this week in theater

YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR: THE CLEVER CHEMIST MATTER

Who: Santino Fontana, George Abud, Ali Ewoldt, Ted Koch, Susan Malloy, John-Andrew Morrison, Steven Ratazzi, Jay Russell
What: Keen Company all-star benefit audio drama
Where: Keen Company website
When: Thursday, June 10, pay-what-you-can ($1-$21), 7:00 (available through June 14 at 7:00)
Why: Keen Company concludes its excellent twenty-first season, chock-full of outstanding livestreamed programs, with the audio play Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar: The Clever Chemist Matter, one of 809 episodes starring insurance adjuster Johnny Dollar produced by CBS Radio from February 1942 to September 1962. Originally aired on March 17, 1957, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar: The Clever Chemist Matter, written and directed by Jack Johnstone, involves murder and blinding after an insurance policy is changed. The title character was voiced by Bob Bailey; Dick Powell, Charles Russell, Edmond O’Brien, John Lund, Gerald Mohr, Bob Readick, and Mandel Kramer also played “the man with the action-packed expense account” in this popular series.

Keen’s forty-minute show will feature Tony, Drama Desk, and Obie winner Santino Fontana as Dollar; the supporting cast consists of George Abud, Ali Ewoldt, Ted Koch, Susan Malloy, John-Andrew Morrison, Steven Ratazzi, and Jay Russell. The play is directed by Keen artistic director Jonathan Silverstein, with live foley effects by Nick Abeel, original music by Billy Recce, and audio engineering by Garrett Schultz. “Throughout the past year, we have been revisiting some of the most iconic titles from the Golden Age of Radio through starry benefit broadcasts. For our last fundraising event of the series, we are thrilled to present one of the most successful serial mystery programs, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar,” Silverstein said in a statement. “It’s been an utter pleasure and honor to delve into the fascinating history of radio drama while working alongside some of the best talents in the theater.” Keen’s previous “Hear/Now” audio broadcasts include Kate Cortesi’s Radio Nowhere, James Anthony Tyler’s All We Need Is Us, Pearl Cleage’s Digging in the Dark, Howard Koch’s War of the Worlds, and Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number. The benefit reading will premiere June 10 at 7:00, followed by a live talkback with members of the cast and crew; the presentation will be available online through June 14 at 7:00.

HERDING CATS

Besties Justine (Sophie Melville) and Michael (Jassa Ahluwalia) experience a little calm before the storm in transcontinental Herding Cats (photo by Danny Kaan)

HERDING CATS
Soho Theatre / Stellar
June 7-21, $19
herdingcatsplay.com
sohotheatre.com

A battle over power and control is at the center of Soho Theatre’s two-continent production of Lucinda Coxon’s potent three-character play, Herding Cats. Originally performed in Bath in 2010, the work has been brought back during the pandemic in a stirring version that was presented live in London to a limited audience May 20–22, streamed around the world, and now made available as a recording June 7–21. The play features Jassa Ahluwalia and Drama Desk nominee Sophie Melville onstage in England, with Greg Germann in Los Angeles, projected on a large screen at the back. But it’s not just a gimmick; it makes sense within the context of the poignant story.

The talky Justine (Melville) and the quieter Michael (Ahluwalia) are friends and roommates, a pair of millennial besties trying to get by in difficult times. She is having #MeToo issues with her boss, while Michael is an online chat host who might be growing a little too close to one of his clients, an American businessman named Saddo (Germann) who prefers he speak to him like a little girl and call him “Daddy.” Hovering over Michael on the large screen, Saddo opines, “Oh, I miss you all the time. I miss you hard. I miss you so I ache all over, sweetheart, and I don’t know what I can do to feel better.” Michael responds, “Do you have the panties?”

Meanwhile, Justine cannot gain the footing she believes she has earned at work. “That’s all I do anyway these days, pander to fucking stupid weird men who can’t get it up on their own, even if it’s metaphorically speaking,” she complains. “Your way at least there’s some dignity to it. It’s out in the fucking open. I should do what you do.” All three characters’ situations threaten to run out of control as they seek different forms of companionship and dependency that might not be the best for any of them.

