this week in theater

I’LL SAY SHE IS

A suspicious Napoleon (Noah Diamond as Groucho) and Josephine (Melody Jane as Beauty) face their personal Waterloo in long-awaited Marx Brothers revival I’LL SAY SHE IS (photo by Stefan Timphus)

Connelly Theater
220 East Fourth St. between Aves. A & B
Thursday – Sunday through July 3, $35
212-352-3101
www.illsaysheis.com

In his opening night review of the Marx Brothers’ Broadway debut, I’ll Say She Is, at the Casino Theatre on May 19, 1924, Robert Benchley wrote in Life magazine, “Not since sin laid its heavy hand on our spirit have we laughed so loud and so offensively. . . . I’ll Say She Is is probably one of the worst revues ever staged, from the point of view of artistic merit and general deportment. And yet when the Marx Brothers appear, it becomes one of the best.” That pretty much sums up the show’s long-awaited revival, from the husband-and-wife team of Groucho impersonator Noah Diamond and director Amanda Sisk, running at the Connelly Theater in the East Village through July 2. The original production was followed in quick succession by The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers, both of which were made into classic films, but I’ll Say She Is languished in a kind of obscurity, never revived, while gaining some notoriety among fans as the “lost” Marx Brothers musical. But through an intense investigation of reviews, photographs, partial scripts, and various people’s personal recollections and writings, Diamond has resurrected the show in true DIY fashion. In the low-budget show, partially funded by fans from around the world, Diamond plays Groucho, with Seth Shelden as Harpo, Matt Roper as Chico, and Matt Walters as Zeppo, performing a comedy featuring original book and lyrics by political cartoonist Will B. Johnstone and music by Tom and Alexander Johnstone. The brothers are looking for jobs, so they bombard the office of theatrical agent Mr. Lee (Mark Weatherup Jr.) with their Al Jolson impressions. At first Mr. Lee wants them out of there, but he eventually shows the crazed quartet a front-page story that declares, “Society Woman Craves Excitement! Beautiful heiress promises her hand, heart, fortune to man who can give her a thrill. She is a victim of suppressed desires. She has complexes because she has never been in love.” So the boys head over to the mansion owned by “dignified dowager” Mrs. Ruby Mintworth (Kathy Biehl), who takes care of her downtrodden niece, Beauty (Melody Jane), who is seeking more out of life. And she certainly finds it when Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo show up. “I’m getting dizzy! / Put me in a tizzy. / Let’s get busy. / Gimme a thrill!” she sings. That’s all the brothers need to try to entertain Beauty — as well as, of course, the audience in the Connelly Theater.

Full-fledged I’LL SAY SHE IS returns to the stage after ninety-two-year absence (photo by Stefan Timphus)

