this week in theater

THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS

More than forty singers will turn the Delacorte into a Pentecostal church in Gospel at Colonus (photo by Melissa Gaul)

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
September 4-9, free, 8:00
publictheater.org

Since 2013, the annual Shakespeare in the Park summer festival has concluded with a musical version of a classic tale, performed over Labor Day weekend following the two main productions. Adapted by either Todd Almond (The Tempest, The Odyssey) or Shaina Taub (The Winter’s Tale, As You Like It with Laurie Woolery) and under the leadership of Public Works founder and director Lear deBessonet, the shows feature top-tier actors (Laura Benanti, Christopher Fitzgerald, Lindsay Mendez, Brandon Victor Dixon, Norm Lewis) joined by some two hundred men, women, and children from community organizations across all five boroughs. This year, however, a previous Public Works production, Taub’s Twelfth Night, was brought back for a full run, so the Labor Day weekend spot is being filled by a revival of The Gospel at Colonus, a copresentation of the Public Theater and the Onassis Foundation USA playing September 4-9 at the Delacorte. The retelling of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, which takes place in between Oedipus Rex and Antigone, has been transported to a black Pentecostal church; the book and lyrics are by Mabou Mines founding coartistic director Lee Breuer, with a gospel score by Bob Telson. The show premiered in 1983 at BAM and went on to win an Obie for Best Musical; it was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist and earned Breuer a Tony nomination for Best Book. The exciting cast features the Blind Boys of Alabama as Oedipus, Rev. Dr. Earl F. Miller as the Messenger, the Legendary Soul Stirrers (Willie Rogers, Ben Odom, and Gene Stewart) as Choragos, Wren T. Brown as Theseus, Greta Oglesby as Antigone, Shari Addison as Ismene, Jay Caldwell as Creon, Kevin Davis as Polyneices, and J. D. Steele as the choir director, with Tina Fabrique, Jeff Young, Sam Butler Jr., Carolyn Johnson-White, and Josie Johnson in other key singing roles. Musical numbers include “Live Where You Can,” “Evil Kindness,” and “Stop; Do Not Go On!”

DAYS TO COME

The Mint is reviving Lillian Hellman’s Days to Come at Theatre Row (photo by Todd Cerveris)

The Mint Theater
The Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 6, $65
minttheater.org
www.theatrerow.org

Jonathan Bank and the Mint Theater have earned their well-deserved reputation by staging a long string of exquisitely rendered productions of long-forgotten plays by little-known playwrights in addition to lesser-known works by established names. Their latest show falls into the latter category, a superb adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s second play, Days to Come, which disastrously closed after only seven performances on Broadway in December 1936. Hellman revisited the play in 1971, making “small revisions and emendations,” and it is this version that the Mint is presenting in its revival, which opened Sunday night at the Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row. Coming in between two of Hellman’s biggest successes, The Children’s Hour in 1934 and The Little Foxes in 1939, Days to Come is a timely and relevant drama that recalls Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Sweat, about a factory town facing a dilemma in Pennsylvania, as well as the Mint’s previous show, Miles Malleson’s Conflict, which dealt with class and romance in England’s political arena.

Days to Come takes place in 1936 in a small Ohio town where the local brush factory workers, led by Thomas Firth (Chris Henry Coffey), are striking for higher wages while the third-generation owner, the gentle, soft-spoken Andrew Rodman (Larry Bull), considers bringing in notorious strike breaker Sam Wilkie (Dan Daily) and his scabs. On the other side, the coolheaded, ultra-serious Leo Whalen (Roderick Hill) has arrived to lead the charge toward unionization. Rodman and Firth are childhood friends who never thought things would come to this, refusing to accept that the relationship between owner and employee is not what it once was. “We make the best brushes in America,” Firth says, defending the quality and skill of the workers. “You tell me a way out, I’ll take it,” Rodman replies. “Seven years ago we were making a lot of money. I can’t stay in business losing it this way.” Rodman is supported by his longtime attorney, the shifty, insensitive Henry Ellicott (Ted Deasy), who appears to be a little too close with Rodman’s free-spirited wife, Julie (Janie Brookshire). Rodman’s sister, the daffy, wasp-tongued Cora (Mary Bacon), keeps getting in the way, saying what’s on her mind regardless of the harm it might cause. She is also suspicious of the Rodmans’ housekeeper, Hannah (Kim Martin-Cotton), who has been helping the strikers. When Wilkie moves his two henchmen, weaselly Mossie Dowd (Geoffrey Allen Murphy) and knuckle-cracking goon Joe Easter (Evan Zes), into the Rodman home to protect the family, tensions mount and serious trouble awaits.

