This Weekend’s Highlights:
Friday, July 24
* She Loves Me (Broadway 2016), starring Laura Benanti, Zachary Levi, Gavin Creel, and Jane Krakowski, airs at 9 PM on PBS (check local listings).
* R&H Movie Night’s “Cinderella,” live viewing party, starring Julie Andrews, streamed at 8 PM ET here.
* Julie Halston’s “Virtual Halston,” variety show, with special guests Marilu Henner and Justin Squigs Robertston, streams at 5 PM ET here.
Saturday, July 25
* Misalliance FREE benefit reading, hosted & narrated by David Staller, featuring Marc delaCruz, Dan Domingues, Midori Francis, Peter Francis James, Teresa Avia Lim, Jamie Sanders, Thom Sesma, Ryan Spahn, and Sharon Washington, streamed at 8 PM ET here.
* Songs for a New World concert, featuring Rachel John, Ramin Karimloo, Cedric Neal, and Rachel Tucker, streams at 3:30 PM ET here.
* John Lloyd Young in concert, streams at 9 PM ET on BroadwayOnDemand.
Sunday, July 26
* Megan Hilty & Seth Rudetsky in concert, streams at 8 PM ET here (also July 27).
* Pacific Resident Theatre‘s FREE conversation with playwright Christopher Hampton, streamed at 3 PM PT.
* Is God Is, audio production, by Aleshea Harris, directed by James Ijames, featuring Danielle Leneé (Racine), Brett Ashley Robinson (Anaia), Melanye Finister (She), Akeem Davis (Chuck Hall), Anthony Martinez-Briggs (Scotch), Aaron Bell (Riley), Taysha Marie Canales (Angie), and Lindsay Smiling (Man), concludes at Philadelphia’s Wilma Theatre.
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Lynn Nottage’s newest play (as yet untitled) will open in Fall 2021 at 2nd Stage‘s Helen Hayes Theatre, directed by Kate Whoriskey.
Casting, dates, and additional information TBA.
A truck stop sandwich shop offers its formerly incarcerated kitchen staff a shot a reclaiming their lives. Even as the shop’s callous owner tries to keep them under her thumb, the staff members are given purpose and permission to dream by the enigmatic, zen-like chef and his belief in the possibility of the perfect sandwich.
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Video: “Stars in the House,” a “Fame” film cast reunion, featuring composer Michael Gore, lyricist Dean Picthford, and cast members Debbie Allen, Lee Curreri, Laura Dean, and Antonia Franceschi. (1:22:04)
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The Ojai Playwrights Conference has announced its 2020 season:
The season will include a total of 15 plays and playwrights, with public presentation planned for 2021.
Click here for more information.
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BOD+, Broadway On Demand‘s new theater-focused streaming platform, is putting Broadway back to work by calling on performers, writers, composers, designers, technicians, and other industry professionals to join their subscription series lineup by submitting pitches for anything from masterclasses, docuseries and original narratives, to concerts, sketch material, and more.
Show formats for pitches can be long-form or episodic but must be conducive to the streaming market
Click here for more information and to submit.
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C.P. Taylor’s GOOD will run in Spring 2021 at the Playhouse Theatre, directed by Dominic Cooke.
David Tennant, Fenella Woolgar, and Elliot Levey.
Set in WWII, a German professor must rationalize his decision to join the Nazi party.
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Video “The Road to Broadway” (2007) documentary, by Dorie Berinstein. One of my favorites. (1:43:28)
Then look at the menu on the right for a vast selection of other theatre documentaries.
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MA’s Barrington Stage has announced its Summer 2020 schedule:
BSC will employ best safety practices, including reducing the 520-seat Mainstage to 163 seats, increasing the distance between rows and seats, and deep cleaning the theatre after every performance. Patrons will be required to wear masks until further notice.
* Summer 2020 Outdoor Concerts: The Hills Are Alive with Rodgers & Hammerstein, (Aug. 19-23), directed by Julianne Boyd, with choreography by Shea Sullivan, and music direction by Darren R. Cohen, featuring Alan H. Green, Storm Lever, Nicholas Rodriguez, Alexandra Silber, and Alysha Umphress. The production will employ social distancing protocols and will be performed in an outdoor tent in Downtown Pittsfield at the Polish Community Club.
* Harry Clarke (Aug. 5-15), which has received approval from AEA to perform indoors, by David Cale, directed by Julianne Boyd.
* Eleanor reading (Sept. 5 & 5), by Mark St. Germain, starring Harriet Harris
* Three Viewings (Sept. 9-20), by Jeffrey Hatcher, directed by Julianne Boyd, starring Debra Jo Rupp.
* The Price (Oct. 1-18), directed by Julianne Boyd.
