This Weekend’s Highlights:
Friday, January 8
* Lazarus filmed performance, by David Bowie & Enda Walsh, directed by Ivo Van Hove, featuring Michael C. Hall and Sophia Anne Caruso, begins streaming here.
* A Bowie Celebration: Just For One Day! virtual benefit concert, featuring Lena Hall, Michael C. Hall, Duran Duran, Dave Navarro, Adam Lambert, and Nine Inch Nails, streams at 8 PM ET here.
* Heroes Live (2011 concert), starring Michael Ball, streams for FREE at 2 PM ET here, and will be available for 48 hours.
* “Stars in the House,” celebrating “The Waltons,” with special guests Michael Learned, Richard Thomas, Mary Beth McDonough, Eric Scott, Kami Cotler, and Judy Norton, streams at 8 PM ET here.
* At This Theatre: Tonys, Triumphs, & Turntables virtual walking tour down 44th, 45th, and 46th Streets, streams at 8 PM ET here.
Saturday, January 9
* Swingin’ the Dream FREE virtual concert, offering a selection of original songs from Gilbert Seldes & Erik Charell’s jazz-infused version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring Alfred Clay, Andrew French, Kemi-Bo Jacobs, Cornell S. John, Georgia Sanders, Mogali Masuku, Baker Mukasa and Anne Odeke, streams at 2 PM ET here.
Sunday, January 10
* Talkin’ to this Chick Sippin’ Magic Potion, by James Anthony Tyler, directed by Awoye Timpo, featuring Mateo Ferro (Rubén Zorrilla, Jr), Miriam A. Hyman (Shelba Bathson), Sheria Irving (Jornay Nelson), Julies Latimer (Tiffany Nelson), and Darius McCall (Steve Nelson), begins streaming at TheaterWorks Hartford.
* West End Bares: Turned On benefit event, directed by Will Lucas, with special guests Graham Norton, Michelle Visage, Tom Allen, Todrick Hall, Michael Auger, and Amy Hart, streams at 8 PM GMT/3 PM ET here.
* Drunken Artists Drinking Game benefit virtual game night, hosted by Patti Murin, Colin Donnell & Laura Heywood, where participants play a wine-infused Broadway-themed game, featuring Jelani Alladin, Annaleigh Ashford, Sara Bareilles, Laura Benanti, Alex Brightman, Michelle Buteau, Kerry Butler, Reeve Carney, Donna Lynne Champlin, Michelle Collins, Gavin Creel, Jenna Dewan, Mike Doyle, Scott Evans, Jamie Grayson, Justin Guarini, Erika Henningsen, Nikki James, Steve Kazee, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Telly Leung, Rob McClure, S. Epatha Merkerson, Eva Noblezada, Kelli O’Hara, Andrew Rannells, Josh Segarra, Max von Essen, and Alex Wyse, streams at 8 PM ET here.
* Billie Holliday: Reaching for the Moon — An Exploration and Conversation, featuring Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson, streams at 3 PM ET at NYC’s 92Y.
* Lazarus filmed performance by David Bowie & Enda Walsh, directed by Ivo Van Hove, featuring Michael C. Hall and Sophia Anne Caruso, concludes streaming here.
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Video: “Stars in the House,” offering a reunion of “The Waltons,” with special guests Richard Thomas, Michael Learned, Eric Scott, Kami Cotler, and Judy Norton. (1:58:10)
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Mean Girls will not re-open on Broadway.
The musical, which opened Apr. 8, 2019, played its final performance on Mar. 11, 2020 at the August Wilson Theatre. It was nominated for 12 Tony Awards, and played 29 previews and 805 regular performances.
A movie musical adaptation is in development.
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The world premiere of Before Fiddler will debut Sun. Feb. 7 at 7 PM CT (and available for one week) at Chicago’s Porchlight Music Theatre.
Hershey Felder (Sholem Aleichem, and others), with Klezmerata Fiorentina.
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Tonya Pinkins has replaced Niecy Nash in ABC‘s upcoming 6-episode series “Women of the Movement,” written by Marissa Jo Cerar. Filming begins this month in Mississippi. The premiere date is TBA.
Inspired by Devery S. Anderson’s book “Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement,” the project centers on Emmett’s mother Mamie Till-Mobley (played by Adrienne Warren), and her life spent seeking justice for her son, a 14-year old boy murdered in 1955 in the Jim Crow South. Pinkins will play Emmett Till’s grandmother, Alma.
