this week in theater

TWI-NY AT TWENTY: ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Who: Works by and/or featuring Moko Fukuyama, Joshua William Gelb, Gabrielle Hamilton, Jace, Elmore James, Jamal Josef, Katie Rose McLaughlin, Sara Mearns, Zaire Michel, Zalman Mlotek, Alicia Hall Moran, Patrick Page, Barbara Pollack, Seth David Radwell, Jamar Roberts, Tracy Sallows, Xavier F. Salomon, Janae Snyder-Stewart, Mfoniso Udofia, Anne Verhallen
What: This Week in New York twentieth anniversary celebration
Where: This Week in New York YouTube
When: Saturday, May 22, free with RSVP, 7:00 (available on demand through June 12)
Why: In April 2001, I found myself suddenly jobless when a relatively new Silicon Alley company that had made big promises took an unexpected hit. I took my meager two weeks’ severance pay and spent fourteen days wandering through New York City, going to museums, film festivals, parks, and tourist attractions. I compiled my experiences into an email I sent to about fifty friends, rating each of the things I had done. My sister’s husband enthusiastically demanded that I keep doing this, and This Week in New York was born.

Affectionately known as twi-ny (twhy-nee), it became a website in 2005 and soon was being read by tens of thousands of people around the globe. I covered a vast array of events – some fifteen thousand over the years – that required people to leave their homes and apartments and take advantage of everything the greatest city in the world had to offer. From the very start, I ventured into nooks and crannies to find the real New York, not just frequenting well-known venues but seeking out the weird and wild, the unusual and the strange.

For my tenth anniversary, we packed Fontana’s, a now-defunct club on the Lower East Side, and had live music, book readings, and a comics presentation. I had been considering something bigger for twenty when the pandemic lockdown hit and lasted longer than we all thought possible.

At first, I didn’t know what twi-ny’s future would be, with nowhere for anyone to go. But the arts community reacted quickly, as incredible dance, music, art, theater, opera, film, and hybrid offerings began appearing on numerous platforms; the innovation and ingenuity blew me away. The winners of twi-ny’s Pandemic Awards give you a good idea of the wide range of things I covered; you can check out part one here and part two here.

I devoured everything I could, from experimental dance-theater in a closet and interactive shows over the phone and through the mail to all-star Zoom reunion readings and an immersive, multisensory play that arrived at my door in a box. Many of them dealt with the fear, isolation, and loneliness that have been so pervasive during the Covid-19 crisis while also celebrating hope, beauty, and resilience. I’ve watched, reviewed, and previewed more than a thousand events created since March 2020, viewing them from the same computer where I work at my full-time job in children’s publishing.

Just as companies are deciding the future hybrid nature of employment, the arts community is wrestling with in-person and online presentations. As the lockdown ends and performance venues open their doors, some online productions will go away, but others are likely to continue, benefiting from a reach that now goes beyond their local area and stretches across the continents.

On May 22 at 7:00, “twi-ny at twenty,” produced and edited by Michael D. Drucker of Delusions International and coproduced by Ellen Scordato, twi-ny’s business manager and muse, honors some of the best events of the past fourteen months, including dance, theater, opera, art, music, and literature, all of which can be enjoyed for free from the friendly confines of your couch. There is no registration fee, and the party will be available online for several weeks. You can find more information here.

Please let me know what you think in the live chat, which I will be hosting throughout the premiere, and be sure to say hello to other twi-ny fans and share your own favorite virtual shows.

Thanks for coming along on this unpredictable twenty-year adventure; I can’t wait to see you all online and, soon, in real life. Here’s to the next twenty!

ODD MAN OUT

Odd Man Out offers a theatrical journey in a box to be experienced at home (photo by twi-ny/ees)

Pitchblack Immersive Experiences
Box: $50
pitchblackexperience.com

Last month I saw Simon Stephens’s Blindness at the Daryl Roth Theatre, a sound and light theatrical installation without actors in which the story about a sudden and inexplicable epidemic of sight loss is presented through binaural headphones in a space often cast in total darkness. A few weeks after that, I got on an airplane for the first time since the coronavirus crisis began, going to California to visit family. Those two elements come together in compelling ways in Odd Man Out, an immersive, interactive treat for the senses that arrives at your home in a box.