Concert Series:
* Marilyn Maye (Aug. 24)
* Ann Hampton Callaway, with Billy Stritch (Aug. 31 & Sept. 1)
* Leslie Kritzer (Sept. 6)
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Video: “I Wish I Could Go Back to Theatre”
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“Shining Girls,” a series adaptation of the novel, has been ordered by Apple TV. The timeline and additional information TBA.
Elisabeth Moss will star as a Chicago reporter who survived a brutal assault only to find her reality shifting as she hunts down her attacker.
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Video: Liz Callaway performs a 14-song medley
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A Conversation with Harry Connick, Jr. will take place Wed. July 29 at 7 PM ET here.
Following the livestream, the event will be available here.
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#WhileWeBreathe: A Night of Creative Protest will premiere Wed. July 29 at 9 PM ET here, offering an evening of virtual world premieres benefiting justice-focused organizations, followed by a live discussion.
Azure D. Osborne-Lee, Liza Jessie Peterson, Lee Edward Colston II), Arvind Ethan David, Cheryl Davis, Nathan Alan Davis, Steve Harper), Bianca Sams, Keenan Scott II, Aurin Squire, Khari Wyatt, and Karen Zacarias.
Carl Cofield, Kirya Traber, Tamara Tunie, Steve Broadnax III, Bianca LaVerne Jones, Patricia McGregor, Pratibha Parmar, and Charles Randolph-Wright.
Patina Miller, Lynn Whitfield, Alfie Fuller, Will Swenson, Marcus Henderson, Birgundi Baker, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Bryan Terrell Clark, Neil Brown Jr, Keith Eric Chappelle, Kevin R. Free, Chris Herbie Holland, Ty Jones, Lori Elizabeth Parquet, Esau Pritchett, Michele Shay, Hailey Stone, and TL Thompson.
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Boston’s Commonwealth Shakespeare Company will present a script-in-hand online performance of The Tempest on Thur. Aug. 6 at 7 PM ET, directed by Steven Maler.
John Douglas Thompson (Prospero), Miguel Cervantes (Ariel), Maurice Emmanuel Parent (Sebastian), Siobhan Juanita Brown (Gonzala), Fred Sullivan Jr. (Stephano), Remo Airaldi (Antonio), Nora Eschenheimer (Miranda), John Kuntz (Trinculo), Nael Nacer (Caliban), Richard Noble (Alonso), and Michael Underhill (Ferdinand).
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Alvin Ailey’s Blues Suite ballet is now available through July 30 here. (29:39)
This broadcast of Blues Suite is from “Three by Three,” a 1985 PBS Great Performances television special.
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The Kennedy Center has announced its upcoming concert series.
Artists will perform from a stage extension built into the front of the orchestra-seating level of the hall while concertgoers, entering through the loading doors on the Center’s front plaza, will be seated in physically distanced pairs on the Opera House stage. These hour-long concerts will take place once a week for a ticketed audience of under 200 once the District of Columbia reaches phase three of reopening.
Renée Fleming, Vanessa Williams, Tiler Peck, Camille A. Brown, and more TBA.
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Michael Burdette, Robert Scott & Brendan Cull’s Sleepless, the new musical based on “Sleepless in Seattle,” will run Aug. 25 – Sept. 27 (opening Sept. 1) at the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, directed by Morgan Young, with music direction by Chris Walker, and choreography by Charlotte Gale.
Jay McGuiness (Sam), Kimberley Walsh (Annie), Daniel Casey (Walter), Harriet Thorpe (Eleanor), Tania Mathurin (Becky), Jake Sharp (Rob), and Theo Collis, Mikey Colville & Jobe Hart (sharing the role of Jonah), with Matt Holland, Ross McLaren, Gary Murphy, Dominique Planter, Annie Wensak, and Benjamin Wong. Theo Collis, Mikey Colville, Jobe Hart, and .
The tests, from Polish biotech company GeneMe, are known as FRANKD, standing for Fast, Reliable, Accurate, Nucleic-based Kit for COVID-19 Diagnostic Detection. Samples are collected on-site via throat or nasal swab, with results sent within one hour to individuals through an app developed by Yoti, a tech company working with the NHS. GeneMe claims that tests are “100 percent specific to COVID-19 and 97 percent sensitive.”
The system is currently in its trial phase in Europe, and is being tested with U.K. airports, sports teams, and various multinational companies and government departments.
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Video: Megan Hilty, Shoshana Bean, and Katharine McPhee perform an Andrew Lloyd Webber mashup.
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CA’s North Coast Rep presents its iPhone version of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, in support of The Actors Fund, to run July 29 – Aug. 2, directed by Jenny Sullivan. 
here.
Linda Purl
The deeply personal story of Joan Didion’s experience with the life-threatening illness of her daughter and the death of her husband… and a though-provoking philosophical exploration of the meaning of mortality, the fragility of life, and the mutability of everything that surrounds us.