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L.A. Theatre Works recording of Hannie Rayson’s Extinction will be released Jan. 31, directed by Martin Jarvis. Purchase of the recording includes access to a Zoom interview with the playwright.
Sarah Drew, Seamus Dever, Joanne Whalley, and Darren Richardson.
A zoologist in Australia gets funding to save an endangered species from the very company that threatens its existence. Will this deal with the devil allow her to save the species, or will it destroy her entire life’s work?
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Drew Larimore’s Smithtown will stream Feb. 13-27 here, directed by Stephen Kistsakos.
Michael Urie, Ann Harada, Colby Lewis, and Constance Shulman.
The play follows four residents of a fictional Midwestern university town who unwittingly become victims of technology gone awry.
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& 
NYC’s 92Y presents a screening of and virtual discussion about “Sky Blossoms” on Mon. Jan. 11 at 6:30 PM ET, hosted by Teresa Kumar, with special pre-recorded comments by Nancy Pelosi.
David Hyde Pierce (Executive Producer), Montel Williams (Executive Producer), Jen Tsien (Executive Producer), Joe Mantegna (Actor) and Richard Lui (Director).
The film follows five students over three years, from Latino, Black, Asian, Native, and White American families in the military community. During a year of wide-reaching headlines of George Floyd, these families’ multicultural stories of homelessness, poverty, life and death, and more give us a look into what it means to be a Person of Color, a caregiver, a veteran, and more.
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“The Chance to Fly,” co-written by Ali Stroker & Stacy Davidowitz, will be released Apr. 13. 
here.
The story of 13-year-old Nat Beacon, a theater-loving girl who uses a wheelchair for mobility, who goes on a quest to defy expectations — and gravity — in her town’s production of Wicked.
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A virtual production of the new play Smithtown, by Drew Larimore, will run Feb. 13-27 here, directed by Stephen Kitsakos.
Michael Urie, Ann Harada, Colby Lewis, and Constance Shulman.
The play follows four residents of a fictional Midwestern university town who unwittingly become victims of technology gone awry.
Video: Teaser
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RIP: Marion Ramsey died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 73, following a short illness.
On Broadway, Marion appeared in Eubie!, Uptown…It’s Hot! (for which she also wrote the book), Grind, Rock ‘N’ Roll! The First 5,000 Years, Eubie!, Miss Moffat, Rachael Lily Rosenbloom…and Don’t You Ever Forget It, Soon, and the original production of Hello, Dolly!
She also appeared in the original West End production of Gone with the Wind. Off-Broadway credits include The Wedding of Iphigenia and Do It Again, while regional credits include Mass and That All Night Strut.
On television, Marion appeared in “The Jeffersons,” “Cos,” and voice acting on “Robot Chicken” and “The Addams Family” animated series.
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LA’s Echo Theater Company presents its LABFest 2021, offering 3 new plays, which will stream Jan. 16 & 17.
Sat. Jan. 16 (3 PM PT), Tara, by Brian Otaño, directed by Hannah Wolf, featuring Dana Berger, Leandro Cano, Eileen Galindo, Brian Henderson, and Gloria Ines. When 30-year-old Ricky Ramos is named as the first victim of a teacher under investigation for sexual abuse, Rickey’s skewed perspective of the relationship is turned upside down and his family is forced to contend with their complicity.
Sat. Jan. 16 (7:30 PM PT): California Story: A Faustian Preter-Capitalist Scream, by Roger Q. Mason, directed by Michael Alvarez. Based on the true story of Afro-Mexican politician and landowner Pío Pico, who attempted to carve a pace for himself in 1830s-1860s California during the era of Manifest Destiny, Mason infuses elements of traditional theater, magical realism and physical theater to explore the racial, personal, and familial price one pays when buying into majority culture’s privilege at the expense of their own integrity.
Sun. Jan. 17 (3 PM PT): SK8ER BOIZ, by Christopher Sullivan, directed by Shaina Rosenthal, featuring Steve Boyer, Eric Neil Gutierrez, Alex Herrald, Anisha Jagannathan, and Seth Kirschner. In this dark comedy, two teen are forced to hide their romantic relationship amidst the homophobic world of professional skateboarding as they navigate their fluid sexual identities into their adult lives.
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NYC’s Birdland will present Haley Swindal: To New York, With Love, which will stream Thurs. Jan. 14 at 7 PM, in support of The Actors Fund, directed by Will Nunziata, with music direction by Scott Cady.
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The film adaptation of “Spamalot” is currently in development, directed by Casey Nicholaw. The film recently moved from Paramount to Fox.
Producers hope to find a cast and start production by the end of this year.