Who: James Monroe Iglehart, Rafael Casal, Adrienne Warren, James Monroe Iglehart, Danny Burstein, Nik Walker, Lesli Margherita, Rob McClure, Kathryn Allison, Jenni Barber, Erin Elizabeth Clemons, Fergie L. Philippe, Jawan M. Jackson, Brian Gonzales
What: Livestreamed benefit concert
Where: the Actors Fund Vimeo channel
When: Saturday, October 31, $4.99, 7:00
Why: “Year after year, it’s the same routine / And I grow so weary of the sound of screams / And I, Jack, the Pumpkin King / Have grown so tired of the same old thing,” Skeleton Jack sings in Tim Burton’s 1993 animated classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas. In this horrific 2020, everyone will be lamenting the holiday, with no parade in the Village, no club parties and in-person costume contests, no bobbing for apples, and no trick-or-treating; the city is destined to be a lonely place on October 31. But there’s a lot happening online, including a benefit concert featuring Broadway stars performing Danny Elfman’s music from Nightmare. The all-star cast includes Rafael Casal as Jack, Adrienne Warren as Sally, James Monroe Iglehart as Oogie Boogie, Danny Burstein as Santa, Nik Walker as Lock, Leslie Margherita as Shock, and Rob McClure as Barrel, joined by Kathryn Allison, Jenni Barber, Erin Elizabeth Clemons, Fergie L. Philippe, Jawan M. Jackson, and Brian Gonzales. Tickets are only $4.99, with proceeds going to the Actors Fund and the Lymphoma Research Foundation.
this week in theater
HOST INVITE
Who: Tarik Davis, Micah Sherman, Paul(i) Reese, Mark Stetson, Steve Capps, Greg Kotis, Suni Reyes, Kristin Stokes, Priya Patel, Don P. Hooper, Kelly Aucoin
What: Virtual one-act horror play
Where: The Tank online
When: Saturday, October 31, $10-$125, 7:00
Why: Actor, filmmaker, comedian, and improv teacher Tarik Davis grew up on a diet of sci-fi and horror films on VCR in the 1980s and ’90s, resulting in, among other things, his making the award-winning 2017 short Page One, about danger on a movie set involving a Black actor whose character gets killed on the first page of the script and a white man playing a uniformed police officer. Davis has now returned to the horror genre with Host Invite, a work-in-progress he will be presenting on Halloween night through the Tank’s online portal. “The people who make theater with or without an actual theater are stronger than this damn virus will ever be,” Davis, who appeared on Broadway in Freestyle Love Supreme, noted on Facebook. “Artists are stronger than the forces of racism, fascism, unregulated capitalism, homophobia, transphobia, constitutional originalism. If ever there was a moment to make theater it’s THIS moment.”
The cast and crew for Host Invite includes director Micah Sherman, tech designer Paul(i) Reese, Mark Stetson, Steve Capps, Greg Kotis, Suni Reyes, Kristin Stokes, Priya Patel, Page One director Don P. Hooper, and Kelly Aucoin of Billions and The Americans. Part of the Tank Artists-in-Residence Program, the sixty-minute virtual play deals with a Zoom call and a whistleblower from the multinational conglomerate Tangle. “I had an overwhelming urge to figure out a way to get all the wonderful people who made my debut on Broadway such a dream paid,” Davis continued. “Art is work, work deserves compensation. ‘I’ll write a play for Zoom,’ I thought. And now here we are.” Tickets are pay-what-you-can-can, from $10 to $125.