First things first: No one can fully impersonate the Marx Brothers, four unique talents, each with his own special charm. But Diamond, Shelden (who learned how to play the harp for the role), Roper, and Walters do a more-than-acceptable job, even as they’re constrained by a relatively small stage that doesn’t let them fully cut loose. As expected, Diamond, who has been channeling Groucho since he was fourteen, succeeds the best, ripping off the mustachioed Marx Brother’s one-liners with infectious glee. “It’s very difficult to tell sometimes if you’re walking toward me or a horse is walking away,” he says to Chico. When they arrive at the mansion, Ruby (think Margaret Dumont) says, “I am not the woman you’re looking for,” to which Groucho instantly replies, “You can say that again.” He also regularly acknowledges the existence of the audience. When the “Four Horsemen of the Apoplexy” go into Beauty’s reception room, Groucho declares with a sense of the obvious, “Well, we are in the parlor!” then adds, “What a stupid remark that was.” And when he tosses away his toy sword and it slides off the stage, almost hitting someone in the first row, Diamond turns it into a funny running gag. As Benchley pointed out more than ninety years ago, the show stalls during the musical numbers, which not coincidentally happen to be when the brothers are usually offstage. Joe Diamond’s set re-creates the original, looking like a large, colorful birthday cake, with minor markers added as the story ventures into Central Park, the Financial District, an opium den, and a courtroom. But as with the 1924 production, the best scene takes place at Versailles, where Napoleon (Groucho/Diamond) suspects Josephine (Beauty/Jane) of cheating on him. “Napoleon, you said you’d be in Egypt tonight. You promised me the Pyramids and the Sphinx,” Josephine says. “That remains to be seen. As far as I’m concerned, the whole thing sphinx,” a suspicious Napoleon answers, later adding, “When I look into your eyes, I know that you are true to the French Army. I only hope it remains a standing army.” The French bit is a madcap romp with smart and crisp rapid-fire dialogue; it’s also one of the scenes for which Diamond, who just published the companion book Gimme a Thrill: The Story of I’ll Say She Is, the Lost Marx Brothers Musical, and How It Was Found, had the most amount of original material. Much of the rest of I’ll Say She Is feels cobbled together, albeit as a labor of love that will have you forgiving many of its shortcomings. (For example, they never can quite get the curtain to completely close, and there’s a barrier on one side of the stage that makes it difficult for the actors to enter and exit.) But if you take it all in stride, you’re likely to have a fun time at what a 1924 Philadelphia ad called “a fast action girlie musical-dancing-comedy combination.” Marx Brothers fans will enjoy a bonus, recognizing several skits and numerous jokes that ended up in the brothers’ films.

THE TOTAL BENT

The legendary Papa Joe Roy (Vondie Curtis Hall) preaches in Bluntgomery, Alabama, in THE TOTAL BENT (photo by Joan Marcus)

Anspacher Theater, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor P.
Tuesday through Sunday through June 26, $45
212-539-8500
publictheater.org

On March 3, 1968, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, “In the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make but by the total bent of our lives. In the final analysis, God knows that his children are weak and they are frail. In the final analysis, what God requires is that your heart is right. Salvation isn’t reaching the destination of absolute morality, but it’s being in the process and on the right road.” In Stew and Heidi Rodewald’s The Total Bent, the follow-up to their 2008 Broadway hit, Passing Strange, finding that right road is no easy journey. Set during the civil rights movement in 1960s “Bluntgomery, Alabama,” The Total Bent begins in a recording studio, where former R&B star and would-be faith healer Papa Joe Roy (Vondie Curtis Hall) is making what he hopes will be his crossover comeback album, with songs written by his son, Marty (Ato Blankson-Wood). “He forgave my sins / and then we made amends / And you know, that’s why, that’s why / that’s why he’s Jesus and you’re not, whitey,” Joe sings in the opening number. It immediately sets the audience, which is primarily Caucasian, on edge; Stew even makes note of the racial imbalance later in the show. Joe and Marty argue over the past and the future, the power of God and Satan, and the importance of protest. “My new songs rise to the beat of bus boycotter’s feet / Wanna take the struggle to church / And drag gospel into the street,” Marty says, while Joe points out his son’s propensity for high heels and Danny Kaye movies. And then Stew, playing guitar, chimes in, “Crossover: Black artists trying to win white audiences with a watered-down sound.” (The crack band, which includes Stew on guitar, Rodewald on bass, musical director Marty Beller on drums, John Blevins on trumpet, and Brad Mulholland on saxophone, hangs out at the back of Andrew Lieberman’s small, homey stage, relaxing on chairs, couches, and a church pew.) “Any real money in this protest shit?” Joe asks, to which Marty responds, “Jesus, Joe, it’s music to serve a liberation movement!” “So, no?” Joe replies. Joe then sings, “Shut up! / And get back on the bus / and take a back seat with a smile.” Joe’s legacy is displayed when two young men, Andrew (Jahi Kearse) and Abee (Curtis Wiley) — evoking a more contemporary kind of Amos and Andy — sneak into the recording studio twenty years later and almost melt in fear at the sight of Joe’s ghostly, glowing mic. “I can’t even bring myself to touch it,” Andrew says. “It’d be like touchin’ Tutankhamun’s wee-wee,” Abee adds, to which Andrew shoots back, “Must you always act a fool around white folks,” acknowledging the existence of the audience. (The show makes repeated references to itself as a musical theater production in front of a crowd, which gets particularly funny when a band member takes an actor’s line, much to the actor’s dismay, or when a character wonders aloud when the band had time to learn a song that was supposedly just created off the cuff.) Soon Andrew and Abee are backup singers for Marty, who has become an all-out rock star, strutting like the love child of Prince, James Brown, and Mick Jagger.