Julie Rodman (Janie Brookshire), Leo Whalen (Roderick Hill), and Sam Wilkie (Dan Daily) face some desperate measures in Days to Come (photo by Todd Cerveris)

Most of the drama unfolds in the Rodman living room, meticulously designed by Harry Feiner with an austere desk and bar on one side, a curio cabinet with animal figurines on the other, and a garden in the back. (There is a surprise appearance of another room in the second act.) Former Pearl Theatre artistic director J. R. Sullivan’s sensibility is an excellent fit for the Mint, slowly building the tension as the characters develop and the story breathes with an innate elegance, which is echoed in Andrea Varga’s costumes, which further delineate class and social status. The terrific cast is led by Bull (The Coast of Utopia, Nora), who is a kind of everyman and no man at the same time; he might be the scion of a rich family, but he still considers himself a man of the people. He doesn’t flaunt his wealth and power, but he also shies away from making important decisions that have crucial impact on others. Brookshire (Mary Broome, The Mound Builders) is engaging as Andrew’s wife, who is intrigued by the mysterious Whelan. And Daily (The Dining Room, Stupid Fucking Bird) is infuriatingly good as the nefarious Wilkie, a Teflon scoundrel with no sense of decency and no conscience who is only after the almighty dollar, not caring who he breaks along the way.

Shortly before the play opened in 1936, Hellman said, “It’s the family I’m interested in principally. The strike and social manifestations are just backgrounds. It’s the story of innocent people on both sides who are drawn into conflict and events far beyond their comprehension. It’s the saga of a man who started something he cannot stop.” In 1971, she wrote, “It is crowded and over-wrought, but it is a good report of rich liberals in the 1930s, of a labor leader who saw through them, of a modern lost lady, and has in it a correct prediction of how conservative the American labor movement was to become.” Hellman was certainly prescient, both in 1936, as the Great Depression gave way to the Nazis and WWII, and in 1971, as the flower-power 1960s came to a close and the country voted for Richard Nixon. And this revival is being staged at another critical juncture in American history, when income inequality is greater than it’s ever been before, corporations are considered to be people, and many unions have lost their power. “There’s no hate here,” Whalen says cynically early on. “The boss loves the workers, and the workers — the worker [referring to Firth] — loves the boss. In other towns I’ve heard that called something else.” It’s a sad state of affairs, both then and now, but it makes for great theater.

GETTIN’ THE BAND BACK TOGETHER

Dani Franco (Kelli Barrett) and Mitch Papadopoulos (Mitchell Jarvis) look back at the best day of their life in Gettin’ the Band Back Together (photo by Joan Marcus)

Belasco Theatre
111 West 44th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Saturday through July 14, $49.50 – $169.50
gettinthebandbacktogether.com

This summer, two new musicals have been undeservingly anchored at the bottom of the Broadway box office, and just by coincidence, they are next-door neighbors on West Forty-Fourth St. One is Head Over Heels at the Hudson Theatre, the sensational reimagining of Sir Philip Sidney’s 1590 Elizabethan drama with Go-Go’s songs and a very funny LGBTQ sensibility. The other, at the Belasco, is the silly but fun, goofy yet charming Gettin’ the Band Back Together. Written by Tony-winning producer Ken Davenport (Kinky Boots, Groundhog Day) and the improv group the Grundleshotz and with music and lyrics by Mark Allen in his Broadway debut, the show might be too long and repetitive and overly self-deprecating, but it’s also a real crowd pleaser about second chances. To stir up enthusiasm, Davenport even takes the stage at the beginning, explaining that the show is based on real-life experiences, including his own time in a high school band. After being fired from his Wall Street broker job, forty-year-old Mitch Papadopoulos (Mitchell Jarvis) returns home to Sayreville, New Jersey, moving back in with his hot-MILF mother, Sharon (Marilu Henner). He encounters his former arch-nemesis, Tygen Billows (Brandon Williams), whose Mouthfeel lost to Mitch’s Juggernauts two decades before in the Battle of the Bands but has won the title every year since. Tygen has also gone on to own seventy-three percent of the local real estate, happily foreclosing on longtime residents while riding around in his sporty Pontiac Solstice and showing off his impressive chest hair. Tygen is even dating Mitch’s high school sweetheart, Dani Franco (Kelli Barrett).

