this week in theater

ON BROADWAY

Sir Ian McKellen waxes poetic about Broadway in Oren Jacoby’s documentary

ON BROADWAY (Oren Jacoby, 2019)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Opens Friday, August 20
quadcinema.com

As Broadway prepares to reopen in a big way in September following a year and a half of a pandemic lockdown that shuttered all forty-one theaters, Oren Jacoby’s documentary arrives like a love letter to the recent past, present, and future of the Great White Way (so named for its lights and illuminated marquees). “Without the theater, New York somehow would not be itself,” Sir Ian McKellen says near the beginning of On Broadway, which opens August 20 at the Quad and will have a special rooftop screening September 1 outside at the Marlene Meyerson JCC. “Live theater can change your life,” he adds near the end. Both lines appear to apply to how the city is coming back to life even as the Covid-19 Delta variant keeps spreading, but the film is nearly two years old, having made its New York City debut in November 2019 at DOC NYC.

On Broadway is a bit all over the place as it traces the history of Broadway from the near-bankrupt doldrums of 1969-72 to its rebirth in the 1980s and 1990s as a commercial force while also following Richard Bean’s UK import The Nap as it prepares to open September 27 at MTC’s Samuel J. Friedlander Theatre. I was a big fan of The Nap, calling it “a jolly good time . . . a tense and very funny crime thriller” in my review. Jacoby speaks with Bean, director Daniel Sullivan, and star Alexandra Billings, the transgender actor playing transgender character Waxy Bush. The behind-the-scenes look at the play, which was taking a big risk, lacking any big names and set in the world of professional snooker, is the best part of the film and it deserved more time instead of focusing on how such innovators as Stephen Sondheim, Bob Fosse, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Mike Nichols, and Michael Bennett helped turn around Broadway’s misfortunes with such popular shows as Pippin, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Annie, Evita, Cats, Amadeus, and Nicholas Nickleby, ultimately leading to Rent, Angels in America, and Hamilton. But Broadway still found room for August Wilson’s ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle.

The film explores how spectacle, celebrity, and extravaganza began ruling the day, at the expense of new American plays. “This could be a business,” Disney head Michael Eisner remembers thinking; his company bought a theater and produced such hits as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, which attracted families paying exorbitant ticket prices and going home with plenty of merch. Jacoby speaks with Sidney Baumgarten and Rebecca Robertson, who were involved in transforming Times Square from a haven for addicts, hookers, and porn shops to a place where parents could bring their kids to see a show. “We’re like Las Vegas now,” Tony-winning director Jack O’Brien laments.

Among the many other theater people sharing their love of Broadway — as well as their concerns — are John Lithgow, George C. Wolfe, Alec Baldwin, Helen Mirren, Tommy Tune, Hal Prince, Cameron Mackintosh, James Corden, Nicholas Hytner, David Henry Hwang, Oskar Eustis, and Hugh Jackman. “In the theater, you have to be present. You have to be present as an artist, and you have to be present as an audience member, for the experience to really happen,” Emmy, Tony, and Obie winner Christine Baranski says, evoking what it feels like as we wait for Broadway to reopen this fall. “And when you see a great performance, it is a spiritual experience.”

Jacoby, whose previous works include Shadowman, Master Thief: Art of the Heist, and My Italian Secret: The Forgotten Heroes, will be at the Quad for Q&As at the 7:00 screenings on August 20 and 21. But it’s Sardi’s maître d’ Gianni Felidi who gets to the heart of it all. “This is what Broadway’s about,” he says. “Great theater is a mirror to the human condition, to us, to people, and how we’re really all the same despite our differences, our perceived differences; be it if we’re from a different race, a different gender, a different sexual orientation, we’re really all the same. And that’s what theater shows us.”

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: MERRY WIVES

An exuberant cast welcomes Shakespeare in the Park back to the Delacorte in Merry Wives (photo by Joan Marcus)

MERRY WIVES
Central Park, Delacorte Theater
Monday – Saturday through September 18, free, 8:00
shakespeareinthepark.org

Shakespeare in the Park returns to the Delacorte after a canceled 2020 Covid summer season with the Public Theater’s exuberant but overbaked Merry Wives, continuing through September 18. Adapted by actress and playwright Jocelyn Bioh, who has appeared in such shows as An Octoroon and The Red Letter Plays: In the Blood and written such works as School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play and Nollywood Dreams, the play is thoroughly updated but often feels like a mash-up of such sitcoms as What’s Happening!! and The Jeffersons with such reality programs as The Bachelorette and Real Housewives.