Marty (Ato Blankson-Wood) takes on his father during the civil rights era in THE TOTAL BENT (photo by Joan Marcus)

Passing Strange, which went from the Public Theater to Broadway to the big screen, made into a 2009 film by Spike Lee, was largely autobiographical. It would be interesting to know how much, if any, of The Total Bent, which has been extended at the Public’s Anspacher Theater through June 26, might be about Stew himself. Stew’s long-term band is called the Negro Problem, and, as a black man dealing with success in the white world, it could be easy to see his own inner conflicts in the characters of Joe and Marty. Regardless, however, The Total Bent is a lively, powerful show, with dynamite performances by Hall (Dreamgirls, Chicago Hope) and Blankson-Wood (Hair, Lysistrata Jones). David Cale provides comic relief as British music producer Byron Blackwell, while Kenny Brawner and Damian Lemar Hudson play a pair of deacons. Director Joanna Settle, who also helmed Stew and Rodewald’s Family Album, keeps everything more or less in line even as Stew’s book goes from esoteric to mystifying to impenetrable. Near the end of his March 3, 1968, speech, Dr. King said, “For you can stand up amid the storms. And I say it to you out of experience this morning, yes, I’ve seen the lightning flash. I’ve heard the thunder roll.” You can hear and see the thunder and lighting in The Total Bent, even if it doesn’t make complete sense. (Up next for Stew and Rodewald is Notes on a Native Song, a concert-novel tribute to James Baldwin.)

SHUFFLE ALONG

Savion Glover’s choreography powers SHUFFLE ALONG (photo © Julieta Cervantes)

SHUFFLE ALONG, OR THE MAKING OF THE MUSICAL SENSATION OF 1921 AND ALL THAT FOLLOWED
Music Box Theatre
239 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through October 9, $69 – $169
shufflealongbroadway.com

Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed has some of the best music and dancing you’ll find on Broadway right now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the book to support it. The show tells the story of the historic 1921 production of Shuffle Along, a landmark musical featuring music by Eubie Blake, lyrics by Noble Sissle, and book by vaudevillians F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles; Blake played the piano onstage (there was no orchestra pit at the 63rd Street Music Hall), while Sissle starred as detective Jack Penrose, Miller was mayoral candidate Steve Jenkins, and Lyles was candidate Sam Peck. The 1921 cast also included Lottie Gee as Jessie Williams, Gertrude Saunders as Ruth Little (later replaced by Florence Mills), and Adelaide Hall as a Jazz Jasmine in the large ensemble. George C. Wolfe (Jelly’s Last Jam, Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk) wrote the book for and directs the new show, which went through significant revisions during previews — at one point it was clocking in at more than three hours (the final version is two hours and forty minutes), and six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald (The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill), who plays Gee, had to take time off for illness. (It was later revealed that she is pregnant and will be going on maternity leave July 24, when Carolina Chocolate Drops singer Rhiannon Giddens will take over her role.)

Eubie Blake (Brandon Victor Dixon) plays piano for Lottie Gee (Audra McDonald) in SHUFFLE ALONG (photo © Julieta Cervantes)