LIVE THEATER STREAM AND Q&A: THE FALL
Ronald Guttman stars as Jean-Baptiste Clamence in Albert Camus’s The Fall at FIAF
Who: Ronald Guttman, Dr. Stephen Petrus
What: One-man show and Q&A
Where: FIAF Vimeo
When: Through Wednesday, October 28 at 11:59 pm, free
Why: On October 1, Belgian actor Ronald Guttman took the stage at FIAF’s Tinker Auditorium and performed the solo work The Fall for an in-person audience of twenty-five, in addition to many more watching the livestream from wherever they are sheltering in place. The sixty-minute piece is an English-language adaptation by Alexis Lloyd of Albert Camus’s 1956 novel La Chute, consisting of monologues by Parisian ex-pat former lawyer Jean-Baptiste Clamence, examining the meaning of the life he has lived as he hangs out in a seedy Amsterdam dive bar in the red light district. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Clamence says at the beginning, speaking directly to the audience before explaining a moment later, “There’s only one thing simple about me; I don’t own anything. I used to. I used to be wealthy back in Paris.” For the next hour, he shares stories about Holland, modern man, fornication, mysterious laughter, memory, and shame, describing himself as a “judge-repentant,” walking across the stage with an elegiac look, wondering what could have been. (The show is directed by Didier Flamand.) FIAF has made the stream available for free through October 28 at midnight, including a twenty-minute Q&A with the New York-based Guttman, moderated by Dr. Stephen Petrus. Guttman has been performing The Fall in different iterations for more than twenty years, so his familiarity with the existential material makes this well worth watching before it disappears forever.
TYPHOID MARY
Who: Judith Ivey, T. R. Knight, Kate MacCluggage, Joe Morton, Frances Evans
What: Virtual readings of 2018 play
Where: Barrington Stage Company (BSC)
When: Friday, October 30, $25, 7:30, and Saturday, October 31, $25, 7:30
Why: In the spring of 2018, Pittsfield-based Barrington Stage Company (BSC) premiered Mark St. Germain’s Typhoid Mary, a play about Mary Mallon, the Irish cook who spread typhoid fever in New York. The company will now be hosting a prerecorded virtual reading of the work, on October 30 and 31 at 7:30, featuring two-time Tony winner Judith Ivey as the title character, T. R. Knight as Father Michael McKuen, Kate MacCluggage as Dr. Ann Saltzer, Emmy winner Joe Morton as Dr. William Mills, and Frances Evans reprising her role as Sarah; original director Matthew Penn is back as well. “As the pandemic continues into its eighth month in the US and an administration rails against the fact-based findings of doctors and medical advisors, it felt like an appropriate time to revisit Mark St. Germain’s play, where arguments between God and science take center stage,” BSC founder and artistic director Julianne Boyd said in a statement. During the Covid-19 crisis, BSC has previously presented virtual readings of Rob Ulin’s Judgment Day and Jeffrey Hatcher’s Three Viewings as well as St. Germain’s new work, Eleanor, with Harriet Harris as the first lady.
WAR OF THE WORLDS: THE 1938 RADIO SCRIPT
Who: Jason Tam, Arnie Burton, Morgan Siobhan Green, Khiry Walker, Dan Domingues, Courtney Thomas, Jonathan Silverstein
What: Livestreamed version of classic Orson Welles radio broadcast and talkback
Where: Keen Company Hear/Now
When: Friday, October 30, $25, 8:00
Why: On October 30, 1938, Raymond Rocello and His Orchestra were performing over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network from the Meridian Room at the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Manhattan when a news bulletin broke in, announcing that there had been explosions on Mars, with objects now heading toward Earth. Believing that a Martian invasion was under way, Americans were in a panic and took to the streets and highways. They would eventually find out that it was merely an audio adaptation of H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, with a script written by Howard Koch and directed by Orson Welles for his Mercury Theatre company. Eighty-two years later, with a pandemic and presidential election threatening the safety of the United States, New York’s Keen Company is presenting an all-star benefit livestream reading of the radio drama, featuring Jason Tam, Arnie Burton, Morgan Siobhan Green, Khiry Walker, Dan Domingues, and Courtney Thomas, with original music by Paul Brill. “Since the early days of the pandemic, I became increasingly obsessed with old time radio and the ways these early pioneers provoked their audience to use their imagination in new ways,” Keen artistic director Jonathan Silverstein said in a statement. “One of the greatest of these programs is Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds, which skillfully used ‘fake news’ to create real-life panic on October 30, 1938. I look forward to sharing this one-of-a-kind revival, which will not only entertain but also bring to light some eerily similar themes between its original broadcast and today.” Tickets for the one-night-only show, which will be followed by an interactive talkback, are $25, supporting such Keen initiatives as its Hear/Now audio programming, which will continue in February with Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number, starring Marsha Mason, in addition to works by Pearl Cleage, Kate Cortesi, finkle, James Anthony Tyler, and Melissa Li and Kit Yan. What better way to prepare for a virtual Halloween?
