this week in theater

NEW FEDERAL THEATRE: ANNUAL NTOZAKE SHANGE READINGS SERIES

Who: Joyce Sylvester, Tucker Smallwood, Count Stovall, Paris Crayton III, Elain Graham, more
What: Annual reading series
Where: New Federal Theatre Zoom
When: June 8, 15, and 22, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: On June 30, New Federal Theatre founder Woodie King Jr. will be retiring after an illustrious and influential fifty-year career. He started the company in 1970 with a “mission to integrate artists of color and women into the mainstream of American theater by training artists for the profession, and by presenting plays by writers of color and women to integrated, multicultural audiences — plays which evoke the truth through beautiful and artistic re-creations of ourselves.” One of the last programs he will oversee is the annual Ntozake Shange Readings Series, honoring the late playwright and poet whose Obie-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf was staged at NFT in 1976 before transferring to the Public.

The series will be held on three successive Monday nights at 7:00 over Zoom. On June 8, Joyce Sylvester and Tucker Smallwood will read Mustapha Matura’s A Small World, directed by Seret Scott, about two Jamaicans who meet after twenty years apart; on June 15, Count Stovall, Paris Crayton III, and Elain Graham perform S. Shephard-Massat’s A Soft Escape, directed by John Scutchins, about childhood friends who are now old and facing the end of their lives; and on June 22, NFT will present Larry Muhammad’s Jimmy’s Last Night at Mikell’s, directed by A. Dean Irby, about James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, and Miles Davis together at a jazz club, with the cast to be announced. All three shows will take place one time only over Zoom; admission is free with RSVP.

THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE’S ANNUAL SPRING GALA

Who: Harry Lennix, Arin Arbus, Anne Bogart, Bill Camp, Will Eno, Simon Godwin, Kathryn Hunter, Taibi Magar, John Douglas Thompson, Awoye Timpo, more
What: Theatre for a New Audience annual spring gala
Where: TFANA online
When: Monday, June 7, free with RSVP, VIP reception 6:30, streaming program 7:30
Why: Theatre for a New Audience was founded by Jeffrey Horowitz in 1979, but it was the company’s 2013 move to its new home in Fort Greene, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, that rocketed it to a new level. On June 7, TFANA’s annual spring gala will be held live online, celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday; the Bard turned 457 in April. “We are celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday 457 years on because Shakespeare is, of course, never over,” Horowitz said in a statement. “A production of Hamlet ends, but the play doesn’t. Shakespeare’s work keeps getting reinvented. Last year, like so many other plans, our annual spring gala was canceled due to the pandemic. For a while, it was a question: Should we postpone again? But gathering as a TFANA community, even remotely, seemed more important than ever this year — to take stock of what we’ve been through, lost, and accomplished, and to look ahead to the future.”

Among the participants will be such actors, writers, and directors as Arin Arbus, Anne Bogart, Bill Camp, Will Eno, Simon Godwin, Kathryn Hunter, Taibi Magar, John Douglas Thompson, and Awoye Timpo; New York City public teacher Marie Maignan will receive the Samuel H. Scripps Award for Extraordinary Artistic Achievement from US representative Jahana Hayes (D-CT), and Amanda Riegel and the Thompson Family Foundation will be presented with the Life in Art Award. The evening will be emceed by actor and TFANA board member Harry Lennix; the VIP preshow begins at 6:30, followed at 7:30 by the gala. There is also a silent auction that features such items as golf and wine vacations, opera and theater tickets, jewelry, art, pet portraits, and more.

A THOUSAND WAYS (PART TWO): AN ENCOUNTER

The second part of 600 Highwaymen’s A Thousand Ways takes place in person at the Public, for two people at a time (photo by Everything Time Studio)

Public Theater
425 Lafayette St.
Part Two: June 8 – August 15, $15
Part One available through July 18, $15
publictheater.org
www.600highwaymen.org

In January, as part of the Public Theater’s annual multidisciplinary Under the Radar festival, the Obie-winning 600 Highwaymen company presented A Thousand Ways (Part One): A Phone Call, a free hourlong telephone conversation between you and another person, randomly put together and facilitated by an electronic voice that asks both general and intimate questions, from where you are sitting to what smells you are missing, structured around a dangerous and lonely fictional situation that is a metaphor for sheltering in place, even though the work began several years ago. It’s a great way to get connected to a stranger while looking inwardly at yourself. In my case, I spoke with a theater-loving woman from the Midwest, and we got along extremely well, making for an engaging and moving discussion.