The evening begins with Farai Malianga in a Brooklyn Nets Kyrie Irving jersey pounding on his djembe and eliciting an engaging call-and-response with the audience. It’s a wonderful start, reminiscent of how the late Baba Chuck Davis would kick off BAM’s annual DanceAfrica series. The seating is less thrilling but important, divided into sections full of vaccinated people who may choose not to mask — most don’t — and two emptier sections of unvaccinated people who must be masked and socially distanced.

Merry Wives is set in modern-day South Harlem, with a cast of characters from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Senegal, portrayed exclusively by actors of color. In 2019, Kenny Leon directed a fabulous all-Black version of Much Ado About Nothing, but lightning doesn’t strike twice.

Madams Ford (Susan Kelechi Watson) and Page (Pascale Armand) join forces in contemporary update of Merry Wives (photo by Joan Marcus)

There’s a reason why The Merry Wives of Windsor is so rarely presented; it’s only been performed at the Delacorte twice before, in 1974 (with George Hearn, Marilyn Sokol, Barnard Hughes, Cynthia Harris, Michael Tucker, and Danny DeVito) and 1994 (with Margaret Whitton, David Alan Grier, Andrea Martin, Brian Murray, and Tonya Pinkins). It’s not one of the Bard’s better plays, a Medieval farce that tears down one of his most beloved creations, Sir John Falstaff, far too mean-spiritedly. And too many of the devices and subplots — mistaken identity, the exchange of letters, secret romance — feel like hastily written retreads here.

Falstaff (Jacob Ming-Trent) is a Biggie Smalls–loving wannabe playa out to conquer laundromat owner Madam Nkechi Ford (Susan Kelechi Watson) and socialite Madam Ekua Page (Pascale Armand), making cuckolds of their husbands, the distinguished Mister Nduka Ford (Gbenga Akinnagbe) and the generous Mister Kwame Page (Kyle Scatliffe).

“Nah man, I’m serious,” the sweats-wearing Falstaff tells Pistol (Joshua Echebiri), one of his minions. Madam Page “did so course over my exteriors with such a greedy intention that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass. She bears the purse too; she is from a region in Ghana, all gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they shall be sugar mamas to me; we’re gonna have the Ghanaian and the Nigerian jollof rice! Go bear this letter to Madam Page — and this one to Madam Ford. And then, my friend, I will thrive! . . . I mean . . . We will thrive.”

Misters Kwame Page (Kyle Scatliffe) and Nduka Ford (Gbenga Akinnagbe) try to avoid being cuckolded in Bard farce in Central Park (photo by Joan Marcus)

At the same time, the Pages’ daughter, Anne (Abena), is considered the most eligible bachelorette in Harlem and is being wooed by the well-established Doctor Caius (David Ryan Smith), the shy, nervous Slender (Echebiri), and Anne’s true love, Fenton (MaYaa Boateng), whom no one approves of. Manipulating various elements are the caring Pastor Evans (Phillip James Brannon) and the busybody Mama Quickly (Angela Grovey). Madams Ford and Page get wind of Falstaff’s deceit and team up to confound him, while a jealous Mister Ford disguises himself as a Rastaman named Brook to try to uncover Falstaff’s plan to bed his wife. “Please, off with him!” Sir John tells Brook about Ford. “I will stare him out of his wits, I will awe him with my club; I shall hang like Lebron James over the cuckold’s horns.” It all concludes with a series of matches that are as playful as they are convenient and contemporary.

Beowulf Boritt’s set is fabulous, consisting of the facades of a health clinic, a laundromat, and a hair braiding salon, which open up to reveal various interiors. Dede Ayite’s gorgeous costumes honor traditional African designs with bold colors and patterns. But director Saheem Ali (Fireflies, Fires in the Mirror), the Public’s associate artistic director who helmed audio productions of Romeo y Julieta, Richard II, and Anne Washburn’s Shipwreck: A History Play About 2017 during the pandemic lockdown, can’t get a grip on the story, instead getting lost in silly, repetitive slapstick that overwhelms the narrative. The laughs come inconsistently, settling for trivial humor over sustained comedy. This Merry Wives is a crowd pleaser the way familiar but routine sitcoms and reality shows are; light and frothy, none too demanding, but once they’re done, you’re on to the next program.