Savion Glover’s choreography is energetic and exhilarating while incorporating multiple genres, as are Ann Roth’s dazzling period costumes. But the relating of the behind-the-scenes efforts of a group of black men and women trying to storm Broadway is trite and clichéd, dragging down the rest of the show. Brandon Victor Dixon (The Color Purple, Motown: The Musical) and Joshua Henry (Violet, The Scottsboro Boys) are fine as Blake and Sissle, respectively, but Brian Stokes Mitchell (Man of La Mancha, Kiss Me, Kate) as Miller tries his best with dry lines, and Billy Porter (Kinky Boots, Miss Saigon is miscast as Lyles. Brooks Ashmanskas (Something Rotten, Fame Becomes Me) is fun as all the white men. It all makes for way too bumpy a ride, despite such songs as “Broadway Blues,” “Affectionate Dan,” “Honeysuckle Time,” “Love Will Find a Way,” “You Got to Git the Gittin’ While the Gittin’s Good,” and “(I’m Just) Wild About Harry,” with rousing orchestrations and arrangements by Daryl Waters (After Midnight, Memphis). The Playbill comes with a bonus re-creation of the original program (and some extra information) from when the show opened May 23, 1921, at the 63rd Street Music Hall. Shuffle Along wants to be both historic and historical, instead losing its focus as it gamely attempts to meld substance with style.

DAPHNE’S DIVE

Quiara Alegría Hudes’s DAPHNE’S DIVE is set in a North Philly bar (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 12, $25 through June 5, $30-85 after
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Despite Donyale Werle’s wonderfully close, intimate set, Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Daphne’s Dive turns out to be a surprisingly cold and distant play. The story takes place in a North Philly bar over the course of seventeen years, beginning in 1994, when eleven-year-old Ruby (Orange Is the New Black’s Samira Wiley) literally falls into the lives of bar owner Daphne (Vanessa Aspillaga) and her small group of regulars: her fashionable older sister, Inez (Daphne Rubin-Vega); Inez’s husband, local businessman and emerging politician Acosta (Carlos Gomez); painter Pablo (Matt Saldivar); motorcycle wanderer Rey (Gordon Joseph Weiss); and bikini-clad activist Jenn (K. K. Moggie), inspired by real-life radical performance artist Kathy Change. The set is open on two sides, where the audience sits right on the edges, as if hanging out on the fringes of the small tavern. Each scene of the hundred-minute play begins with a spotlight on Ruby, who announces her age in order to identify how much time has passed; some things change, and some things don’t, but not enough of the story feels natural or authentic. Hudes, who won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Water by the Spoonful, the second play in her Iraq war trilogy (which began with Elliot, a Soldier’s Fugue and concluded with The Happiest Song Plays Last), and was nominated for a Tony for her book for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, can’t quite decide where Daphne’s Dive belongs in the canon of works set in bars, the characters hovering indeterminably somewhere between the lovable oddballs of Cheers and the luckless losers of The Iceman Cometh. You desperately want to become more involved in these characters’ lives, but they are never fully fleshed out by Hudes and director Thomas Kail, who has previously directed such wide-ranging productions as In the Heights, Lombardi, Dry Powder, and this little show called Hamilton. The music, however, by Grammy-winning pianist and composer Michel Camilo, is exceptional, nearly worth the price of admission all by itself. Daphne’s Dive is the first of three world premieres Hudes will write for the Signature Theatre in the next five years as part of the Residency Five program.

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Gillian Anderson is sensational as Blanche DuBois in Young Vic adaptation of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE at St. Ann’s (photo by Johan Persson)

St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Extended through June 4
718-254-8779
stannswarehouse.org

Gillian Anderson is sensational as Blanche DuBois in the American premiere of the Young Vic production of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, continuing through June 4 at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Dumbo. Director Benedict Andrews (The War of the Roses, The Return of Ulysses) sets the story in contemporary times, taking place on and around Magda Willi’s long, rectangular platform that shows a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen and rotates throughout the play, giving audience members, seated on all four sides of the theater, ever-changing views. Things went bad for Blanche in Mississippi, so she arrives in the sweltering hot French Quarter in New Orleans to stay with her younger sister, Stella (Vanessa Kirby), and her husband, Stanley Kowalski (Ben Foster), until she gets back on her feet. But Blanche’s troubles are deeply psychological, preventing her from facing reality, instead living in a dark fantasy world that she walks through almost like a ghost. Anderson brings a haunting yet beautiful maturity to the role, whether downing shots, flirting with men, or sitting on the toilet. She makes the part her own from the very beginning; for more than three hours, we forget about Vivien Leigh, Jessica Tandy, Cate Blanchett, Jessica Lange, Blythe Danner, Ann-Margret, Amy Ryan, Rosemary Harris, and other previous Blanches as Anderson sweeps us away in her character’s damaged mind. Kirby (The Acid Test, Women Beware Women) is excellent as Blanche’s hot younger sister, who has settled into brutal, passionate, lower-class domestic life. Foster (Orphans, Kill Your Darlings) is a different kind of Stanley, showing more vulnerability as he walks around in flip-flops, less physically imposing as previous portrayers, who include Marlon Brando, Alec Baldwin, Hume Cronyn, Treat Williams, Aidan Quinn, John C. Reilly, and Blair Underwood.