Originally performed with an in-person cast and audience at Teatro Ciego in Argentina, a company that specializes in productions in complete darkness, with nearly half of the troupe either blind or with low vision — the riveting sixty-five-minute presentation, which was workshopped in English in New York City in February 2020 in collaboration with theatreC, has been reimagined by writer-director Martín Bondone and codirectors Carlos Armesto and Facundo Bogarín for a unique private journey. Odd Man Out follows successful blind Argentine musician Alberto Rinaldi (Gonzalo Trigueros) as he flies on Pitchblack Airlines from New York City back to Buenos Aires, where he was born and raised. During the trip, his mind is flooded with memories of seminal moments from his life, involving his mother (Alejandra Buljevich) and father (Ignacio Borderes), his teacher (Buljevich), his music partner Jamal Jordan (Modesto Lacen), and his true love, Clara (Carmen Boria, who in addition voices Alberto as a child). The tale also features a taxi driver (Andrés Montejo), two policemen (Aksel Tang and Lacen), an attentive flight attendant (Boria), Alberto’s seatmate (Montejo), another passenger (Victoria Raigorodsky), and a parrot (Lacen).

The black box contains everything you need for this multisensory excursion: a map, a blindfold, a boarding pass with a QR code that takes you to the online audio, wine or yerba maté, and six mysterious objects that incorporate taste (chocolate, vegan, gluten-free, or coconut), touch, and smell. The narrative was recorded using binaural technology that makes it feel that the characters are moving around your head as if in a 360-degree area, a technique that was also used for Blindness and Simon McBurney’s remarkable Broadway show The Encounter. The sound design is by Nicolás Alvarez, with original music, arrangements, and music direction by Mirko Mescia — performed by pianist Lubert Andrés Pulval Jiménez, guitarist Roberto Ariel Caceres, and bassist Bogarín — and dramaturgy by Armesto and Tang.

Alberto talks about love, fear, discrimination, and music as the plane continues on to Argentina, where he hasn’t been in decades. These feelings and beliefs have come into much clearer focus during the pandemic, as the world sheltered in place, travel was limited if not nonexistent, isolation and loneliness ran rampant, and rallies and marches were held across the globe against racial injustice. Theater is best experienced with live actors in front of an in-person audience in the same space, yet Odd Man Out is just the right kind of show when that is not available, offering a compelling individual adventure for the body and the mind.

(A portion of the proceeds from Odd Man Out — boxes cost $50 — goes to Visions,which provides services for the blind and visually impaired.)

SEJANUS, HIS FALL

Who: Shirine Babb, Grantham Coleman, Keith David, Manoel Felciano, Denis O’Hare, Matthew Rauch, Laila Robins, Liv Rooth, Stephen Spinella, Emily Swallow, Raphael Nash Thompson, Tamara Tunie, James Udom, Nathan Winkelstein
What: Livestreamed benefit reading of Ben Jonson’s Sejanus, His Fall
Where: Red Bull Theater website and Facebook Live
When: Monday, May 17, free with RSVP (suggested donation $25), 7:30 (available on demand through May 21 at 7:00); live discussion May 20 at 7:30
Why: “To the no less Noble by VIRTUE than BLOOD, Esme Lord Aubigny. My Lord — If ever any Ruine were so great as to survive, I think this be one I send you, The Fall of SEJANUS. It is a Poem, that (if I well remember) in your Lordships sight suffered no less Violence from our People here, than the Subject of it did from the Rage of the People of Rome; but with a different Fate, as (I hope) Merit: For this hath out-liv’d their Malice, and begot it self a greater Favour than he lost, the Love of Good Men. Amongst whom, if I make Your Lordship the first it thanks, it is not without a just Confession of the Bond Your Benefits have, and ever shall hold upon me. Your Lordships most faithful Honourer, Ben Jonson.” So wrote English Renaissance playwright Ben Jonson in the dedication for his 1603 tragedy, Sejanus, His Fall, about Lucius Aelius Seianus, a confidant of Tiberius Caesar Augustus. On May 17 at 7:00, Red Bull Theater will present a live reading of the play, newly adapted and directed by associate artistic director Nathan Winkelstein and featuring Shirine Babb, Grantham Coleman, Keith David, Manoel Felciano, Denis O’Hare, Matthew Rauch, Laila Robins, Liv Rooth, Stephen Spinella, Emily Swallow, Raphael Nash Thompson, Tamara Tunie, and James Udom.

