Tag Archives: Manhattan Theatre Club

MTC CURTAIN CALL: THE NICETIES

Lisa Banes and Jordan Boatman reprise their roles for online streaming version of The Niceties

Who: Lisa Banes, Jordan Boatman, Eleanor Burgess, Kimberly Senior
What: Virtual reading and discussion
Where: Broadway on Demand
When: Online streaming extended through June 27, free with RSVP
Why: “It’s a dangerous time, and this is a play that ignites those thoughts and makes you look at yourself and makes you look at your place in the world,” Lisa Banes says in a brief recorded conversation about Eleanor Burgess’s The Niceties, which is streaming in a sizzling online version through June 27. “I mean, every time we had talked to the audience after the play, we were asked as human beings, not just as actors, Where do you stand on this?” Sadly, Banes will no longer be answering these questions; she died on June 14 at the age of sixty-five after being hit by a scooter on the Upper West Side; the perpetrator has not been found. This production from MTC’s Curtain Call series and the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston is the last play featuring the extraordinarily talented Banes.

Banes and Jordan Boatman had reunited for the virtual reading; they starred in the two-character play when it premiered at MTC’s Studio at Stage II at City Center in 2018. The two-act, one-hundred-minute play has been moved from an American history professor’s office at a prestigious university to Skype, where Janine (Banes), a tenured teacher, is offering advice to one of her students, Zoe (Boatman), who’s working on a paper about radical revolutions. Janine is white; Zoe is black. The discussion does not go as expected; what was supposed to be a productive session turns into a ferocious confrontation about how the past and the present define and regard colonialism, slavery, political protests and marches, constitutional democracy, racial oppression, the concept of freedom, and the Supreme Court. “I love critical dialogue; I’m listening,” Janine says. But Zoe argues that she is not being heard.

“You have a contempt for your students, and particularly your students who think different from you,” Zoe explains.

“Differently,” Janine corrects.

Zoe: “You use your intelligence to critique and belittle people who have less power than you. Like your comments on my paper. Do you think that’s helpful? To take a person who’s trying to put forward an underrepresented point of view and criticize them until they feel like they might as well give up because you’ll never understand?”

Janine: “I didn’t tell you to give up. . . .”

Zoe: “Listen, there is one appropriate way of responding to a woman of color who says I have an idea to assert. And that is to shut up and listen, because she has experiences you cannot possibly know and insight you can learn from.”

Janine: “To shut up and listen, as you so rudely put it, would be doing you a disservice.”

Three weeks later, they are dealing with the aftermath of their fierce exchange, but while much has changed, much has not as they continue to disagree about personal and public aspects of dignity, equality, and compromise.

The Niceties is set in the spring of 2016, during the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Original director Kimberly Senior (Disgraced, Sweat) helms this virtual iteration, which is ablaze with passion while including artful little touches: Janine drinks out of a Hillary Clinton mug, even after Zoe expresses her fondness for President Obama, and Janine has a framed portrait of George Washington on her wall, whereas Zoe has a poster of The Color Purple behind her. And KRS-ONE’s “Sound of Da Police” plays during the five-minute intermission, preparing viewers for a highly volatile second act.

Obie winner Banes (Look Back in Anger, My Sister in the House, Isn’t It Romantic?) and Boatman (The Good Fight, The Path) are electrifying, picking up right where they left off at Studio at Stage II; this is no mere reunion reading but a thrillingly performed work that takes on issues that have only grown more complex since 2018. Banes is elegant and refined as the meticulous woman forced to defend her career, while Boatman is fervent and intense as a tenacious student fighting to be heard. If The Niceties doesn’t get your juices flowing, then you haven’t been paying attention to what has been happening across the country, and around the world, these past few years.

“I was so, so happy to do this,” Banes says in the talk. “It came at just the right moment. I feel like we started our engines and got ’em going, and now I can’t wait for the next thing.” Banes, who also appeared in such films as Cocktail and Gone Girl and the television series Son of the Beach and Royal Pains, is survived by her wife, Kathryn Kranhold. Anyone with information about the tragic hit-and-run that took her life is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.

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 SHOW GOES ON: CASA VALENTINA

Harvey Fierstein and the cast of Casa Valentina will reunite for MTC’s “The Show Goes On”

Who: Harvey Fierstein, Reed Birney, John Cullum, Gabriel Ebert, Tom McGowan, Patrick Page, Nick Westrate, Mare Winningham
What: Cast reunion and watch party
Where: Manhattan Theatre Club YouTube
When: Thursday, March 18, free, noon
Why: In November, Manhattan Theatre Club kicked off a new monthly series, “The Show Goes On,” revisiting previous productions with members of the cast and crew watching filmed excerpts and talking about their experiences. In November, director Trip Cullman, narrator Rebecca Naomi Jones, music director Justin Levine, and costar Will Swenson looked at 2012’s Murder Ballad, which also featured Karen Olivo and John Ellison Conlee. In December, actors Jon Hoche and Paco Tolson explored 2016’s Vietgone, by Qui Nguyen. In January, writer-director John Patrick Shanley and star Timothée Chalamet discussed 2016’s Prodigal Son. And in February, Stephanie Berry, who played, Aunt Mama, shared insight into 2018’s Sugar in Our Wounds, written by Donja R. Love and directed by Saheem Ali.

