this week in theater

PTP/NYC VIRTUAL FALL SEASON

PTP/NYC’s Julius Caesar will start streaming on September 24 and features a female and nonbinary cast from Middlebury College

Who: PTP/NYC (Potomac Theatre Project)
What: Zoom plays
Where: PTP/NYC YouTube channel
When: Thursday, September 24, October 1, October 8, October 15, free (donations accepted), 7:30 (each show streams through the following Sunday)
Why: Every summer we look forward to the arrival of PTP/NYC (the Potomac Theatre Project) at the Atlantic’s Stage 2 in Chelsea. For thirty-three years, the troupe has been presenting works in Maryland and New York and at Middlebury College, where it was founded in 1987 by Cheryl Faraone, Richard Romagnoli, and Jim Petosa. The company specializes in revivals of shows by the inimitable Caryl Churchill and Howard Barker as well as Anthony Minghella, Sarah Kane, Neal Bell, Snoo Wilson, Harold Pinter, Vaclav Havel, Tom Stoppard, and others. But because of the pandemic lockdown, PTP/NYC’s thirty-fourth repertory season is going virtual, running online September 24 through October 18, with a new Zoom show streaming every Thursday night at 7:30 on YouTube and available for viewing through the following Sunday. The season begins September 24 with Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, directed by Faraone and featuring a female and nonbinary cast from Middlebury College: Em Ballou, Ellie Bavier, Becca Berlind, Olivia Blackmer, Nuasheen Chowdhury, Catie Clark, Maggie Connolly, Molly Dorion, Meili Hwang, Charlotte Katz, Wengel Kifle, Emily Ma, Peyton Mader, Gabi Martin, Sara Massey, Wynn McClenahan, Madison Middleton, Gabby Valdivieso, and Daphne West.

On October 1, PTP/NYC will stage Barker’s Don’t Exaggerate (desire and abuse), directed by Romagnoli and starring Robert Emmet Lunney as a WWI soldier who comes back from the dead. On October 8, Dan O’Brien’s intimate The House in Scarsdale: A Memoir for the Stage will be performed by O’Brien and Alex Draper, directed by Christian Parker. And on October 15, PTP/NYC revives Churchill’s Far Away, directed by Faraone — who previously helmed the British playwright’s Serious Money, The After-Dinner Joke, Vinegar Tom, and Top Girls for PTP — with Ro Boddie, Nesba Crenshaw, Caitlin Duffy, and Lilah May Pfeiffer. “These four plays, stretching across centuries, wholly different in form, structure, and plot, are nonetheless alike in distrust of structures both public and private, mordant humor, and at times a chilling view of the world we inhabit,” the company said in a statement. “This season recalls a founding tenet of the company — to present work which reflects ‘the nightmares and hoaxes by which we live.’” Tickets are free but donations to PTP/NYC are accepted, with ten percent going to the National Black Theatre.

THREE VIEWINGS: BENEFIT VIRTUAL READING

Who: Angel Desai, Debra Jo Rupp, Kurtwood Smith
What: Livestreamed benefit reading
Where: Barrington Stage Company Vimeo
When: Wednesday, September 23, $25, 7:30 (link available through September 27 at 7:29)
Why: Perhaps a funeral parlor is not the ideal setting for a play during the pandemic lockdown, as more than two hundred thousand Americans have died from the coronavirus and too many of us have unfortunately experienced Zoom wakes and funerals. But that is where Three Viewings, Jeffrey Hatcher’s three-part tale, takes place, in a funeral home in a small midwestern town. Barrington Stage in the Berkshires was scheduled to perform the work live on the on the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage but has repurposed it for Zoom for a benefit reading on September 23 at 7:30, after which it will be available for ninety-six hours. (The plan is to present it live once the theater is legally allowed to open with audiences.) The show features actress, musician, and jazz vocalist Angel Desai (Company, Angel Desai/Oscar Perez Quartet), Debra Jo Rupp (The Cake, Barrington’s Dr. Ruth — All the Way), and Kurtwood Smith (RoboCop, Green Grow the Lilacs); for Rupp and Smith, it is an online reunion, as the two starred as Kitty and Red Forman, the parents in the hit turn-of-the-century sitcom That ’70s Show, which introduced us to Topher Grace, Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, and Laura Prepon. Three Viewings consists of Tell Tale, in which a mortician (Smith) falls for a real estate broker; Thief of Tears, about Mac (Desai), who has a thing for corpses’ jewelry; and Thirteen Things about Ed Carpolotti, in which a widow (Rupp) learns unfortunate secrets about her late husband.