“Ben Jonson’s Sejanus is perhaps best known for being Jonson’s least known play,” Winkelstein said in a statement. “It was a colossal failure in its time and has received, to my knowledge, only two professional productions in the last one hundred years in England, and no such full productions in America — ever. At its core, Jonson’s play is a takedown of corrupt governance in sublime language surpassed only by Shakespeare – who, incidentally, is believed to have appeared in the original production. That resonance remains today. Why then is it so rarely taken up by theatermakers? Well, in my opinion, it’s intensely overwritten. My challenge has been to bring this resonance to the fore while eliminating the, apologies to Jonson, fluff. And over the course of the past four years, I’ve worked to craft a playing script that has constant forward momentum. I look forward to working with the crackerjack team to bring this adaptation to life.”

Admission is free with a suggested donation of $25; the stream will be available through May 21 at 7:00. In addition, Red Bull is hosting a live Bull Session on May 20 at 7:30 with Winkelstein, scholar Henry S. Turner, and members of the company. “The plays of Ben Jonson are naturally central to all our work at Red Bull, and — as we had to delay our in-person production of The Alchemist — this spring we’re excited to be presenting two plays by Ben Jonson live online — one of his greatest comedies and one of his most infamous tragedies — Volpone and Sejanus,” Red Bull founder and artistic director Jesse Berger said. “Both plays have wonderful characters, terrific language, and exciting plots with surprising twists and turns — in short, the best of the best of Jacobean theater — all in Jonson’s inimitable, sharp-witted style.” Volpone, or the Fox will be premiere June 14, starring André De Shields, Jordan Boatman, Sofia Cheyenne, Franchelle Stewart Dorn, Clifton Duncan, Amy Jo Jackson, Peter Francis James, Hamish Linklater, Roberta Maxwell, Sam Morales, Kristin Nielsen, and Mary Testa.

MCC THEATER: MISCAST21

Who: Annaleigh Ashford, Robin de Jesús, Renée Elise Goldsberry, LaChanze, Kelli O’Hara, Billy Porter, Idina Menzel, Melissa Barrera, Gavin Creel, Leslie Grace, Cheyenne Jackson, Jai’Len Josey, Aaron Tveit, Kelly Marie Tran, Patrick Wilson, McKinley Belcher III, Nick Blaemire, Sandra Caldwell, Juan Castano, Trip Cullman, Hugh Dancy, Halley Feiffer, Dominique Fishback, Jennifer Garner, Paige Gilbert, Lucas Hedges, Evan Jonigkeit, Alex Lacamoire, Donja R. Love, Zosia Mamet, Laurie Metcalf, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ana Nogueira, Marisa Tomei
What: Virtual edition of MCC Theater’s annual Miscast gala
Where: MCC YouTube
When: Sunday, May 16, free (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: We’ve all been there: We’re in a theater watching a show when we realize that it’s just not going to work because of a bad casting decision. MCC Theater has been spoofing on that situation with its annual Miscast fundraising galas, in which they purposely match talented performers with the wrong song. On May 16 at 8:00, Miscast21 will go virtual, adding a geographic dimension to the wrongness. Admission is free, though donations will be accepted to help support MCC in its mission “to develop and produce exciting work Off-Broadway, as well as [its] Youth Company and partnerships with NYC public high schools, and MCC’s literary development work with emerging playwrights.”