The March edition of “The Show Goes On,” each of which runs between fifteen and twenty minutes, reunites the cast of 2014’s Casa Valentina, Harvey Fierstein’s first drama in more than a quarter century. The play, inspired by a true story, takes place in June 1962 at a Catskills bungalow where men spend weekends cross-dressing and acting like women, a safe haven where they can celebrate their feminine side. Joining in the watch party will be Fierstein and most of the original cast: Reed Birney, John Cullum, Gabriel Ebert, Tom McGowan, Patrick Page, Nick Westrate, and Mare Winningham. At the time, I wrote, “Cross-dressing might be somewhat de rigueur these days on Broadway (Kinky Boots, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, Cabaret, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), but Fierstein, [director Joe] Mantello, and an extremely talented and beautiful cast offer a very different take on this misunderstood culture, treating it with humor, intelligence, honor, courage, and, perhaps most important, dignity.” Like its title says, the show does go on, living on YouTube after its initial airing.

MTC CURTAIN CALL SERIES: THREE DAYS OF RAIN

Who: Patricia Clarkson, John Slattery, Bradley Whitford
What: Reunion reading
Where: Manhattan Theatre Club online
When: March 11-25, free with RSVP
Why: In 1997, Manhattan Theatre Club staged Richard Greenberg’s generational mystery Three Days of Rain, directed by Evan Yionoulis and starring Patricia Clarkson as Nan, John Slattery as her brother, Walker, and Bradley Whitford as their childhood friend Pip. The original cast is reuniting for a virtual reading of the Pulitzer Prize–nominated play, streaming as part of MTC’s “Curtain Call Series,” which kicked off last month with an excellent online version of another taut family drama, Richard Wesley’s The Past Is the Past, featuring Jovan Adepo and Ron Cephas Jones and directed by Oz Scott. The free series continues April 15–25 with Charlayne Woodard’s 1997 one-woman show, Neat.

Bradley Whitford, John Slattery, and Patricia Clarkson reunite for virtual presentation of Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain

Update: “Do things really stay secret that long?” Pip asks Nan in MTC’s energetic Zoom reunion presentation of Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain. Patricia Clarkson, John Slattery, and Bradley Whitford reprise their roles from the 1997 iteration of Greenberg’s tale of family subterfuge, unrequited love, requited love, mental illness, legacy, and plenty of secrets. The play begins in 1995, as the calm Nan (Clarkson), her brother, the manic-depressive Walker (Slattery), and their childhood friend, soap-opera star Pip (Whitford), prepare for the reading of Nan and Walker’s father’s will. Pip’s father, Theo Wexler, was the longtime business partner of the now-deceased Ned Janeway. They ran what became a successful architectural firm, which allows Greenberg and the characters to use a litany of building metaphors, comparing the construction of houses and office towers to people’s relationships and psyches. (You might also want to keep a running list to look up all of Greenberg’s high-falutin references later, from Heidegger, Hegel, and Handel to Trimalchio’s feast.) After intermission, the action goes back to 1960, with Clarkson as southern belle Lina, Slattery as Ned, and Whitford as Theo, laying the foundation for what would eventually happen to the Janeways and Wexlers.

The three actors are brilliantly engaging, filled with spirit and vitality as each performs from their own home. Director Evan Yionoulis never lets things get too static in those Zoom boxes as the trio share architectural drawings and an old journal. (However, couldn’t they have made sure that Clarkson had the same style blue book as Slattery?) There is an added layer of meta in that Clarkson, Slattery, and Whitford are revisiting their professional past in ways that are similar to how the play goes back in time to the previous set of Janeways and Wexlers; not only are the actors portraying the prior generation, but they’re returning to their own prior generation, nearly a quarter-century earlier, when they were not quite as big stars as they are today. In the brief talkback that accompanies the production, Whitford admits to weeping when he was off camera, overwhelmed by it all. The emotions felt by the actors are palpable; you might not break down in tears, but you will feel their joy and their pain, their confusion and their fears, both theirs and their characters’.

