music by violinists Yuyu Ikeda and Carlos Rafael Martinez Arroyo. Oh, yes, there is food and drink as well; the menu features buttermilk biscuits, buttermilk fried chicken and waffle, farm egg scramble, Saratoga potatoes, heirloom tomato, and warm apple pie.

America/Beautiful
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Monday, June 22, $65, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

During the pandemic, pianist Min Kwon initiated her America/Beautiful project, in which she asked more than seventy composers around the country, “What is America — is it beautiful, was it ever, or will it ever be?” Some of the results will be heard when she teams up with pianists Timo Andres, Chaihun Kim, and Jorges Tabarés and violinist Claire Bourg to perform America-themed works by Stewart Copeland, Vijay Iyer, Nico Muhly, and others, accompanied by landscape photography by Park Joon.

Verona Quartet at Poets House
Poets House
10 River Terr.
Tuesday, June 23, pay-what-you-wish, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

The Verona Quartet — Jonathan Ong and Dorothy Ro on violin, Abigail Rojansky on viola, and Jonathan Dormand on cello — perform Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 2 “Company,” George Walker’s Lyric for String Quartet, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s MoonStrike, and arranger Peter Myers’s Twenties Tunes Jazz Suite, with narration by Byron Singleton and poetry from Wayne Koestenbaum, followed by a wine reception.

American Street Food Stories with Chef Hinnerk von Bargen
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Wednesday, June 24, $75, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

CIA professor and Street Foods author Hinnerk von Bargen hosts an evening of culinary delights from street food stalls, including sloopy bun, curry wurst, cold Sichuan-style sesame noodles, and fruit sandos.

Aaron Copland and Mark Twain join forces in unique theatrical concert

Copland & Twain — A Theatrical Concert
Open Jar Studios
1601 Broadway, floor 11
Thursday, June 25, $150, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

One of the highlights of the festival is Bill Barclay’s Copland & Twain — A Theatrical Concert, a genius pairing of Brooklyn-born composer Aaron Copland and Missouri-born humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Their lives barely overlapped — Copland was nine when Twain died in 1910 at the age of seventy-four — but writer-director Barclay and Concert Theatre Works have produced an evening that brings together Copland’s Music for the Movies and Music for the Theater and Twain’s Diaries of Adam and Eve, performed by the Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, and actors Caleb Mayo, Chloe McFarlane, Maurice Emanuel Parent, Robert Walsh, and Carson Elrod, in costumes by Arthur Oliver.

“This program began by imagining how to publicly go about celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. How could this event serve such a polarized time in our history? I have always been moved by some of the traditional American tunes and hymns, but the state of our country called for something else, something I couldn’t quite identify at first,” Barclay explains. “I now realize that for some reason or other, I wanted to laugh. I wanted to release energy, not summon it. I wanted the community of joy, not the burden of politics. And it seemed that avoiding politics entirely was ignoring the elephant in the room. A symphony audience today may be one of the last public spaces of American life that is truly politically heterogeneous. Classical music plays to Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike. This prompts a follow-up question: Is there a way we can laugh about ourselves without excluding people?”

Shelters in the Desert — An Evening with Vu, León, Susman, Smirnóv, Hernández
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Friday, June 26, $85, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

Water, memory, and transformation are the underlying themes of Shelters in the Desert, in which the Festival Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ken-David Masur, plays Ania Vu’s Water Realms, Tania León’s Esencia — I. Agua de Florida for strings, Grigóry Smirnóv’s Impromptu, J. E. Hernández’s Desert Shelter, and William Susman’s Clouds and Flames, the last piece inspired by Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers; a reception follows.

Family Event: Every Storybook Counts
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 27, free with RSVP, 10:30 am
chelseamusicfestival.org

American composers are celebrated in this interactive family-friendly morning with Paul Collins, the creator of the Unbannable Library.