Performing at the event, which will be broadcast on YouTube, are Annaleigh Ashford, Robin de Jesús, Renée Elise Goldsberry, LaChanze, Kelli O’Hara, Billy Porter, Idina Menzel, Melissa Barrera, Gavin Creel, Leslie Grace, Cheyenne Jackson, Jai’Len Josey, Aaron Tveit, and Kelly Marie Tran; among those making appearances will be Patrick Wilson, Trip Cullman, Hugh Dancy, Halley Feiffer, Dominique Fishback, Jennifer Garner, Paige Gilbert, Lucas Hedges, Donja R. Love, Zosia Mamet, Laurie Metcalf, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Marisa Tomei. Be sure to check out the online auction, where you can pick up signed Playbills, overseas trips, private coaching sessions, personalized video messages, and limited edition totes and T-shirts. You’ll also find on MCC’s YouTube page videos of pandemic performances by Heather Headley, Joshua Henry, Adrienne Warren, Rob McClure, Beanie Feldstein, Norbert Leo Butz, Phillipa Soo, Robert Fairchild, and others.

TICKET ALERT: THE DARK MASTER

Kuro Tanino’s The Dark Master is a VR treat for the senses (photo © Japan Society)

Japan Society
333 East 47th St.
June 23-27, $45
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

As the lockdown ends and venues start reopening, theaters are dealing with limited admissions, socially distanced seating, and protocols for the health and safety of the cast and crew. Several companies have come up with unique presentations that feature no performers and a sparse audience. In Simon Stephens’s Blindness, people sit in pods of two inside the Daryl Roth Theatre and listen to the narrative unfold through binaural headphones. In Social! at the Park Avenue Armory, fewer than a hundred people were marched into the Wade Thompson Drill Hall and danced in their own colored circle for nearly an hour as a DJ in the center spun tunes and the disembodied voice of David Byrne offered movement suggestions. For the Byzantine Choral Project’s Icons/Idols: In the Purple Room, two people at a time follow the narrative over their phone as they wander through creepy downstairs rooms at the New Ohio Theatre. And for En Garde Arts’ A Dozen Dreams, pairs make their way across twelve separate installations at the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, each one containing a dream from a woman playwright.

Japan Society is entering the actorless arena with the latest iteration of writer-director Kuro Tanino’s The Dark Master, running for only sixteen performances from June 23 to 27, with a maximum of ten people at each show. A sculptor, painter, and former psychiatrist, Tanino (Frustrating Picture Book for Adults, Fortification of Smiles) created the immersive forty-five-minute piece for his experimental theater company, Niwa Gekidan Penino, but they will not be at the East Forty-Seventh St. institution; instead, the story, about the relationship between a Japanese diner and the owner-chef of a restaurant and inspired by an indie manga and first-person video games, takes place through Virtual Reality headsets and headphones, along with live onstage cooking to add smell and taste to hearing and seeing. The work was first presented in 2003 with a full cast and audience and has now been reimagined for the pandemic.

“Niwa Gekidan Penino generated significant buzz in their 2014 U.S. debut at Japan Society with The Room Nobody Knows,” artistic director Yoko Shioya said in a statement. “With this new presentation, I hope to further their status and reputation in this country. We are extremely happy to welcome audiences back into our building for Kuro’s innovative and immersive in-person VR performance. From its intimate scale to the sensorial nature of the piece — along with its haunting and thrilling plot — this one-of-a-kind theater event seems tailor made for our return to live, onsite theater.” With only 160 total tickets available, you better act fast if you want to experience what should be a wild and special show.

AFROFEMONONOMY / WORK THE ROOTS

AFROFEMONONOMY / WORK THE ROOTS
Performance Space New York and other locations
150 First Ave.
May 15 – June 27, free with RSVP
performancespacenewyork.org
www.instagram.com/afrofemononomy

A multidisciplinary collaboration by some of today’s preeminent Black women creators, “Afrofemononomy / Work the Roots” features live theater, music, discussion, and installation, inspired by the career of activist, author, poet, playwright, editor, director, filmmaker, educator, and mother Kathleen Collins (Losing Ground, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?), who died of breast cancer in 1988 at the age of forty-six.