Sharon (Marilu Henner) is ready to rock out with help from Michael “Sully” Sullivan (Paul Whitty) and Ricky Bling (Sawyer Nunes) in new musical at the Belasco (photo by Joan Marcus)

When Tygen threatens to foreclose on Sharon, Mitch decides that he is going to put the group back together to challenge Mouthfeel in the upcoming Battle of the Bands. So he rounds up bass player and high school math teacher Bart Vickers (Jay Klaitz), who sucks at math; keyboardist and dermatologist Dr. Rummesh “Robbie” Patel (Manu Narayan), whose parents have arranged for him to marry a woman he has never met; and drummer and cop Michael “Sully” Sullivan (Paul Whitty), who is studying for his detective exam and is unable to admit his affection for fellow cop Roxanne Velasco (Tamika Lawrence). “This can’t be my life,” they declare in unison. After adding high school guitarist/rapper Ricky Bling (Sawyer Nunes), they hit the garage and start practicing for the big day while also taking stock of who they are and what the future holds for them. “’Cause dreams don’t matter / when the rent is coming due / You play it safe / and let the fantasy slip through,” Mitch sings, determined to change his path.

Bart Vickers (Jay Klaitz) shares his unusual philosophy of life with Mitch Papadopoulos (Mitchell Jarvis) in Gettin’ the Band Back Together (photo by Joan Marcus)

Gleefully directed by Tony winner John Rando (On the Town, Urinetown) and playfully choreographed by Chris Bailey (Jerry Springer — the Opera, The Entertainer) on Derek McLane’s emphatically cheesy sets, Gettin’ the Band Back Together recalls the jukebox musical Rock of Ages, and in fact numerous Band cast members are veterans of that show. Jarvis (Rock of Ages, The Threepenny Opera) is relatively tame as Mitch, playing him more as a regular guy instead of a wannabe rock star, with mixed results, as he can’t really belt it out, and he can’t quite generate enough heat with Barrett (Rock of Ages, Wicked). But that is more than made up for by Williams, who in his Broadway bow chews everything up and spits it out with relish, reveling in Tygen’s supposed success, knowingly glancing at the audience, and participating in hysterical rapport with his right-hand man, Ritchie Lorenzo (Garth Kravits), who has a habit of saying too much about Tygen’s father when it comes to words of wisdom. “It’s like my dad used to say,” Tygen begins, with Ritchie continuing, “‘If you’re facing twenty to life, it’s OK to squeal,’” to which Tygen responds, “Yes. No. ‘There are two kinds of people in the world,’” leaving it at that. Whitty (Once, Amélie) is engaging as the doofy Sully, Klaitz (Rock of Ages, High Fidelity) is a riot as the shlubby Bart, who has had a crush on Mitch’s mom forever, and Henner (The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Chicago) is effective as the band’s main cheerleader. The cast also includes Noa Solorio as Dani’s teenage daughter, Billie; Becca Kötte (Rock of Ages) as Tawney Truebody, a Canadian who is new in town; Rob Marnell as the town drunk; and Ryan Duncan (Shrek, Bring It On) as Nick Styler, a lounge singer at the Peterpank Diner who brings down the house with the saddest, most pathetic and depressing song ever. “Baby, I’m beggin’ you for second chances / The kids all miss you too / So please forgive me and please don’t sue me,” he opines. Gettin’ the Band Back Together is not going to change your life, but it will remind you of those long-ago glory days when the things that mattered, what you thought would always matter, were very different.

PUSHKIN: A LIFE PLAYED OUT

Alexander Pushkin (Ian Lassiter) and his wife, Natalya (Jenny Leona), get mixed up in court intrigue in world premiere play by Jonathan Leaf (photo by Carol Rosegg)

The Black Box Theater, the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture
18 Bleecker St. at Elizabeth St.
Thursday – Sunday through August 25, $57
212-925-2812
www.sheencenter.org