HANDS UP: 7 PLAYWRIGHTS, 7 TESTAMENTS

Who: The National Black Theatre (NBT)
What: American radio play premiere
Where: NBT Vimeo
When: August 16-23, $10 for forty-eight-hour on-demand viewing
Why: In 2015, the New Black Fest premiered the specially commissioned presentation Hands Up: 7 Playwrights, 7 Testaments, a collection of seven monologues, between ten and fifteen minutes each, in response to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as other such murders. From August 16 to 23, the National Black Theatre (NBT) will be streaming the US radio play debut of Hands Up, featuring Kamal Bolden, Nuri Hazzard, Isaiah Johnson, Crystal Lucas-Perry, Eden Marryshow, Warner J. Miller, and J. D. Mollison, helmed by NBT executive artistic director Jonathan McCrory, with sound and music by Kathy Ruvuna and illustrations by Jaimee Todd.

The seven autobiographical monologues, which explore the Black experience in America, consist of Superiority Fantasy by Nathan James, Holes in My Identity by Nathan Yungerberg, They Shootin! Or I Ain’t Neva Scared by Idris Goodwin, Dead of Night . . . The Execution of . . . by Nambi E. Kelley, Abortion by NSangou Njikam, Walking Next to Michael Brown by Eric Micha Holmes, and How I Feel by Dennis A. Allen II. “There is a need for a reform!” McCrory declared in a statement. “There is a new government-sanctioned genocide happening to Black folxs by the police. And unless we change how they serve and protect, we will continue to have these testimonies housed in Hands Up resonate as present pulse narratives that articulate the terror that is running rampant within our communities.” Access to a forty-eight-hour on-demand stream is $10.

I AM YOUR MASSEUSE (six short digressions)

Who: The Bridge Production Group
What: I Am Your Masseuse (six short digressions) by John Patrick Shanley
Where: Brooklyn Navy Yard
When: August 18 and 22, $15, 8:00
Why: As we emerge from the pandemic lockdown, theater companies are finding unique locations to stage works in front of a live audience. The nonprofit Bridge Production Group, which is “committed to dismantling and rebuilding an audience’s expectations of theatrical storytelling, [seeking] to disrupt traditional conventions and assumptions about how stories are told,” has turned to the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard, where it is currently in residency. On August 18 and 22 at 8:00, the company will premiere I Am Your Masseuse (six short digressions) by Pulitzer Prize and Oscar winner John Patrick Shanley, a New York City native whose previous works include Doubt, Moonstruck, and Wild Mountain Thyme. The new show, directed by Claire Edmonds (Red Light Winter, Where the Lovelight Gleams), features Marcus Naylor, Crawford M. Collins, Carlo Alban, and Christina Toth. Tickets are only $15, with all proceeds going to the Actors Fund. Performed for two nights only, the plays are “designed to aid the digestion and further erode our attention span.” The Bridge Production Group is also presenting Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell’s musical [title of show] with Keri Rene Fuller, Josh Daniel, Jennifer Apple, and Max Hunter at the Navy Yard August 13-21.

NOT A MOMENT, BUT A MOVEMENT: THE DUAT

Gregg Daniel plays a man facing judgment day in world premiere of The Duat

THE DUAT
Center Theatre Group
Available on demand through August 12, $10
www.centertheatregroup.org

Gregg Daniel is electric as a man caught between heaven and hell, defending the choices he made in his life, in the world premiere of Roger Q. Mason’s one-man show, The Duat, streaming from Center Theatre Group through August 12. Daniel plays Cornelius “Neil” Johnson, a Black man who, when we first see him, is blindfolded and barefoot. “If I’m in hell, I want to know. I want to see the fire before it takes me down,” he calls out, dancing as if the floor is burning hot. He’s actually in the Duat, the Egyptian underworld where the god Anubis weighs the hearts of the dead to determine where they will spend the afterlife.

Over the course of forty-five minutes, Johnson shares his story, starting with his birth in Texas in 1948 and the tragic death of his father, a railroad porter, four years later. Johnson visits his grandmama, attends a liberal integrated elementary school, excels at UCLA, and becomes a driver for a wealthy white woman. Daniel seamlessly switches between characters, from his angry mother to his brash father to his sensible, soft-spoken grandmother, performing brief, urgent interpretive dance movements at the end of each scene (choreographed by Michael Tomlin III). He is haunted by his father’s fate, dying “a colored death,” and is determined to have his own, unique identity. “I am somebody,” he says in different ways throughout the play, as if Johnson is trying to convince himself that he matters, that he will be seen. But trouble brews when he recounts his time with the US organization, a rival to the Black Panthers, as Johnson does something that he regrets.