Michael (Jassa Ahluwalia) and Saddo (Greg Germann) have a unique relationship in Herding Cats (photo by Danny Kaan)

Produced by OHenry Productions and Stellar, Herding Cats is directed by Anthony Banks (The Girl on the Train, Raz), who helmed the original production eleven years ago. Banks makes it feel as if Coxon’s (The Danish Girl, The Shoemaker’s Wife) play was written during the Covid-19 crisis, organically incorporating aspects of social distancing and physical and psychological isolation. Be sure to log on early to watch as the play gets ready to start; you can see a few heads in the seats; it is performed in front of a limited audience, and the wait reminds you of what it is like to be in a theater, the excitement building before the actors take the stage. Also, beaming in Germann from California stresses the distance and disconnectedness that have been palpable since March 2020. Susan Kulkarni designed the costumes (Justine’s are a hoot), with lighting by Howard Hudson, video by Andrzej Goulding, sets by Grace Smart, and sound by Ben and Max Ringham.

Drama Desk nominee Melville (Pops, Iphigenia in Splott) is appealing as Justine, facing impending disaster as she cannot stop tumbling deeper down the rabbit hole. Ahluwalia (Unforgotten, Peaky Blinders) is touching as Michael, who is not as comfortable in his life as he might think he is. And Germann (Grey’s Anatomy, Assassins) is creepy good as Saddo, who is not necessarily the pervert he initially comes off as. This revival is of the moment, dealing with personal and professional ills that have plagued all of us in some way over the last fifteen months. “Dark when I leave in the fucking . . . still dark when I get home,” Justine tells Michael. “In between: herding cats. And there still isn’t time for anything. It’s still fucking mental all day. And then I get back here and I haven’t got time to do even the laundry. I haven’t even got any clean fucking clothes. I’ve run out of knickers completely — it’s like they just vanish.” You’ll know just what she means.

NEW FEDERAL THEATRE: ANNUAL NTOZAKE SHANGE READINGS SERIES

Who: Joyce Sylvester, Tucker Smallwood, Count Stovall, Paris Crayton III, Elain Graham, more
What: Annual reading series
Where: New Federal Theatre Zoom
When: June 8, 15, and 22, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: On June 30, New Federal Theatre founder Woodie King Jr. will be retiring after an illustrious and influential fifty-year career. He started the company in 1970 with a “mission to integrate artists of color and women into the mainstream of American theater by training artists for the profession, and by presenting plays by writers of color and women to integrated, multicultural audiences — plays which evoke the truth through beautiful and artistic re-creations of ourselves.” One of the last programs he will oversee is the annual Ntozake Shange Readings Series, honoring the late playwright and poet whose Obie-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf was staged at NFT in 1976 before transferring to the Public.

The series will be held on three successive Monday nights at 7:00 over Zoom. On June 8, Joyce Sylvester and Tucker Smallwood will read Mustapha Matura’s A Small World, directed by Seret Scott, about two Jamaicans who meet after twenty years apart; on June 15, Count Stovall, Paris Crayton III, and Elain Graham perform S. Shephard-Massat’s A Soft Escape, directed by John Scutchins, about childhood friends who are now old and facing the end of their lives; and on June 22, NFT will present Larry Muhammad’s Jimmy’s Last Night at Mikell’s, directed by A. Dean Irby, about James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, and Miles Davis together at a jazz club, with the cast to be announced. All three shows will take place one time only over Zoom; admission is free with RSVP.

THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE’S ANNUAL SPRING GALA

Who: Harry Lennix, Arin Arbus, Anne Bogart, Bill Camp, Will Eno, Simon Godwin, Kathryn Hunter, Taibi Magar, John Douglas Thompson, Awoye Timpo, more
What: Theatre for a New Audience annual spring gala
Where: TFANA online
When: Monday, June 7, free with RSVP, VIP reception 6:30, streaming program 7:30
Why: Theatre for a New Audience was founded by Jeffrey Horowitz in 1979, but it was the company’s 2013 move to its new home in Fort Greene, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, that rocketed it to a new level. On June 7, TFANA’s annual spring gala will be held live online, celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday; the Bard turned 457 in April. “We are celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday 457 years on because Shakespeare is, of course, never over,” Horowitz said in a statement. “A production of Hamlet ends, but the play doesn’t. Shakespeare’s work keeps getting reinvented. Last year, like so many other plans, our annual spring gala was canceled due to the pandemic. For a while, it was a question: Should we postpone again? But gathering as a TFANA community, even remotely, seemed more important than ever this year — to take stock of what we’ve been through, lost, and accomplished, and to look ahead to the future.”

Among the participants will be such actors, writers, and directors as Arin Arbus, Anne Bogart, Bill Camp, Will Eno, Simon Godwin, Kathryn Hunter, Taibi Magar, John Douglas Thompson, and Awoye Timpo; New York City public teacher Marie Maignan will receive the Samuel H. Scripps Award for Extraordinary Artistic Achievement from US representative Jahana Hayes (D-CT), and Amanda Riegel and the Thompson Family Foundation will be presented with the Life in Art Award. The evening will be emceed by actor and TFANA board member Harry Lennix; the VIP preshow begins at 6:30, followed at 7:30 by the gala. There is also a silent auction that features such items as golf and wine vacations, opera and theater tickets, jewelry, art, pet portraits, and more.