Hatcher has also written such plays as Ten Chimneys and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and such films as Stage Beauty and The Good Liar; Three Viewings, which was recorded for audio by L.A. Theatre Works with Bruce Davison, Laura San Giacomo, and Rue McClanahan, will be directed for Barrington by artistic director Julianne Boyd. Next up for the company is Mark St. Germain’s Eleanor: A Virtual Reading of a New Play on October 3 and 4, starring Tony winner Harriet Harris (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Desperate Housewives) as Eleanor Roosevelt in a performance recorded live onstage without an audience and directed by actor Henry Stram.

IRISH REP ONLINE: BELFAST BLUES

Who: Geraldine Hughes
What: Livestream of prerecorded final performance of Belfast Blues
Where: Irish Rep online
When: September 22-27, suggested donation $25
Why: Born in Belfast and based in New York, Irish actress and playwright Geraldine Hughes has appeared in such films as Rocky Balboa and Killing Lincoln, such television series as Law & Order SVU and The Blacklist, and such Broadway hits as Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Jerusalem. But she’s most well known for Belfast Blues, her autobiographical one-woman show about her childhood growing up during the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1980s. She first performed the play, in which she portrays twenty-four characters, in 2003 and has since taken it all over the world. She retired the play after a 2019 run back at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast, but that grand finale, held as part of West Belfast’s Féile an Phobail (Festival of the People) and directed by actress Carol Kane, was recorded for posterity and will be livestreamed by the Irish Rep in its continuing innovative online programming during the pandemic. “There’s no audience better than a Belfast audience!” Hughes said upon reviving the seventy-five-minute show one last time at the Lyric. “I’m so excited to share the story of Belfast Blues with a new generation of theatergoers and eager to retell it to all those who are returning! The support from home is truly incomparable!”

The Irish Rep has previously staged the intimate, moving The Gifts You Gave to the Dark, a spectacular online iteration of The Weir, Aedin Moloney’s sexy one-woman show Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom, and other presentations, making it one of the busiest theater companies during the pandemic, and one of the most successful when it comes to adapting to online viewing. Tickets are free, but there is a suggested donation of $25. Next up for the company is Give Me Your Hand (a poetic stroll through the National Gallery of London) October 13-18, Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet October 27 to November 1, and the two-part A Beggar Upon Horseback with John Douglas Thompson as Frederick Douglass on November 9 and A Beggar on Foot on November 10.

DO THIS PLAY: EXPAND THE CANON VIRTUAL READING SERIES & LIST DROP

Expand the Canon will feature annual list of nine works by women playwrights

Who: Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre, Ma-Yi Theater Company, the Classical Theatre of Harlem, American Players Theatre
What: Inaugural curated list of classic plays written by women
Where: Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre online
When: Tuesdays & Thursdays, September 21 – October 1, suggested donation $15, 8:00
Why: On Monday, September 21, at 8:00, in “The Matchlorette: Meet Your Classical Play Match!,” Brooklyn-based Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre, in conjunction with Ma-Yi Theater Company and the Classical Theatre of Harlem, will drop its inaugural annual curated list of nine classic and classical plays by a diverse group of women. The works, selected by an international committee of eleven women from American Shakespeare Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Texas, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and other organizations, will kick off “Do This Play: Expand the Canon Virtual Reading Series,” with several of the plays, including two new translations, being performed online Tuesday and Thursday nights through October 1. The cast features Hedgepig ensemble members Madeline Egan Addis, Desirée Baxter, Fara Faidzan, Jamal James, Kubbi, Andrew Hutcheson, Sara Hymes, Jory Murphy, Skye Pagon, Gregory Jon Phelps, Basil Rodericks, Rachel Schmeling, and Olivia Williamson, in addition to actors from partner companies. The suggested donation for this inclusive call to action, which focuses on timely, relevant works, is $15; we will add the full schedule below following the official announcement. [Ed. note: The selected plays are House of Desires by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, A Bold Stroke for a Husband by Hannah Cowley, A Bold Stroke for a Wife by Susanna Centilivre, Her Soul by Amelia P. Roselli, Rachel by Angelina W. Grimke, Restless Night in Late Spring by Fumiko Enchi, Spunk by Zora Neale Hurston, The Drag by Mae West, and Wedding Band by Alice Childress.]