Presented in association with the Fire This Time Festival and Watts Village Theater Company, The Duat is part of the third episode of the “Not a Moment, But a Movement” series; the first episode was introduced by Vanessa Williams and featured Angelica Chéri’s one-person play Crowndation; I Will Not Lie to David, while the second episode explored “Black Nourishment” with spoken word artists. The Duat is preceded by a conversation with Watts co-artistic director Bruce A. Lemon Jr. and LA-based visual artist Floyd Strickland and is introduced by Wayne Brady.

The Duat unfolds in the tradition of such solo-show geniuses as Anna Deavere Smith, Dael Orlandersmith, and Charlayne Woodard, as Daniel (Insecure, Urban Nightmares) portrays multiple characters detailing the Black experience in America. He doesn’t change costumes but alters his tone of voice as the narrative sometimes repeats itself from different points of view. Director Taibi Magar (Is God Is, Blue Ridge) zooms in for closeups of Daniel’s face and feet, then pulls back to reveal percussionist David Leach playing several instruments in the background, the spotlight behind him casting him in silhouette. (The effective lighting is by Brandon Baruch, with sound design and original music by David Gonzalez.) Mason (The White Dress, Onion Creek) pulls no punches as Johnson looks back at his life, warts and all, trying to understand who he is and what awaits him.

THEATRE FOR ONE: HERE IS FUTURE

Here Is Future takes place in a mobile container for one actor and one audience member at a time (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

HERE IS FUTURE
Manhattan West Plaza
395 Ninth Ave. between 31st & 33rd Sts.
Thursday – Sunday through August 22, 1:00 – 7:00; free tickets available Monday mornings at 10:00
theatreforone.com

During the pandemic lockdown, Theatre for One’s Here We Are was my lifeline to live theater. On Thursday nights in October, TFO presented eight free online microplays written, directed, and performed by BIPOC women (with one exception), short works in which the solo actor and solo audience member both have their camera and audio on, able to see and hear one another. There was even a virtual lobby where people could type in their thoughts as they waited for shows to begin.

In the “before time,” pre-Covid 19, TFO performed its intimate works in a mobile four-by-eight-foot repurposed equipment container. Now TFO artistic director Christine Jones has gone back to the setting they originally used for the project to bring us Here Is Future, six new microplays between five and ten minutes each in which one actor performs for one audience member, seated on either side of the container, separated by a plexiglass sheet. Free tickets become available Monday mornings at 10:00 for that week’s performances, so you need to book them quick.

Several Here We Are creators are back for this follow-up, which takes place in the Manhattan West plaza on Ninth Ave. past the new Penn Station and is focused on where we go from here. The program consists of Jaclyn Backhaus’s The Curse, directed by Rebecca Martinez and starring Angel Desai; Lydia R. Diamond’s Turtle Turtle and That Which We Keep Telling Ourselves Is Over Now, directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene and starring Gillian Glasco; DeLanna Studi’s The Golda Project, directed by Martinez and starring Tanis Pareneau; korde arrington tuttle’s the love vibration, directed by SRĐA and starring Denise Manning; Stacey Rose’s Gravita 4 Para 0, directed by Greene and starring Joanie Anderson or Myxy Tyler; and Regina Taylor’s The Transformed Returns, directed by Taylor and starring Lizan Mitchell. The costumes are by Hahnji Jang, with lighting and sound by Josh Higgason.

I’ve seen four of the plays so far, and they were all poignant and moving. In The Transformed Returns, Mitchell portrays a grandmother dealing with the coronavirus crisis, desperate to squeeze the cheeks of her new grandchild, whom she cannot visit in person, while dealing with relatives who refuse to get vaccinated. The play begins with Mitchell sanitizing her side of the container, reminding us of what we’re still going through. (The insides of the container are thoroughly cleaned after each performance.)

Anderson is spectacular in Gravita 4 Para 0, in which the container is set up like a waiting room in a clinic, actor and audience member sitting side-by-side (separated by the glass), facing the same direction. She plays a woman from a large family who engages you in conversation, nervously talking about her history with parents, siblings, lovers, and abortions. She is so convincing that you’ll feel like you know her, and care about her, when it’s over.

In Turtle Turtle and That Which We Keep Telling Ourselves Is Over Now, you’re sitting at a table opposite a frenetic recent divorcée (superbly portrayed by an intoxicating Glasco) who is both anxious and excited to be finally going on an in-person date during the pandemic. Glasco positively glows as her character worries about allergies and Covid-19.