Jonathan Leaf’s fifth new play in eighteen months looks at the last three years in the life of Russian literary giant Alexander Pushkin. The works of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Boris Pasternak, Vladimir Nabokov, Anton Chekhov, and Nicolai Gogol might get more attention in America, but Pushkin, who is perhaps most well known for two novels that were turned into operas, Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin — and whose 1830 drama Mozart and Salieri was the basis of Peter Shaffer’s award-winning play and film, Amadeus — is widely considered Russia’s greatest poet, and his literary influence continues around the world. Written in verse (which you might not realize at first), Pushkin: A Life Played Out takes place from 1834 to 1837, shortly after the November Uprising, as Pushkin (Ian Lassiter) meets weekly with Tsar Nicholas I (Gene Gillette) and the monarch’s ever-loyal right-hand man, Count Benkendorf (Lou Liberatore), who edit Pushkin’s poetry and prose to make sure it fits their political agenda, since they believe that his earlier writings helped foment that rebellion, even if Pushkin denies that was his intention. Meanwhile, the court, including the tsar, Benkendorf, and Dutch ambassador and heartthrob Count D’Anthes (Christopher Kelly), have become enamored of Pushkin’s wife, Natalya (Jenny Leona). At first, Natalya is more interested in seeing her two sisters, Alexandra (Lexi Lapp) and Katarina (Olivia Gilliatt), married off, but slowly she appears to be more receptive to the court’s romantic interest, as Pushkin, an atheist, grows more stern and desperate, gambling at cards, fearing becoming a cuckold, and trying to finish Eugene Onegin, which he has not shown to the tsar.

Tsar Nicholas I (Gene Gillette), Count Benkendorf (Lou Liberatore), and Count D’Anthes (Christopher Kelly) plot strategy in Pushkin: A Life Played Out (photo by Carol Rosegg)

He further angers Nicholas by insisting the serfs be freed. “We advocate reform by lawful means. But I’ll bring him to end it — serfdom — soon,” Pushkin promises. Baron Delvig (Daniel Petzold) wants Pushkin to write about the current war, explaining to Natalya, “I’m just suggesting we might see the deaths — a line or two depicting how things are. He has the crown’s affection and concern —,” but Natalya responds, “Obedience is best.” Pushkin adds, “I can’t write lines to circulate in secret. Those days are gone. And would it matter anyway? The idea that my poems spurred the revolt: You admit, it’s absurd?” Pushkin’s friends, Delvig, Prince Dolgorukov (Michael Earle Fajardo), and Gogol (Kyle Cameron), attempt to keep him out of danger, but Pushkin is a determined man who strongly feels that the only noble way out of certain situations is via the duel.

Alexander Pushkin (Ian Lassiter) offers solace to his maid-servant in new play at Sheen Center (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Presented by the american vicarious and running at the Sheen Center for Though & Culture through August 25, Pushkin: A Life Played Out is expertly directed by Christopher McElroen (Piedmont Blues: A Search for Salutation, Waiting for Godot in New Orleans) on Troy Hourie’s spare set, between four rows of audience seats on two sides. Elivia Bovenzi has designed exquisite costumes, from regal formal wear and military garb to serf outfits worn by crewmembers who move about various tables, chairs, and desks in between scenes, all underneath a square, sometimes lighted temporary ceiling featuring handwritten quotes from Pushkin. However, most of what Pushkin says and recites in the show was created by Leaf (The Caterers, The Germans in Paris); in fact, the play features only three instances where Pushkin’s actual words are used, including the line “They only love the dead,” which Pushkin says to Gogol. Leaf and McElroen toss in a bit of Othello, as Pushkin deals with jealousy and is demeaned because of his part-African heritage. Lassiter (War Horse, An Octoroon) is sturdy and bold as Pushkin, his spectacular muttonchops practically a character all their own as he gets deeper into trouble. The rest of the cast is strong as well, from Tony nominee Liberatore’s (Burn This, As Is) stalwart portrayal of Benkendorf and Lapp’s (Aligator, STET) heartfelt Alexandra, who sees her brother-in-law as a heroic figure, to Tracy Sallows (Angels in America, The Audience), who plays the Pushkins’ serving-maid, with two sons who are among Alexander’s serfs, and Madame Goncharova, Natalya’s mother who wants only the best for her three daughters, two roles that emphasize the difference between rich and poor, serfdom and the aristocracy, and even males and females in Russian society. “No one’s free. You think that?” Gogol says early on to Pushkin. Delvig adds, “In Russia? In what ways are you free, Gogol?” He turns to Pushkin and says, “A dare: prove on your birthday that you’re free.” Of course, there is no easy answer in this taut, solid production.

FREE SUMMER EVENTS: AUGUST 19-26

Mr. Gaga screening in Central Park will be preceded by performance by Gallim Dance and Gaga class on August 22

The free summer arts & culture season is under way, with dance, theater, music, art, film, and other special outdoor programs all across the city. Every week we will be recommending a handful of events. Keep watching twi-ny for more detailed highlights as well.