Tuesday, September 22, 8:00
Bold Stroke for a Husband, by Hannah Cowley, directed by Emily Lyon, and featuring Skye Pagon, Shannon Corenthin, David Huynh, Basil Rodericks, Sara Hymes, Rachel Schmeling, Jory Murphy, Andrew Hutcheson, Gregory Jon Phelps, Marcus D. Johnson, and Madeline Addis

Sunday, September 27, 8:00
House of Desires, by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, directed by Melisa Pereyra, produced in partnership with American Players Theatre, featuring Cher Alvarez, Eduardo Xavier Curley-Carillo, Triney Sandoval, Alejandro Cordova, Sebastian Arboleda, Basil Rodericks, Jamal James, Olivia Williamson, and Desiree Baxter

Tuesday, September 29, 8:00
Restless Night in Late Spring, by Fumiko Enchi, directed by Chari Arespacochago, produced in partnership with Ma-Yi Theater Company, featuring Sasha Diamond, Shannon Tyo, Daniel K. Isaac, and Fara Faidzan

Thursday, October 1, 8:00
Spunk, by Zora Neale Hurston, directed by Bianca LaVerne Jones, produced in partnership with the Classical Theatre of Harlem

ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL: COLLECTED STORIES

Annemarie Hagenaars and Judy Rosenblatt star in Donald Margulies’s Collected Stories at the Rochester Fringe Festival this month

Who: Judy Rosenblatt, Annemarie Hagenaars, Austin Pendleton
What: Livestreamed play as part of the Rochester Fringe Festival
Where: Rochester Fringe Festival online
When: September 15, 5:30, September 19, 5:30, September 21, 6:30, September 24, 7:30 (festival runs September 15-26), $5
Why: You didn’t really think a little ol’ thing like a pandemic lockdown would stop Austin Pendleton, did you? The ubiquitous eighty-year-old writer-actor-director-teacher extraordinaire has kept working throughout the Covid-19 crisis, starring in the Guild Hall benefit livestream of Joe Beck’s one-man show James Joyce: A Short Night’s Odyssey from No to Yes on Bloomsday; appearing in a short new one-man play by Craig Lucas, directed by Pam McKinnon, for the Homebound Project benefit series for No Kid Hungry; and directing and performing in a radio adaptation of Arthur Miller’s The American Clock for Steppenwolf.

Next up for Pendleton is directing Donald Margulies’s Pulitzer Prize finalist Collected Stories at the Rochester Fringe Festival. The two-character play debuted in 1996 at South Coast Rep and opened on Broadway in 2010. For the fringe, which is taking place virtually September 15-26 and consists of more than 170 presentations, Judy Rosenblatt will portray teacher and short story writer Ruth Steiner, and Annemarie Hagenaars will be her ambitious twenty-six-year-old student and protégée Lisa Morrison. “I am so grateful and lucky that I get to work with Austin and Judy,” Hagenaars told me via email. “I met them both online back in March at HB Studio. I haven’t met them both in real life yet. Isn’t that strange? Our whole relationship that we have built up over the past months happened solely on Zoom.”

Among the prestigious pairs who have previously played Steiner and Morrison are Kandis Chappell and Suzanne Cryer, Maria Tucci and Debra Messing, Uta Hagen and Lorca Simons, Linda Lavin and Samantha Mathis, Helen Mirren and Anne-Marie Duff, and Lavin and Sarah Paulson.

“I’m so excited to be working with Judy on this play,” Hagenaars, a Dutch actress who also has an MSc in physics and a BSc in astronomy, said about Rosenblatt (Woman Before a Glass, There or Here), who has studied and acted with Pendleton. All three live in New York City but have not been able to get together in person. “We have been meeting on Zoom and rehearsing for the past five months and we have gotten to know each other really well. Not only each other, but also our characters. Donald Margulies wrote a marvelous play and it’s a real treat to be working on these characters. Judy and I work very well together. We both have a Meisner background and we like exploring every single beat in the script. We are a great match.”

I let Hagenaars (Girl Gone: Or Before A League of Their Own, CasablancaBox) know that last summer I rode the Third Ave. bus a short way with Pendleton and we had a lovely chat about theater. I did not tell him that the bus kiosk where we met featured an ad for his play at the time, Aaron Posner’s brilliant Uncle Vanya reimagining Life Sucks, and that the rave at the top of the ad was mine.

“Austin is a fantastic director,“ Hagenaars explained. “He is very kind and he knows exactly how to work with actors and give them notes and feedback on their work. I guess because he also has a lot of experience as an actor he knows how he likes to be directed and reflects that in his work. He is always very supportive of our work but gives the necessary adjustments to us to guide us in a different direction. And his directions are truly enlightening for me. I can’t wait to meet him in real life and give him a big hug.”

The play will be streamed live September 15 and 19 at 5:30, September 21 at 6:30, and September 24 at 7:30; tickets are a mere five bucks.