Corey Johnson (A Prayer for My Daughter, Death of a Salesman) is almost too gentle as Mitch, Stanley’s friend who falls for Blanche. Andrews’s modernization not only features such somewhat contemporary devices as a cordless telephone but also songs by Cat Power, PJ Harvey, and Chris Isaak, with Alex Baranowski’s loud, thumping EDM exploding in between scenes. Winner of the Olivier Award for Best Revival, this Streetcar brings new insight to an oft-told tale, right up to the heartbreaking conclusion. “No one was as tender and trusting as she was,” Stella tells Stanley at one point. “And people like you forced her to change.” (For a short film directed by Anderson for the Young Vic that serves as a kind of prequel to Streetcar, go here, but be prepared for losing some of that tender mystery that makes Blanche such a fascinating character.)

THE JUDAS KISS

Oscar Wilde (Rupert Everett) contemplates what might be his last night of freedom in THE JUDAS KISS (photo by Richard Termine)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 12, $30-$125
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

David Hare’s The Judas Kiss is a tale of two plays in more ways than one. The inaugural production in 1998 in London and on Broadway, starring Liam Neeson as Oscar Wilde, was such a critical flop that even Hare (Plenty, Skylight) himself admitted it was a failure. However, seeking to gain support for a film he wrote about Wilde, English actor Rupert Everett helped mount a 2012 revival of The Judas Kiss that has been garnering significantly better reviews as it tours the UK and Canada and has now settled in for a one-month run at the BAM Harvey through June 12. Everett (My Best Friend’s Wedding, An Ideal Husband) is triumphant as Wilde, but the disconnect between the first and second acts still prevents the play from being a complete success. (Interestingly, Hare made no changes to the script for this revival.) The Judas Kiss opens on April 5, 1895, at the Cadogan Hotel, as the staff, randy hotel employees Arthur Wellesley (Elliot Balchin) and Phoebe Cane (Jessie Hills) under the guidance of the staid and proper valet Sandy Moffat (Alister Cameron), prepares for the arrival of Wilde, who is being tried for “acts of gross indecency” by the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas (Charlie Rowe), affectionately known as Bosie. Wilde’s manager and former lover, Robert Ross (Cal MacAninch) soon arrives and the conflict is set in motion: Ross wants Wilde to leave England immediately in order to escape prosecution, while Bosie wants him to stay and fight the charges, as a way for the young lad to stand up to his father. “It appears that the whole of London is fleeing. I looked from my coach. Every invert in the metropolitan area is now packing his bags and heading for France,” Wilde says. “It is a veritable mass migration. I’d never imagined diaspora could be on this scale. The takings at certain fashionable restaurants will tonight be counted in pennies. At a single stroke, the opera will be stone-dead as an art form.” But before choosing his course of action, Wilde explains what is most important. “Let us be realistic. In the name of our common humanity, let us get our priorities straight. Let us pause, let us make the seminal decision: it seems that I still have time for my lunch.” Slapstick comedy mixes with graver matters of freedom and love as Ross and Bosie argue over Wilde’s fate and a phalanx of reporters attempts to storm the hotel. Through it all, Wilde is both witty and effete, courteous and haughty, but time is clearly running out on him, as evidenced by the clock in the room, which has no hands.