MTC CURTAIN CALL: THE PAST IS THE PAST

Who: Jovan Adepo, Ron Cephas Jones
What: New reading of previously produced MTC play
Where: Manhattan Theatre Club
When: February 18-28, free with RSVP
Why: Manhattan Theatre Club is inaugurating its “Curtain Call” series, in which the institution hosts new readings of older plays it previously presented onstage, with, appropriately enough, Richard Wesley’s The Past Is the Past. Originally produced in April/May 1975, the play, directed by Lloyd Richards, starred Earl Bill Cobbs and Eddie Robert Christian as a father and son, respectively, reconnecting after many years. MTC is bringing it back for a virtual reading February 18–28, featuring two-time Emmy winner Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us, Truth Be Told) as father Earl Davis and Jovan Adepo (Fences, The Stand) as son Eddie Green, directed by Oz Scott (Bustin’ Loose, Mr. Boogedy). MTC would go on to work with Wesley, who wrote the screenplays for the comedies Uptown Saturday Night and Let’s Do It Again, on such other shows as The Sirens, The Last Street Play, and The Talented Tenth. The free series continues in March with Richard Greenberg’s 1997 Pulitzer finalist and Obie-winning Three Days of Rain, directed by Evan Yionoulis and reuniting the original cast of Patricia Clarkson, John Slattery, and Bradley Whitford, followed by Charlayne Woodard’s 1997 one-woman show, Neat, and Nilo Cruz’s 2006 Beauty of the Father, directed by Michael Greif.

MTC VIRTUAL THEATRE: TED SNOWDON READING SERIES

Charlie Oh’s Long kicks off MTC virtual spring reading series/

Who: Manhattan Theatre Club
What: Virtual fall reading series
Where: MTC YouTube channel
When: Tuesdays, November 10 – December 15, free, 2:00 (available for viewing through the following Saturday at 2:00)
Why: During the pandemic, Manhattan Theatre Club has featured such online programming as mini-modules about dramatic openings, family stories, creating strong characters, earned endings, and other topics; #TalkbackTuesdays; artist conversations; Stargate Theatre; student monologues; and other virtual presentations that can be viewed here. In addition, the Ted Snowdon Reading Series in the spring consisted of online readings of Good Time Charlie and The Collapse.

The fall reading season comprises five new plays (including some commissions), kicking off November 10 with Charlie Oh’s Long, directed by Dustin Wills and starring Christian DeMarais, Raymond Lee, Daniel Liu, and Tara Summers, followed November 17 by Julia Izumi’s (An Audio Guide for) Unsung Snails and Heroes, directed by Natsu Onoda Power; December 1 by Brittany K. Allen’s Ball Change, directed by Margot Bordelon; December 8 by Stacey Rose’s As Is: Conversations with Big Black Women in Confined Spaces, directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene; and December 15 by Penelope Skinner’s Friendly Monsters, directed by Nicole Charles. The series, which focuses on developing innovative new work, is named for and supported by theater producer Ted Snowdon and began back in 1999 (when Cherry Jones appeared in David Auburn’s Proof); among the playwrights whose work has been presented in the past are Theresa Rebeck, Adam Rapp, Mike Daisey, Amy Herzog, Alfred Uhry, Matthew Lopez, Ayad Akhtar, Jocelyn Bioh, and Lauren Yee. Each free reading will be livestreamed at Tuesday at 2:00 on YouTube and will be available for viewing through the following Saturday at 2:00. MTC will also be inaugurating “The Show Goes On,” looking back at its history, later this month, and its annual gala will go virtual in December.

IN THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR WITH RUBEN SANTIAGO-HUDSON

in the directors chair

Who: Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Stephen M. Kaus
What: Livestream discussion with exclusive footage
Where: Manhattan Theatre Club Facebook Live
When: Thursday, May 21, free, 5:00
Why: In 2017, Manhattan Theatre Club presented the August Wilson’s Jitney at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, the first American Century Cycle play Wilson wrote but the last to reach Broadway. The production, which earned the Tony for Best Revival of a Play and featured John Douglas Thompson, André Holland, Ray Anthony Thomas, Brandon J. Dirden, Carra Patterson, Michael Potts, Harvy Blanks, Anthony Chisholm, and Keith Randolph Smith, was directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who has acted in, directed, and/or recorded the complete ten-play cycle and was friends with the playwright; he was Wilson’s personal choice to portray him in the autobiographical one-man show How I Learned What I Learned once Wilson got ill and then passed away, in 2005 at the age of sixty. On May 21 at 5:00 on MTC’s Facebook page, Santiago-Hudson will discuss his directorial choices, accompanied by clips from the Broadway run that he will review in depth; he will be joined by MTC director of artistic producing Stephen M. Kaus. Santiago-Hudson won a Tony for his performance in Wilson’s Seven Guitars, has written Lackawanna Blues and Your Blues Ain’t Sweet Like Mine, and has directed such other plays as Paradise Blue and Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.