And in The Curse, Desai is engaging as a woman who believes terrible things have been happening to her and everyone around her because she is cursed — and she’s concerned for you too.

Produced by Octopus Theatricals and presented by Arts Brookfield, Here Is Future runs through August 22; walk-up slots are available on a first-come, first-served basis if there are no-shows. Masks are required of the audience, but the performers will be unmasked. Even in this rather small venue, it’s great to be experiencing live theater again, especially at this high quality, and for free. Sign up and see as many of the plays as you can, a terrific prelude to the upcoming fall theater season.

PUPPET WEEK NYC

THE INTERNATIONAL PUPPET FRINGE FESTIVAL
The Clemente Center, 107 Suffolk St.
Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave.at 104th St.
August 11-15 live, August 16-31 online, most events free
puppetfringenyc.com
www.theclementecenter.org

“I could never be on stage on my own. But puppets can say things that humans can’t say,” British comedian, actress, and ventriloquist Nina Conti once explained. You can see a bevy of puppets this month at the International Puppet Fringe Festival, running August 11-15 in person at the Clemente on the Lower East Side, with a few special programs at the Museum of the City of New York, then moving online August 16-31. The fest, hosted by Teatro SEA and the Clemente, is part of the inaugural Puppet Week NYC and features a wide range of programming involving puppets, including live presentations, book readings, workshops, panel discussions, exhibition openings, and panel discussions, most of which are free. “The Clemente is a fitting home for the festival’s events, as puppetry found an early home here in the 1990s and we continue to foster diverse puppet performances in our theater spaces,” Clemente executive director Libertad Guerra said in a statement. “Our hope is that Puppet Week NYC draws attention to this thriving and evolving art form uniting theater with all the visual arts and attracting people of all ages, backgrounds, and cultural identities.”

International Puppet Fringe Festival founder and producer Dr. Manuel Morán added, “During the pandemic, when our curtains couldn’t go up, our roster of puppet makers and puppeteers were eagerly preparing to enthrall audiences with their creative talents, and we can’t wait to finally share their work with you.” This year’s honoree is Vincent Anthony, founder of the Center for Puppetry Arts. Below is the full schedule. Oh, and don’t forget what writer and illustrator Guy Davenport once warned: “I’ve carved the puppet, and I manipulate the strings, but while it’s on stage, the show belongs to the puppet.”

Wednesday, August 11
“Dream Puppet” Making Workshop with Marina Tsaplina, El jardín del paraíso Community Garden, noon – 8:00
Papier-Maché in a Two-Day Workshop, part 1, $50, 2:00
“Puppets of New York: Downtown at the Clemente” exhibition opening, 5:00
Puppet Celebrity Red Carpet, 5:30
Opening Remarks and festival’s dedication to Vincent Anthony, 6:00
The Triple Zhongkui Pageant by Chinese Theatre Works, 6:30
Los Grises/The Gray Ones by SEA, 7:00
The Shari Lewis Legacy Show by Mallory Lewis and Lamb Chop, 8:00

Thursday, August 12
Construction and Hybrid Puppets Manipulation Workshop by Carolina Pimentel, $50, 10:00 am
“Dream Puppet” Making Workshop with Marina Tsaplina, El jardín del paraíso Community Garden, noon – 8:00
Títeres en el Caribe Hispano: Episode 1: Cuba, Episode 2: Dominican Republic, Episode 3: Puerto Rico, 1:00
Papier-Maché in a Two-Day Workshop, part 1, $50, 2:00
Puppet Celebrity Red Carpet, hosted by Mallory Lewis and Lamb Chop, 6:00
“Puppets of New York” Opening Celebration, Museum of the City of New York, 7:00
Los Grises/The Gray Ones by SEA, 7:00
Muppets Take Manhattan (Frank Oz, 1984), $15, 8:00

Friday, August 13
Construction and Hybrid Puppets Manipulation Workshop by Carolina Pimentel, $50, 10:00 am
“Dream Puppet” Making Workshop with Marina Tsaplina, El jardín del paraíso Community Garden, noon – 8:00
Out of the Shadows Panel: A Conversation about the Henson Festivals, with Leslee Asch, Cheryl Henson, Dan Hurlin, Manuel Moran, and Michael Romanyshyn, 4:00
Karagoz by U.S. Karagoz Theatre Company, 4:00
Salt Over Gold and other Czech & Slovak fairy tales with strings by Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre, 5:00
Handmade Puppet Dreams: Dreamscapes, short films for adults, 5:00
La Macanuda by Deborah Hunt, 6:00
The Triple Zhongkui Pageant by Chinese Theatre Works, 6:30
Los Grises/The Gray Ones by SEA, 7:00
Puppet Slam / Cabaret: Great Small Works Spaghetti Dinner, with Bruce Cannon, Piedmont Bluz, and Valerie and Benedict Turner, 8:00