Bosie (Charlie Rowe) and Oscar Wilde (Rupert Everett) face some harsh realities in David Hare revival at BAM (photo by Richard Termine)

The second act is dreary and dour, set two years later in a ramshackle hotel in Naples. Recently released from Reading Gaol, Wilde looks decades older, barely able to move out of his chair. He is joined by Bosie and Bosie’s latest lover, local fisherman Galileo Masconi (Tom Colley), who casually walks around completely naked before sitting on the floor and eating a sugared bun still au naturel. “Oh, it’s wonderful, it’s like a child, isn’t it?” Wilde says, staring lustily at Galileo. “Who said one can never go back? If only I could go back to that! If I ever was like that! Like an animal, like a cat. Truly, one should throw him a ball of string. Look at the little fellow.” But there is no going back for Wilde, now a sad, nearly penniless recluse, wasting away in Italy. “There is no morality in what is called morality; there is no sense in what is called sense; and least of all is there meaning in what is held to be meaning,” he tells Bosie. Director Neil Armfield (Diary of a Madman, Exit the King) can’t quite find the right balance between the engaging first act and the more stationary second act, relying too much on Everett’s towering presence even as he shrinks away. But Everett’s performance makes this Judas Kiss more than worthy; he plays the role with relish and panache, breathing exciting life into a familiar figure, bringing humanity to an often caricatured personality. (In preparing for the role, he even slept in Wilde’s old room at the Cadogan.) You can’t take your eyes off him, whether he’s enjoying champagne and lobster, trapped in his chair, or seen in an enveloping shadow on the wall. (The lighting is by Rick Fisher, sets by Dale Ferguson.) Alan John’s soundtrack is relatively unnecessary; at times it was so soft and distant that it appeared to be a cell phone going off in the audience. But the play remains as relevant as ever, with the continuing controversies and bullying over gay marriage and LGBTQ discrimination. “Just a century ago a man — Oscar — could be imprisoned and ruined — killed off, basically — simply for being gay,” Everett wrote in a recent column for the New York Times, referring to the legalization of same-sex marriage in England. “But tonight a homosexual stood on equal ground with the rest of society, and I was, quite unexpectedly, extremely moved.” So it’s a genuine treat to have Wilde, in the personage of Everett, back at BAM, where, in 1882 in the institution’s original home on Montague St., Wilde spoke as part of his North American lecture tour.

FREE SUMMER THEATER 2016

You can catch New York Classical rehearsing MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM in Central Park

It might be hard to top the naked version of The Tempest that was recently staged in Central Park by the Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society, but New York Classical Theatre, Smith Street Stage, Hudson Warehouse, the Manhattan Shakespeare Project, Hip to Hip, the Public Theater, River to River, SummerStage, and others will be presenting clothed works in honor of the four hundredth anniversary of the death of the Bard. Don’t miss out on this city tradition or, as Will wrote in Sonnet 65: “O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out / Against the wreckful siege of batt’ring days, / When rocks impregnable are not so stout, / Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?” (Keep watching this space as more shows are announced.)

Daily through May 30
New York Classical Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, open rehearsals, Central Park, 103rd St. & Central Park West, 12 noon – 5:30 pm

Tuesday, May 24
through
Sunday, June 26
Shakespeare in the Park: The Taming of the Shrew, starring JCandy Buckley, Donna Lynne Champlin, Morgan Everitt, Rosa Gilmore, Judy Gold, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Cush Jumbo, Teresa Avia Lim, Janet McTeer, Adrienne C. Moore, Anne L. Nathan, Gayle Rankin, Pearl Rhein, Leenya Rideout, Jackie Sanders, Stacey Sargeant, and Natalie Woolams-Torres, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, Delacorte Theater, Central Park, 8:00

Tuesday, May 31
through
Sunday, June 5
New York Classical Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Central Park, 103rd St. & Central Park West, 7:00

Thursday, June 2
through
Sunday, June 5
Hudson Warehouse: Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Tuesday, June 7
through
Sunday, June 12
Manhattan Shakespeare Project: Al’ukhraa: A Study in Othello, directed by Sarah Eismann, Astoria Park, 6:00