Sunday, August 19
Jazz Festival, Morris-Jumel Mansion, 65 Jumel Terrace, free, 2:00

Monday, August 20
Movies on the Waterfront: Black Panther (Ryan Coogler, 2018), Astoria Park Lawn, 8:30

Tuesday, August 21
Movies Under the Stars: Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen, 1952), Poe Park, Bronx, 8:30

Wednesday, August 22
SummerStage: Mr. Gaga (Tomer Heymann, 2017), preceded by a performance by Gallim Dance, with a preshow Gaga/people class taught by Omri Drumlevich (advance RSVP required), Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, 8:00

Thursday, August 23
Pier 17 Cinema Club: ESPN Films presents Basketball: A Love Story, the Rooftop at Pier 17, 89 South St., free with advance registration, 8:00

Friday, August 24
Shakespeare: Macbeth, Fridays and Saturdays through September 8, no tarps allowed, Bryant Park Picnics, Bryant Park, 7:00

Saturday, August 25
Summer Concert Series: Joan Caddell & the Midnight Choir, Karlus Trapp, with wine and beer tastings and lawn games, chairs and blankets encouraged, Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, Staten Island, 7:00

Sunday, August 26
Staten Island Philharmonic in High Rock Park: Woodwinds Ensemble, High Rock Gate, Staten Island, 3:00

HARLEM WEEK 2018: SUMMER IN THE CITY / HARLEM DAY

Ashleigh Smith will perform at this year’s annual “Harlem Day” festivities

West 135th St. between Malcolm X Blvd. & Frederick Douglass Blvd.
Saturday, August 18, and Sunday, August 19, free, 12 noon – 10:00 pm
Festival continues through August 25
harlemweek.com

The theme of the 2018 Harlem Week festival is “Women Transforming Our World: Past, Present & Future,” along with the subtheme “The Community within the Community,” saluting LGBTQ rights. The festivities continue August 18 with “Summer in the City” and August 19 with “Harlem Day,” two afternoons of a wide range of free special events along West 135th St. Saturday’s programs include Harlem Senior Citizens Synchronized Swimming, the NYC Children’s Festival in Howard Bennett Playground (with a parade, exhibits, games, arts & crafts, live music and dance, health testing, and sports clinics), the Harlem Week Higher Education Fair (with more than fifty colleges and universities), “Dancing in the Streets” with live performances and WBLS DJs, the International Vendors Village, the Fabulous Fashion Flava Show, the “Uptown Saturday Concert” (with Sarah Vaughan National Competition winner Ashleigh Smith, Bishop Marvin Sapp, Raheem Devaughn, and the Jeff Foxx Band), and the Imagenation Outdoor Film Festival in St. Nicholas Park. Sunday’s “Harlem Day” celebration features live performances on three stages, the International Vendors Village, the Upper Manhattan Auto Show, Our Health Village, the Upper Manhattan Small Business Expo & Fair, USTA Children’s Tennis Clinics, and the second day of the NYC Children’s Festival (with a Back to School theme).

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: TWELFTH NIGHT

Sir Toby Belch (Shuler Hensley) and Feste (Shaina Taub) argue over who is the worst in Twelfth Night at the Delacorte (photo by Joan Marcus)

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Tuesday-Sunday through August 19, free, 8:00
shakespeareinthepark.org

“Shall we set about some revels?” Sir Toby Belch asks in Twelfth Night. “I do delight in masques and revels, sometimes altogether,” responds Sir Andrew Aguecheek. There is much to revel in at the Public Works presentation of William Shakespeare’s 1601-2 comic romance, continuing at the Public Theater’s Delacorte through August 19. Since 2013, the annual Shakespeare in the Park summer festival has concluded with a musical version of a classic tale, performed over Labor Day weekend following the two main productions. Adapted by either Todd Almond (The Tempest, The Odyssey) or Shaina Taub (The Winter’s Tale, As You Like It with Laurie Woolery) and under the leadership of Public Works founder and director Lear deBessonet, the shows feature top-tier actors (Laura Benanti, Christopher Fitzgerald, Lindsay Mendez, Brandon Victor Dixon, Norm Lewis) joined by some two hundred men, women, and children from community organizations across all five boroughs. In 2016, Taub staged Twelfth Night, which is now back for an ecstatic full run in Central Park, spreading Joe Papp’s belief that theater is for all people. This production is totally committed to that vision; before the show starts, the entire audience is encouraged to hang out onstage and interact with members of the enormous cast and crew, playing checkers and other games, sitting for caricature sketches, eating free popcorn, singing with a small band, and posing for pictures in front of the set. (Yes, that man handing out glow sticks is Shuler Hensley, the Tony-winning star of Young Frankenstein, Les Misérables, and Oklahoma!)