From June 8 to August 15, the Public will be hosting the next section of the work, A Thousand Ways (Part Two): An Encounter, in which you and a stranger — not the same one — meet in person, sitting across a table, separated from one another by a clear glass panel. There will be no touching and no sharing of objects, following all Covid-19 guidelines. The Public has also brought back the phone call, with slots available through July 18. While you don’t have to experience part one in order to understand part two, it is highly encouraged. Conceived and written by Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone, who formed 600 Highwaymen in 2009, A Thousand Ways continues their ongoing mission of “aiming at a radical approach to making live art by creating intimacy amongst strangers and illuminating the inherent poignancy of people coming together.” The duo’s previous works include Employee of the Year, Empire City, The Fever, and Theater of the Mind with David Byrne. Tickets for each part of A Thousand Ways are $15; a grand finale is planned in which groups will be able to gather across the globe.

“In this introspective year, it’s been an absolute honor to know that in over twenty-five cities and twelve countries around the world — and now in four languages — strangers are coming together night after night, across phone lines and through glass planes, to imagine one another and, in the process, create a kind of community with and for one another,” Browde and Silverstone said in a statement. And it all starts with a phone call and two people who have never met, evoking how we are all emerging in our own ways from the pandemic lockdown.

MTC VIRTUAL THEATRE: THE NICETIES

Who: Lisa Banes, Jordan Boatman
What: Virtual reunion premiere
Where: MTC Virtual Theatre
When: May 27 – June 13, free with RSVP
Why: Originally presented at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Studio at Stage II in fall 2018, Eleanor Burgess’s The Niceties is making its virtual premiere in a new online staging, reuniting original cast members Lisa Banes and Jordan Boatman with director Kimberly Senior (Disgraced, Career Suicide). Boatman (Medea, The Path) plays a Black student at an East Coast college who is writing a paper about the American Revolution. Banes (Look Back in Anger, My Sister in This House) portrays her well-respected white professor. Their discussion of the work leads to issues of race, white privilege, and reputation involving the past and the present. The stream is available for free May 27 through June 13.

THE (VIRTUAL) WILDNESS

THE (VIRTUAL) WILDNESS
Ars Nova Supra Zoom
Wednesday, May 26, $10, 7:00
arsnovanyc.com
skyponyband.com

In March 2016, I saw The Wildness at Ars Nova, writing, “Brooklyn-based eight-piece collective Sky-Pony presents a captivating treat for adventurous theatergoers with this DIY indie-rock opera, a multimedia fairy tale that filters such popular musicals as Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell through a Narnia-like aesthetic and video-game narrative that fantasy fans will go ga-ga over.” Sky-Pony is now back for a one-time virtual follow-up, taking place over Ars Nova’s online Supra portal via Zoom. On May 26 at 7:00, The (Virtual) Wildness moves the story, which involves a missing leader, a messianic princess, the mysterious builder, the keymaster, and various handmaidens, five years into the future. The text is by composer Kyle Jarrow and Lauren Worsham, with incidental music by Kevin Wunderlich and video design by Eamonn Farrell; the show is directed by Ashley Tata and stars David Blasher, Lilli Cooper, Jeff Fernandes, Lindsey Ford, Sharone Sayegh, Jamie Mohamdein, Jarrow, Worsham, and Wunderlich, all from the original production.

SOHO REP. SPRING GALA

Soho Rep. virtual spring gala features performances by Cynthia Erivo and many others

Who: Amber Tamblyn, Questlove, Uzo Aduba, César Alvarez, Jocelyn Bioh, Cynthia Erivo, Terrance Hayes, Marin Ireland, Hansol Jung, Raja Feather Kelly, Questlove, Roslyn Ruff, Beau Sia, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Heather Alicia Simms, Patricia Smith, TL Thompson, Darren Walker, Emily Wells, Marcus Samuelsson, Andrew Yang, Rick Kinsel
What: Virtual spring gala
Where: Soho Rep. online
When: Monday, May 24, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: Founded in 1975 by Jerry Engelbach and Marlene Swartz, “Soho Rep. provides radical theater makers with productions of the highest caliber and tailor-made development at key junctures in their artistic practice. We elevate artists as thought leaders and citizens who change the field and society. Artistic autonomy is paramount at Soho Rep. — we encourage an unmediated connection between artists and audiences to create a springboard for transformation and rich civic life beyond the walls of our small theater.” The company, which presents shows at 46 Walker St., will be holding its spring gala on May 24, featuring musical performances and appearances by Uzo Aduba and Cynthia Erivo (performing a scene from Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is), César Alvarez (performing “Mandela” from The Potluck), Jocelyn Bioh, Marin Ireland, Hansol Jung, Raja Feather Kelly, Roslyn Ruff and Heather Alicia Simms (performing a scene from Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview), TL Thompson, and others; the evening will be hosted by Amber Tamblyn, with Questlove leading the afterparty. The event honors the Vilcek Foundation and Rick Kinsel, with presentations from previous Vilcek Prize winners Marcus Samuelsson and Andrew Yang.

chekhovOS /an experimental game/

Mikhail Baryshnikov portrays a dying Anton Chekhov in interactive online theater/gaming hybrid ChekhovOS

Select days, May 23 – June 24, free with advance RSVP (donations welcome)
www.arlekinplayers.com
www.zerogravity.art

In a June 2020 review I wrote, “The future of online productions might be best represented so far by Arlekin Players Theatre’s State vs. Natasha Banina. The forty-five-minute solo work gets right in your face, literally and figuratively, as Darya Denisova, portraying Natasha Banina, speaks directly to the audience, which serves as a jury, as she describes what led her to commit a heinous act.”