ARTISTS AND COMMUNITY: SOVEREIGNTY
Following its West Coast premiere at the Marin Theatre Company last fall, Sovereignty will make its NYC debut online (photo by Kevin Berne)
Who: DeLanna Studi, Gary Farmer, Derek Garza, Danforth Comins, Shyla Lefner, Enrico Nassi, Max Woertendyke, Daniel Pearce, Christopher Ryan Grant, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Laurie Woolery, more
What: New York online premiere and Q&As
Where: Theatre for a New Audience online
When: Friday, October 30, free with RSVP, 7:00, and Sunday, November 1, free with RSVP, 2:00
Why: Theatre for a New Audience debuts its new “Artists & Community” programming with the New York virtual premiere of Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Sovereignty. The story takes place in present-day Oklahoma, when the inherent jurisdiction of Cherokee Nation is being challenged in the Supreme Court, and 1835, when ancestors of the defense lawyers are deciding whether to accept Andrew Jackson’s Treaty of New Echota. The show debuted in January 2018 at DC’s Arena Stage and then ran last fall at Marin County Theatre in California. Directed by Laurie Woolery, the online TFANA production features DeLanna Studi as Sara Polson, Gary Farmer as Major Ridge/Roger Ridge Polson, Derek Garza as Elias/Waite, Danforth Comins as Andrew Jackson/Ben, Shyla Lefner as Sally (Sarah Bird Northrup)/Flora Ridge, Enrico Nassi as John Ridge, Max Woertendyke as Samuel Worcester/Mitch, Daniel Pearce as John Ross/Jim Ross, and Christopher Ryan Grant as White Chorus Man. There will be two live performances, on October 30 at 7:00 and November 1 at 2:00, each followed by a Q&A that puts the play, which has been further refined by Nagle (Sliver of a Full Moon, Manahatta), into context of 2020, including the July decision in the McGirt v. Oklahoma case.
SPOTLIGHT ON PLAYS FROM BROADWAY’S BEST SHOWS: RACE
Who: Ed O’Neill, David Alan Grier, Alicia Stith, Richard Thomas, Phylicia Rashad
What: Virtual benefit reading
Where: TodayTix
When: Thursday, October 29, $5, 8:00
Why: TodayTix, the discount entertainment site, is keeping up its mission to offer affordable theater with “Spotlight on Plays from Broadway’s Best Shows,” seven virtual plays featuring all-star casts, livestreaming for a mere five bucks (and available for viewing for seventy-two hours). The series kicked off October 14 with Gore Vidal’s the Best Man, with John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Vanessa Williams, Zachary Quinto, Phylicia Rashad, Reed Birney, and Elizabeth Ashley. Instead of being performed in little Zoom boxes, the actors were standing in regular-size rooms, not sitting in their kitchens or offices, surrounded on the computer screen by wallpaper that helped define the location. On October 21, Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth featured Lucas Hedges, Paul Mescal, and Grace Van Patten, directed by Lila Neugebauer. Next up for the newly redubbed TomorrowTix is Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet’s Race, which debuted at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 2009 with Kerry Washington, David Alan Grier, James Spader, and Richard Thomas; Grier and Thomas are back for the virtual reading of the work, which deals with a racially charged sexual assault, joined by Ed O’Neill and Alicia Stith, with Rashad directing.
The series continues November 12 with Patti LuPone, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Sophia Macy in Boston Marriage, written and directed by Mamet; November 19 with Alan Cumming, Constance Wu, Samira Wiley, K. Todd Freeman, and Ellen Burstyn in Uncle Vanya, narrated by Gabriel Ebert and directed by Danya Taymor; December 3 with Donald Margulies’s Time Stands Still, starring original cast members Laura Linney, Alicia Silverstone, Eric Bogosian, and Brian d’Arcy James, once again directed by Daniel Sullivan; and December 10 with Colman Domingo, S. Epatha Merkerson, Tamberla Perry, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Heather Simms, Laurie Metcalf, Carrie Coon, David Morse, Kristine Nielsen, and Annie McNamara in writer-director Robert O’Hara’s Barbecue. Proceeds from “Spotlight on Plays” benefit the Actor’s Fund.