Viola (Nikki M. James) and Duke Orsino (Ato Blankson-Wood) are desperate for love in musical adaptation of Shakespeare play (photo by Joan Marcus)

The ninety-minute show is a pure delight. After a shipwreck in which she believes her twin brother, Sebastian (Troy Anthony), must have been killed, Viola (Tony winner Nikki M. James) winds up in Illyria, where the grief-stricken Countess Olivia (Nanya-Akuki Goodrich) is mourning the loss of her own brother. Disguising herself as a man named Cesario, Viola gets a job working for the lovesick Duke Orsino (Ato Blankson-Wood), who has the hots for Olivia, but she wants no part of him. In fact, Olivia is attracted to Cesario, while Viola has fallen for Orsino. The absurdly proper steward Malvolio (Andrew Kober) is also in love with his ladyship, Olivia. Through it all, Olivia’s uncle, the drunken wastrel Sir Toby Belch (Hensley), and his bestie, Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Daniel Hall), flit about Illyria, getting drunk, making jokes, and causing trouble, including teaming up with Olivia’s gentlewoman, Maria (Lori Brown-Niang), to pull off a rather mean-spirited prank. As Sebastian and his friend, Antonio (Jonathan Jordan), enter Illyria, the mistaken identity, screwball love triangles, and general mayhem ratchet way up.

Malvolio (Andrew Kober) brings down the house with some vaudevillian shtick in Public Works presentation in Central Park (photo by Joan Marcus)

In addition to writing the music and lyrics for the show, which she conceived with Kwame Kwei-Armah (the new artistic director of the Young Vic), the Vermont-raised, New York City–based Taub (Old Hats; Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) introduces it, portrays Feste the fool, and leads the band at her piano. She’s sort of like a sprite, prancing about with her accordion; even when she accidentally tripped, she declared her instrument fine and continued the scene in excellent form, wearing a huge smile. The songs not only propel the plot and deepen character development but also relate wonderfully to Shakespeare’s language; the opening number is “Play On” (“If music be the food of love, play on!”), and Kober has a blast chewing up the showstoppers “Count Malvolio” (“I could be Count Malvolio! / Lord of the estate / Dressed in all the finest silk and master of my fate / I’d summon all my minions in a most majestic tone / Then once they all arrived / I’d tell them, ‘Leave me alone!’”) and “Greatness” (“If some are born great / And some achieve greatness / And some have greatness thrust upon them / Then I can’t help that I was born great! / I didn’t ask to be the best / Things would be much easier being average like the rest”). Feste kicks off “You’re the Worst,” in which Fabian (Patrick J. O’Hare), Sir Andrew, Sir Toby, and Feste roast one another (“You try too sincerely to please every crowd / You play the accordion, for crying out loud! / So let me tell you first / That you are the worst!”) before ganging up on poor Malvolio. The score also features “If You Were My Beloved,” “Is This Not Love?” and “Word on the Street,” as Taub and her band go from New Orleans jazz and pop to R&B and hip-hop.

The audience is encouraged to (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The audience is encouraged to mingle with cast and crew and play onstage before show (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

For Twelfth Night, the Public has partnered with Brownsville Recreation Center, Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education, Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, DreamYard Project, Fortune Society, Military Resilience Project, Children’s Aid Society, and Domestic Workers United, with cameos from people from COBU, Jambalaya Brass Band, the Love Show, New York Deaf Theatre, Ziranmen Kungfu Wushu Training Center, and even the US Post Office. Every participant, regardless of theatrical experience, is given equal billing both on the official poster and in the Playbill. Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis has taken the helm from Kwei-Armah, directing the rather large cast on Rachel Hauck’s welcoming, carnivalesque set, which is backed by the facade of Olivia and Orsino’s homes. Eustis and choreographer Lorin Latarro do a superb job, avoiding having everyone just run into each other everywhere, keeping the narrative flowing as more and more folks enter and leave. Andrea Hood has a field day with the costumes, ranging from Elizabethan dress to modern-day summer wear; at one early point the night I went, when Sebastian and Antonio approach the edge of the stage, nearly in the audience, a man and woman in blue nurse’s clothes slowly got up right in front of them and started pushing a man on an extended gurney-like contraption to the right. I closely watched their path, expecting them to go up the ramp and onto the stage, but it turned out that it must have been a real emergency as they headed out of the Delacorte with their patient. It was an unexpected turn of events, but it also proved how unpredictable this production is, where anything can happen. As Fabian says, “If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.”