According to the collective, “‘Afrofemononomy / Work the Roots’ is an affirmation of how we, as Black women, expected to maintain the world’s health, can restore and not imperil our own. Black women absorb disproportionate stress and often develop a variety of risk factors, including higher early mortality rates with cancer and other diseases. Working inside the unsustainable economy and time structures of theater-making are often depleting for us. ‘Afrofemononomy / Work the Roots’ is a Black femme reclaiming of time and space, a model for restoration, a continuation of the lineage of our foremothers’ formative presence in the downtown avant-garde. We claim our health and sovereignty, prioritizing our human needs, and translate the ease, free expression, and non-compulsory ethos of our informal gatherings to our working conditions and aesthetic.”

The six-week celebration, produced by Performance Space New York with New Georges, kicks off this weekend with Collins’s 1984 Begin the Beguine: A Quartet of One-Acts, which is having its theatrical world premiere at Oakland Theater Project later this month. Part of the Downtown Live festival, Remembrance, a kind of personal séance starring Eisa Davis and Kaneza Schaal and with directorial consultation by Jackie Sibblies Drury, takes place at 85 Broad St. on May 16 at 6:30, May 22 at 1:30 and 4:00, and May 23 at 4:00, in an arcade next to the Stone Street Historic District. Those same days at 2:30 and 3:45, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Amelia Workman, Kara Young, Gabby Beans, and Jennifer Harrison Newman will present The Reading in the Courtyard at 122CC, Performance Space New York’s home, a tale set in a psychic’s waiting room with a white novelist and a Black fashion designer.

Begin the Beguine unfolds May 15 and 16 on a lawn in East Harlem, performed by April Matthis and Stacey Karen Robinson about an actress mother and her adult son and created with Charlotte Brathwaite, and The Healing is set in a Bed-Stuy park May 15-16 with Joie Lee, Schaal and Drury, as a white healer tries to help a Black woman with an unnamed illness.

In addition, Blain-Cruz’s installation “Last night, I dreamt I danced in the image of God” provides “a space for dance, rest and sustenance made for and in appreciation of Black women,” running May 15-16 and 22-23 from noon to 2:30 and 4:00 to 7:00 in the Courtyard at 122CC, and Davis’s audio-visual installation “The Essentialisn’t: Gold Taste” is open Thursdays to Sundays from May 29 to June 27 from noon to 6:00 at Performance Space New York’s Keith Haring Theatre and in the Courtyard, with occasional live sound interaction that asks the question “Can you be Black and not perform?” And finally, on May 15, “Afrofemononomy” will launch an online, international, interactive radio project. All events are free but require advance RSVP for timed tickets and because of limited space.

TALES FROM THE WINGS: A LINCOLN CENTER THEATER CELEBRATION!

Who: Jordan Donica, Rosemary Harris, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Ruthie Ann Miles, Seth Numrich, Steven Pasquale, Paulo Szot, Ayad Akhtar, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Bartlett Sher
What: Benefit fundraiser for Lincoln Center Theater
Where: Lincoln Center Theater YouTube
When: Thursday, May 13, free with RSVP, 7:00 (available through May 17)
Why: With arts venues opening up across the city this summer and fall, Lincoln Center Theater takes a look back and ahead in its virtual fundraiser “Tales from the Wings.” Premiering on YouTube on May 13 at 7:00, the show will feature appearances by Jordan Donica, Rosemary Harris, Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Ruthie Ann Miles, Seth Numrich, Steven Pasquale, Paulo Szot, Ayad Akhtar, Lileana Blain-Cruz, and Bartlett Sher sharing stories about working at the Vivian Beaumont, the Mitzi E. Newhouse, and the Claire Tow. The evening will also include excerpts from previous productions and a sneak peek at the upcoming 2021-22 season. The benefit will be available on demand through May 17; admission is free, although donations are welcome.