Saturday, August 14
Little Red’s Hood by Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, 11:00 am
Penguin in My Pocket by Kurt Hunter, 11:00 am
Handmade Puppet Dreams: Kidscapes, short films for children, noon
NIMA-USA Symposium: Conversations on Puppetry, Social Justice, and Diversity: Part 1, with Jacqueline Wade, Kuang-Yu Fong, and Ginew Benton, moderated by Claudia Orenstein, noon
2-D Puppet Workshop for kids by Junktown Duende, 1:00
Los Colores de Frida / The Colors of Frida by SEA, 1:00
The Marzipan Bunny by A Couple of Puppets, 1:00
Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup by WonderSpark Puppets, 1:00
Títeres en el Caribe Hispano: Episode 1: Cuba y Episode 3: Puerto Rico, 2:00
Teatro SEA’s Theatre Book Series Presentation, 2:30
Beautiful Blackbird: An African Folktale by Lovely Day Creative Arts, 3:00
Once Upon a Time in the Lower East Side . . . by JunkTown Duende, 4:00
Karagoz by U.S. Karagoz Theatre Company, 4:00
Puppet States by Paulette Richards, 5:00
Salt Over Gold and other Czech & Slovak fairy tales with strings by Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre, 5:00
La Macanuda by Deborah Hunt, 6:00
The Triple Zhongkui Pageant by Chinese Theatre Works, 6:30
Los Grises/The Gray Ones by SEA, 7:00
The Puppetry Guild of Greater NY presents . . . The Bawdy Naughty Puppet Cabaret, 8:00

Sunday, August 15
Little Red’s Hood by Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, 11:00 am
Beautiful Blackbird: An African Folktale by Lovely Day Creative Arts, 11:00 am
The Marzipan Bunny by A Couple of Puppets, 11:00 am
Giant Puppet Encounter & Mascot Encounter, 11:30 am
Handmade Puppet Dreams: Kidscapes, short films for children, noon
Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup by WonderSpark Puppets, 1:00
2-D Puppet Workshop for kids by Junktown Duende, 1:00
Penguin in My Pocket by Kurt Hunter, 1:00
Títeres en el Caribe Hispano: Episode 2: República Dominicana and Episode 3: Puerto Rico, 2:00
The Pura Belpré Project by SEA, 3:00
Harlem River Drive by Bruce Cannon, 3:00
Karagoz by U.S. Karagoz Theatre Company, 4:00
Once Upon a time in the Lower East Side . . . by JunkTown Duende, 5:00
Salt Over Gold and other Czech & Slovak fairy tales with strings by Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre, 5:00
La Macanuda by Deborah Hunt, 6:00
The Triple Zhongkui Pageant by Chinese Theatre Works, 6:30
Los Grises/The Gray Ones by SEA, 7:00
Puppet Dance Party, 8:00

Tuesday, August 17
A Conversation with Vincent Anthony, hosted by Dr. Manuel Morán and John Ludwig, 7:00

Thursday, August 19
Puppetry 101 with Aretta Baumgartner, 7:00

Friday, August 20
Handmade Puppet Dreams: Kidscapes, short films for children, noon
Handmade Puppet Dreams: Dreamscapes, short films for adults, 5:00

Saturday, August 21
Puppetry Museums around the World Panel, noon

Tuesday, August 24
Puppetry and Its Healing Properties in Therapy, hosted by Erica Scandoval and Karen Ciego, 7:00

Thursday, August 26
UNIMA-USA Symposium: Conversations on Puppetry, Social Justice, and Diversity: Part 2, with Monxo Lopez, Paulette Richards, Jungmin Song, and Edna Bland, moderated by Claudia Orenstein, 7:00

Friday, August 27
Handmade Puppet Dreams: Dreamscapes, short films for adults, 8:00

Saturday, August 28
Conversations with Puppet Fringe Artists and Troupes in English, noon

Tuesday, August 31
“Glocal” Rethinking, American Puppetry: Opening Eyes Wider by UNIMA-USA’s World Encyclopedia Puppetry Arts, with Karen Smith and Kathy Foley, 7:00