Wednesday, June 8
through
Saturday, June 11
Inwood Shakespeare Festival: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Moose Hall Theatre Company, directed by Ted Minos, Inwood Hill Park Peninsula, 7:30

Wednesday, June 8
through
Sunday, June 12
Shakespeare in Carroll Park: The Tempest, Smith Street Stage, directed by Beth Ann Hopkins, bring your own seating, Carroll Park, 7:30

Thursday, June 9
through
Sunday, June 12
New York Classical Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Central Park, 103rd St. & Central Park West, 7:00

Thursday, June 9
through
Sunday, June 12
Hudson Warehouse: Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Wednesday, June 15
through
Saturday, June 18
Inwood Shakespeare Festival: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Moose Hall Theatre Company, directed by Ted Minos, Inwood Hill Park Peninsula, 7:30

Wednesday, June 15
through
Sunday, June 19
Shakespeare in Carroll Park: The Tempest, Smith Street Stage, directed by Beth Ann Hopkins, bring your own seating, Carroll Park, 7:30

Kaneza Schaal will GO FORTH on Governors Island in June (photo by Maria Baranova)

Thursday, June 16
through
Sunday, June 19
River to River Festival: Go Forth, by Kaneza Schaal, Arts Center, Governors Island, Building 110, advance RSVP required, 2:30 or 4:30

Thursday, June 16
through
Sunday, June 19
New York Classical Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Central Park, 103rd St. & Central Park West, 7:00

Thursday, June 16
through
Sunday, June 19
Hudson Warehouse: Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Wednesday, June 22
through
Saturday, June 25
Inwood Shakespeare Festival: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Moose Hall Theatre Company, directed by Ted Minos, Inwood Hill Park Peninsula, 7:30

Wednesday, June 22
through
Sunday, June 26
Shakespeare in Carroll Park: The Tempest, Smith Street Stage, directed by Beth Ann Hopkins, bring your own seating, Carroll Park, 7:30

Thursday, June 23
through
Friday, June 24
Manhattan Shakespeare Project: Al’ukhraa: A Study in Othello, directed by Sarah Eismann, Summit Rock, Central Park, 6:00

Thursday, June 23
through
Sunday, June 26
Hudson Warehouse: Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Thursday, June 23
through
Sunday, June 26
New York Classical Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Central Park, 103rd St. & Central Park West, 7:00

Saturday, June 25
River to River Festival: Open Studios with Kaneza Schaal, Arts Center, Governors Island, Building 110, advance RSVP required, 2:30

Saturday, June 25
and
Sunday, June 26
Manhattan Shakespeare Project: Al’ukhraa: A Study in Othello, directed by Sarah Eismann, Morningside Park, 6:00

Wednesday, June 29
through
Saturday, July 2
New York Classical Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nelson A. Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City, 7:00

Wednesday, June 29
through
Sunday, July 17
New York Classical Theatre: The Winter’s Tale, open rehearsals, meet at Castle Clinton, Battery Park, 12 noon – 5:30 pm

Thursday, June 30
through
Sunday, July 3
Hudson Warehouse: Lysistrata: “Let’s Make America Great Again,” by Aristophanes, adapted and directed by Susane Lee, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

a study in othello

Wednesday, July 6
through
Sunday, July 10
New York Classical Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Prospect Park, 7:00

Thursday, July 7
Broadway in Bryant Park (Wicked, Stomp, The Color Purple, Matilda), Bryant Park lawn, 12:30

Thursday, July 7
through
Sunday, July 10
Manhattan Shakespeare Project: Al’ukhraa: A Study in Othello, directed by Sarah Eismann, Summit Rock, Central Park, 6:00

Thursday, July 7
through
Sunday, July 10
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Drilling Company, directed by Cathy Curtiss, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St., 8:00