Jazz Finale: Warren Wolf plays Chick Corea
St. Paul’s German Church
315 West Twenty-Second St.
Saturday, June 27, $85, 7:00
chelseamusicfestival.org

The 2026 Chelsea Music Festival concludes with a jazz finale celebrating the life and career of multi-instrumentalist legend Chick Corea, who died in 2021 at the age of seventy-nine. Vibraphonist Warren Wolf and pianist Alex Brown, joined by the Ivalas Quartet (violinists Tiani Butts and Reuben Kebede, violist Marcus Stevenson, cellist Pedro Sanchez), will perform Brown’s The Old Line and the New York premiere of Corea’s Lyric Suite for Sextet, with a reception to follow.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

FOUR TEENS TAKE A CHANCE ON MUSIC AND MORE AT THE VINEYARD

Four teen girls explore their lives through music in world premiere play by Eisa Davis (photo by Carol Rosegg)

||: GIRLS :||: CHANCE :||: MUSIC :||
Vineyard Theatre
Gertrude and Irving Dimson Theatre
108 East 15th St. between Union Square East & Irving Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 21, $37.80-$106.92
www.vineyardtheatre.org

Eisa Davis’s ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| unfolds like an improvisatory jazz theatrical piece, transforming the concept of the creation and playing of music into subtle and not-so-subtle metaphors about growing up and making choices. It explores chaos and empathy, education and impermanence, and building — or not building — family and community, with time jumps and forays into alternate realities.

If you’re one of the first twelve people entering the Vineyard Theatre, you’ll be offered the opportunity of selecting a note on a keyboard chart that will, when done, form a unique tone row for that night’s performance, serving as the underlying musical theme. The cast will develop it at the start of the play, asking the audience to participate, and the tune will make appearances later on as well.

The show follows four teenagers of color as they prepare for their final project at a girls summer music program in Berkeley. Clementine (Gianna DiGregorio Rivera) is a straightforward flutist who mostly stays in the background; Fax (Hillary Fisher) is a vocalist who always prefers to have a plan; Margot (Naomi Latta) is a wildly unpredictable drummer; and Rile (Yeena Sung) is a pianist who enjoys experimenting.

Early on, Rile is playing the end of “Una Voce Poco Fa” from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville when she makes a mistake and improvises around it, completely throwing Fax off. “I mean it’s about being intentional with your juxtaposition,” Fax says, clearly unhappy. Rile responds, “Putting things together that don’t seem like they’ll fit.” Soon after, Fax declares, “Don’t do random shit onstage that’s different from what we practiced.”

Over the course of 105 minutes, the four characters face such issues as race, class, gender, and sexuality as they try to find their place not only in music but in the world itself, one filled with trouble and danger. “I love getting up in the morning to come here — when the world feels like one disaster after another,” Fax says.

Margot later explains, “Quake wasn’t random and it wasn’t planned / just cause and effect from billions of years ago to now / we’re given an effect and we get to make a new cause with it / which makes a new effect and / it’s a chain / a network of exchange.”

Margot (Naomi Latta) and Fax (Hillary Fisher) form a unique bond in ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Nina Ball’s set consists of four small platformed music sections, one for each character, surrounded by angled columns that harken back to Greek tragedy; it evokes how the girls are four distinct individuals who can benefit from working together as a kind of band instead of on their own, like in life. Loneliness is a leitmotif. When Margot and Fax art talking about being artists — and human beings — Margot advises, “We’re supposed to do things we’re not supposed to do . . . you have to go out on a limb to do anything crucial,” but Fax replies, “But then you’re like lonely.” Fax has a home to go back to, one that seems to be growing by the day, while Margot is much more on her own.

Mel Ng’s costumes change often, with cool little touches that at first define the characters by specific color schemes. Russell H. Champa’s lighting gives each of the girls their personal moment to take center stage. It’s a strong, talented ensemble, like a tight-knit jazz quartet, although the narrative does occasionally meander off track, becoming too abstract, but it always finds its way back to the melody. Fisher (The Notebook, Between the Lines) and Latta, in her impressive off-Broadway debut, play off each other with a gorgeous rhythm, with Sung (Mary V, Comfort Women: A New Musical) riling things up just enough as Rile, and Rivera, in her off-Broadway debut, providing the right elements as the ending approaches.

Produced by the Vineyard in conjunction with American Conservatory Theater, ||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :|| is conducted — er, directed — with an understanding, guiding hand by Tony winner Pam MacKinnon (Clybourne Park, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), who turns Davis’s (Bulrusher, The Essentialist) complex script into a mini-symphony.