Through its Zero Gravity (zero-G) Virtual Theater Lab, which was created during the pandemic as a portal for cutting-edge online presentations, Arlekin has taken it to the next level with the ingenious chekhovOS /an experimental game/. The show combines prerecorded and live elements, featuring scenes from a Chekhov drama, voting, and spirited live chatting, all set in a fantastical virtual world designed by theater and gaming professionals, followed by an interactive postshow Q&A. It’s a work-in-progress with eight performances scheduled through June 24, though more might be added, and they would be extremely welcome. Conceived and directed by Arlekin founder and head Igor Golyak using the Soft Layer technology developed by game engine and interaction designer Will Brierly of Snowrunner Productions and taking place on Zoom and the internet, chekhovOS is a brilliant foray into what’s to come in online entertainment.

Denisova stars as the emcee of the evening, Natasha Prozorov, the initially awkward young woman from Chekhov’s Three Sisters, who explains that the Russian playwright’s characters are sick and tired of being stuck in their stories, which always end the same way; they want to be freed to live their own lives and make their own choices. Natasha is joined by a computer known as Charlotta (voiced by Anna Bortnick), the quirky governess from The Cherry Orchard. The audience is asked to vote on which play they want to see — The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, or The Cherry Orchard — after which they choose specific scenes, with the help of a spinning wheel, a website, and Olga the fish, named for Chekhov’s actress wife, Olga Knipper.

My audience chose The Cherry Orchard in a runaway, leading to a series of tragicomic scenes from the play starring Tony nominee Jessica Hecht as Madame Ranevskaya, Anna Baryshnikov as Varya, Jeffrey Hayenga as Fiers, Melanie Moore as Anya, Mark Nelson as Gaev, and Nael Nacer as Lopakhin. Following Covid-19 protocols, the actors perform in the same physical space but are placed into wildly fabulous virtual environments (designed by Anna Fedorova) inside the Chekhov Operating System in which they seem to be floating on air, surrounded by falling cherry blossoms, and glorying in a black-and-white expressionistic landscape. Mikhail Baryshnikov appears as Chekhov himself, reading from letters and dreams as the playwright struggles to complete The Cherry Orchard while facing serious illness; he died of tuberculosis in 1904, six months after the show opened.

Jessica Hecht plays Madame Ranevskaya in ChekhovOS

In a twi-ny talk with real-life partners Golyak and Denisova, the former said, “I want to have a discussion with the audience about subject matter, not a lesson plan, but pose a question around a point of pain in me and the collaborators.” And that’s just where the chat plays a pivotal role in chekhovOS. We’re not supposed to even whisper during live theater in dark venues, and many virtual productions disable the chat function so viewers can concentrate on the show itself. But chekhovOS not only encourages the chat but depends on it. It is monitored closely by several people involved with the work (narrative writer Tom Abernathy, coproducer Sara Stackhouse), who quickly respond to questions while also leaving plenty of mystery. On opening night, there was a big debate over whether we really picked The Cherry Orchard or the decision was preordained. It is most likely that Arlekin only filmed scenes from that play, so things would fall apart if the audience had voted for a different Chekhov classic; in fact, numerous chatters, primarily from the gaming community, were determined to attend again and steer the choice to something else.

Hosted on ZeroGravity.ART, the workshop performances are being copresented with ArtsEmerson, Boston Fig, UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, the Cherry Orchard Festival Foundation, International Online Theatre Festival/Theatre Times, ShowOne Productions, and Snowrunner, with charity screenings for Gift of Life in the UK and Podari.Life in the US. Each show will be followed by a talkback with members of the cast and crew, moderated by Stackhouse, ArenaNet’s Abernathy, Theatre Times editor-in-chief Magda Romanska, ArtsEmerson founder Rob Orchard, or Emmy-winning critic Joyce Kulhawik, each taking a different focus. The creative team also includes virtual performance technical director Vladimir Gusev, cinematographer Guillermo Cameo, sound designer Sebastian Holst, and music composer Jakov Jakoulov. It’s a communal effort that leads to a warm sense of community among the actors, designers, makers, and audience, an innovative and masterful approach to the myriad possibilities of live, hybrid theater in a postpandemic world. “Life, in this house, is finished now,” Lopakhin says. But according to Arlekin, it’s only beginning.