A THOUSAND WAYS (PART TWO): AN ENCOUNTER

The second part of 600 Highwaymen’s A Thousand Ways takes place in person at the Public, for two people at a time (photo by Everything Time Studio)

Public Theater
425 Lafayette St.
Part Two: June 8 – August 15, $15
Part One available through July 18, $15
publictheater.org
www.600highwaymen.org

In January, as part of the Public Theater’s annual multidisciplinary Under the Radar festival, the Obie-winning 600 Highwaymen company presented A Thousand Ways (Part One): A Phone Call, a free hourlong telephone conversation between you and another person, randomly put together and facilitated by an electronic voice that asks both general and intimate questions, from where you are sitting to what smells you are missing, structured around a dangerous and lonely fictional situation that is a metaphor for sheltering in place, even though the work began several years ago. It’s a great way to get connected to a stranger while looking inwardly at yourself. In my case, I spoke with a theater-loving woman from the Midwest, and we got along extremely well, making for an engaging and moving discussion.

From June 8 to August 15, the Public will be hosting the next section of the work, A Thousand Ways (Part Two): An Encounter, in which you and a stranger — not the same one — meet in person, sitting across a table, separated from one another by a clear glass panel. There will be no touching and no sharing of objects, following all Covid-19 guidelines. The Public has also brought back the phone call, with slots available through July 18. While you don’t have to experience part one in order to understand part two, it is highly encouraged. Conceived and written by Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone, who formed 600 Highwaymen in 2009, A Thousand Ways continues their ongoing mission of “aiming at a radical approach to making live art by creating intimacy amongst strangers and illuminating the inherent poignancy of people coming together.” The duo’s previous works include Employee of the Year, Empire City, The Fever, and Theater of the Mind with David Byrne. Tickets for each part of A Thousand Ways are $15; a grand finale is planned in which groups will be able to gather across the globe.

“In this introspective year, it’s been an absolute honor to know that in over twenty-five cities and twelve countries around the world — and now in four languages — strangers are coming together night after night, across phone lines and through glass planes, to imagine one another and, in the process, create a kind of community with and for one another,” Browde and Silverstone said in a statement. And it all starts with a phone call and two people who have never met, evoking how we are all emerging in our own ways from the pandemic lockdown.

MTC VIRTUAL THEATRE: THE NICETIES

Who: Lisa Banes, Jordan Boatman
What: Virtual reunion premiere
Where: MTC Virtual Theatre
When: May 27 – June 13, free with RSVP
Why: Originally presented at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Studio at Stage II in fall 2018, Eleanor Burgess’s The Niceties is making its virtual premiere in a new online staging, reuniting original cast members Lisa Banes and Jordan Boatman with director Kimberly Senior (Disgraced, Career Suicide). Boatman (Medea, The Path) plays a Black student at an East Coast college who is writing a paper about the American Revolution. Banes (Look Back in Anger, My Sister in This House) portrays her well-respected white professor. Their discussion of the work leads to issues of race, white privilege, and reputation involving the past and the present. The stream is available for free May 27 through June 13.

THE (VIRTUAL) WILDNESS

THE (VIRTUAL) WILDNESS
Ars Nova Supra Zoom
Wednesday, May 26, $10, 7:00
arsnovanyc.com
skyponyband.com

In March 2016, I saw The Wildness at Ars Nova, writing, “Brooklyn-based eight-piece collective Sky-Pony presents a captivating treat for adventurous theatergoers with this DIY indie-rock opera, a multimedia fairy tale that filters such popular musicals as Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell through a Narnia-like aesthetic and video-game narrative that fantasy fans will go ga-ga over.” Sky-Pony is now back for a one-time virtual follow-up, taking place over Ars Nova’s online Supra portal via Zoom. On May 26 at 7:00, The (Virtual) Wildness moves the story, which involves a missing leader, a messianic princess, the mysterious builder, the keymaster, and various handmaidens, five years into the future. The text is by composer Kyle Jarrow and Lauren Worsham, with incidental music by Kevin Wunderlich and video design by Eamonn Farrell; the show is directed by Ashley Tata and stars David Blasher, Lilli Cooper, Jeff Fernandes, Lindsey Ford, Sharone Sayegh, Jamie Mohamdein, Jarrow, Worsham, and Wunderlich, all from the original production.