It is both a perplexing and rewarding play, weaving in and out of time and reality, expectations and desires, as four teenagers contemplate — or don’t — what’s waiting for them around the corner, and what their role in taking those next steps might be.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

A HOLY SPACE: ANIMAL WISDOM AT THE SIGNATURE

Kenita R. Miller dazzles in Heather Christian’s Animal Wisdom at the Signature (photo by Ben Arons)

ANIMAL WISDOM
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 14, $49-$207
signaturetheatre.org

One of my favorite online productions created during the pandemic was Heather Christian’s Animal Wisdom, a remarkably intimate show that I regetted missing when it had originated in 2017 at the Bushwick Starr. But now it’s back live and in person at the Signature, with some key changes.

As I noted in my review of the filmed version, Animal Wisdom is an intimate and rapturous confessional of music and storytelling, an ingenious journey into the personal and communal nature of ritual and superstition, of grief and loss, of ghosts and, most intently, the fear of death, a melding of public séance and stirring revival meeting. Introducing the streaming presentation, Christian noted, “This performance was never supposed to happen on film. I guess that’s obvious. But contrary to what it looks like, it wasn’t supposed to happen in a theater either. It was supposed to happen in a defunct church or holy space, but houses of any kind are deconsecrated and reconsecrated all the time, so I guess we’re not so far off. Anyways, maybe at least yours is already haunted.”

Scenic designer Emmie Finckel has transformed the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre into a welcoming holy space, filled to the brim with hundreds of ritual objects, gravelike plantings, draped green chains, mysterious elements hanging from the ceiling, and a Coke machine, which is integral to the proceedings. Masha Tsimring’s lighting and Nick Kourtides’s sound enhance the supernatural feeling of this collective Requiem Mass.

Tony nominee Kenita R. Miller is phenomenal as H., telling Christian’s story. (Heather played the role in previous iterations.) It starts out beautifully, with H. singing, “We stand here fixed in time / Guarding our houses till they fall / And maybe eighty-seven years we spend unravelling the ball / As it goes spinning wild / As it careens into the night / We take our temperature / Longing for first love and the fight / That we first felt / At first sight, oh / Love may be in the garden but you won’t find peace.” She quickly establishes the relationship and connection between humans and such other living beings as fish, birds, and, later, butterflies, coyotes, cicadas, and elephants.

She introduces us to the ghosts of H.’s past, including her piano teacher Doris, who “sent me a piano from the afterlife. I named that piano Doris, after her because, well, pianos are animals.” We hear about H.’s first love, Johanna, and Victor the poltergeist, who “loves that I fear him. So I do what any little girl would do. I turn into an animal.”

H. leads a group singalong and shares cups of Coke like they are drinkable holy water.

H. (Kenita R. Miller) shares the things that haunt her in Animal Wisdom (photo by Ben Arons)

Throughout, she is accompanied by music director Alexandra Crosby on piano, El Beh on cello, Francesca Dawis on violin, Caro Moore on percussion, Kris Saint-Louis on bass, and Zack Zaromatidis on guitar, who also portray various characters and chat with H. about love and death, comfort and joy. Among the songs they perform are “Well Made Fish,” “Sick with a Beat,” and “Back Pocket” in sections the script refers to as “Introit,” “Tract,” and “Sanctus.”

The middle section of the two-hour intermissionless show meanders a bit, getting caught up in overly religious piety, but it comes back around with a glorious finale, a choral symphony that lifts your soul, much the way Christian did with her sensational Oratorio for Living Things and majestic Terce: A Practical Breviary.

Affectionately directed by Keenan Tyler Oliphant (Terce, Practice), Animal Wisdom embraces you as you consider your own grief and trauma, the ghosts that haunt you, but it’s impossible to be afraid with Miller’s (for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, Once on This Island) wide smile and warm arms enveloping you.

In another program note, Christian writes, “In short, this ‘Play’ is my love letter to the parts of us we cannot diagnose — to remedies we cannot explain, to the pains we can’t escape much less articulate enough to craft a treatment. It is to the parts of me that suffer still, despite my lifetime’s worth of fighting with blood in my teeth, determined to live. I hold these parts in me every day — it is unending and extremely hard, but I know for goddamn certain that I’m not alone.”

Animal Wisdom lets us know we are never alone, inside a theater or not.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]