“I’m having a blast and I feel so fortunate with Judy and Austin,” Hagenaars concluded. “This whole process has been totally worth it and we haven’t even gotten to the first performance yet, but I’m gonna enjoy every single minute.”

FASHION VICTIMS

Who: Kelsey Sheppard, Michael Potts, Alison Fraser
What: Two plays benefiting the Episcopal Actors’ Guild
Where: Zoom
When: Monday, September 14, $15-$100, 7:00
Why: The Episcopal Actors’ Guild is taking part in NY Fashion Week in a unique way; on September 14, it is presenting two new one-act plays about fashion, written by longtime Vogue writer and editor Richard Alleman. And like Fashion Week, it is happening online. First up is Bag Lady, in which an aspiring model from Ohio (Kelsey Sheppard) meets a wise old man (Michael Potts) in a Greenwich Village park. That will be followed by No Room at the Ritz, in which a legendary fashion editor (Alison Fraser) is unaware she might have lost her powerful job. Both works are directed by actor Anthony Newfield, who participated last month in a virtual reading of Alleman’s Adrift with Karen Archer, Glauco Araujo, and Fraser for Cape May Stage, which you can watch here. (Bag Lady and No Room at the Ritz are actually part of a trilogy that also includes #HeToo, about a male model who claims he has been sexually abused.) In a statement, Alleman said about his Vogue career, “It’s a crazy world. But I don’t regret one minute of my time there. If anything, I felt privileged. Of course, there was a dark side to it as well, but all that makes a great background for stories and plays.” The $15 and $25 tickets are sold out, but you can still get $50 and $100 tickets, which come with special benefits; for $100, you are invited to a postshow virtual cocktail party with the cast.

Founded in 1923 and based in the Church of the Transfiguration on East Twenty-Ninth St., the Episcopal Actors’ Guild “helps bridge the inevitable gaps that happen in performing arts careers so these artists can keep working in the career of their choice. During this unprecedented Covid-19 public health crisis, not only have all productions shut down but our performing arts community now finds their supplementary sources of income cut off as well. Your gift will ensure that the services of EAG remain available for our city’s amazing performers ‘of all faiths, and none’ during this difficult time.”

MISCAST20

Miscast20 features an exciting roster of theater stars performing just the wrong songs

Who: Norbert Leo Butz, Heather Headley, Rob McClure, Isaac Powell, Robert Fairchild, Joshua Henry, Ingrid Michaelson, Lauren Ridloff, Adrienne Warren, Beanie Feldstein, Leslie Odom Jr., Nicolette Robinson, Phillipa Soo, Jocelyn Bioh, Julianna Margulies, Raúl Esparza, Piper Perabo, Judith Light, Thomas Sadoski, Kenneth Cole, Laura Bell Bundy, Kerry Butler, Harvey Fierstein, Jenn Gambatese, Jackie Hoffman, Kamilah Marshall, Matthew Morrison, Corey Reynolds, Judine Somerville, Shayna Steele, Marissa Jaret Winokur
What: Virtual edition of MCC Theater’s annual Miscast gala
Where: MCC YouTube channel
When: Sunday, September 13, free (donations accepted), preshow 7:45, show 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 September 13, Miscast20 will go virtual, adding a geographic dimension to the wrongness. Admission is free, though donations will be accepted, with ten percent going to the Mental Health Coalition, which was founded earlier this year by fashion designer and activist Kenneth Cole; MHC’s mission “is to build a like-minded community who will work together to destigmatize all mental health conditions by changing the way people talk about, and care for, their mental health.”

Performing at the event, which will be broadcast for free on YouTube, are Norbert Leo Butz, Heather Headley, Rob McClure, Isaac Powell, Robert Fairchild, Joshua Henry, Ingrid Michaelson, Lauren Ridloff, Adrienne Warren, Beanie Feldstein, Leslie Odom Jr., Nicolette Robinson, and Phillipa Soo; Jocelyn Bioh, Julianna Margulies, Raúl Esparza, Piper Perabo, Judith Light, Thomas Sadoski, and Cole will serve as presenters. There will also be a special reunion appearance by the cast of Hairspray: Laura Bell Bundy, Kerry Butler, Harvey Fierstein, Jenn Gambatese, Jackie Hoffman, Kamilah Marshall, Matthew Morrison, Corey Reynolds, Judine Somerville, Shayna Steele, and Marissa Jaret Winokur. In addition, MCC is hosting an online auction where you can bid on such items as an original costume from A Chorus Line, coaching and mentor sessions with professionals, signed Playbills, wine and dinner tastings and getaways, and MCC memberships.