Thursday, July 7
through
Sunday, July 10
Hudson Warehouse: Lysistrata: “Let’s Make America Great Again,” by Aristophanes, adapted and directed by Susane Lee, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Friday, July 8
through
Sunday, July 31 (excluding Mondays)
SummerStage: The Classical Theatre of Harlem presents Macbeth, directed by Carl Cofield and starring Ty Jones, Marcus Garvey Park, 8:00 (Fridays 8:30)

Tuesday, July 12
Thursday, July 14
through
Sunday, July 17
New York Classical Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Carl Schurz Park, 7:00

Thursday, July 14
Broadway in Bryant Park (Chicago, The Fantastiks, Motown, Finding Neverland), Bryant Park lawn, 12:30

Thursday, July 14
through
Sunday, July 17
Manhattan Shakespeare Project: Al’ukhraa: A Study in Othello, directed by Sarah Eismann, Morningside Park, 6:00

Thursday, July 14
through
Sunday, July 17
Hudson Warehouse: Lysistrata: “Let’s Make America Great Again,” by Aristophanes, adapted and directed by Susane Lee, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Thursday, July 14
through
Sunday, July 17
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Drilling Company, directed by Cathy Curtiss, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St., 8:00

Smith Street Stage will present THE TEMPEST in Carroll Park (photo by Chris Montgomery)

Monday, July 18
through
Sunday, August 7 (excluding Thursdays)
New York Classical Theatre: The Winter’s Tale, meet at Castle Clinton, Battery Park, 7:00

Tuesday, July 19
through
Sunday, August 14
Shakespeare in the Park: Troilus and Cressida, directed by Daniel Sullivan, Delacorte Theater, Central Park, 8:00

Thursday, July 21
Broadway in Bryant Park (Fiddler on the Roof, Les Miserables, Fuerza Bruta, The Marvelous Wonderettes, Paramour), Bryant Park lawn, 12:30

Thursday, July 21
through
Sunday, July 24
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Drilling Company, directed by Cathy Curtiss, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St., 8:00

Thursday, July 21
through
Sunday, July 24
Hudson Warehouse: Lysistrata: “Let’s Make America Great Again,” by Aristophanes, adapted and directed by Susane Lee, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Wednesday, July 27
through
Sunday, August 28
Hip to Hip Theatre Company: As You Like It and Julius Caesar, performed in repertory in parks across the city, including Agawam Park, Crocheron Park, Cunningham Park, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Fort Greene Park, Gantry Plaza State Park, Harlem Meer, Socrates Sculpture Park, Sunnyside Gardens Park, and Van Cortlandt Park, preceded by Kids & the Classics, Wednesday – Sunday at different times

Thursday, July 28
Broadway in Bryant Park (Waitress, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, Kinky Boots, Fun Home, Himself & Nora), Bryant Park lawn, 12:30

Thursday, July 28
through
Sunday, July 31
Hudson Warehouse: Othello, directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Thursday, July 28
through
Sunday, July 31
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: The Merchant of Venice, the Drilling Company, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St., 8:00

Thursday, August 4
Broadway in Bryant Park (Beautiful, An American in Paris, Avenue Q, Holiday Inn), Bryant Park lawn, 12:30

Thursday, August 4
through
Sunday, August 7
Hudson Warehouse: Othello, directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Thursday, August 4
through
Sunday, August 7
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: The Merchant of Venice, the Drilling Company, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St., 8:00

Monday, August 8
through
Sunday, August 14 (excluding Thursdays)
New York Classical Theatre: The Winter’s Tale, meet at Bargemusic on Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park, 7:00

Thursday, August 11
Broadway in Bryant Park (Phantom of the Opera, Something Rotten!, Cagney, Ruthless!), Bryant Park lawn, 12:30

Thursday, August 11
through
Sunday, August 14
Hudson Warehouse: Othello, directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Thursday, August 11
through
Sunday, August 14
Shakespeare in the Parking Lot: The Merchant of Venice, the Drilling Company, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, 114 Norfolk St., 8:00

Thursday, August 18
through
Sunday, August 21
Hudson Warehouse: Othello, directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Park, 6:30

Wednesday, August 31
SummerStage: Chicago the Musical: 20th Anniversary Concert, Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, 8:0