This Weekend’s Highlights:
Friday, July 3
* Hamilton, featuring the entire original Broadway principal cast, premieres exclusively on Disney+ beginning at 3 AM ET (yes, that’s correct — 3 AM ET)
Saturday, July 4
“A Capital Fourth” pre-taped concert, hosted by John Stamos & Vanessa Williams, featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kelli O’Hara, Mandy Gonzalez, Renée Fleming, Patti LaBelle, John Fogerty, The Temptations, Trace Adkins, Andy Grammer, Yolanda Adams, Brantley Gilbert, and Lauren Alaina, at 8 PM on PBS.
Sunday, July 5
* “Tea With John McD” variety show, starring John McDaniel, begins its weekly streams at 3 PM ET on Facebook.
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Chicago’s Goodman Theatre presents Stateville Voices, the virtual premiere of 3 new short plays, which streames TODAY, at 5 PM CT, all directed by Sydney Chatman. The plays will be followed by a Q&A.
* Parameters of Closeness, by André Patterson
* Ain’t Nothing Like Quality Time, by Taurean Decatur
* Comic Books and Candy, by Antonio McDowell
Briohna Booker, Nicole Bush, David Dowd, Gabriel Matthews, Jonathan Matthews, and Ginneh Thomas.
The plays are written by incarcerated students at Illinois’ Stateville Correctional Center, the result of a Spring 2019 playwriting course taught by Rebecca Gilman (Goodman Theatre Artistic Director).
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Holiday treat: Enjoy a plethora of videos from past Encores’ concerts here.
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Video: “Stars in the House,” reading of Charles Busch’s Die Mommie Die, directed by Carl Andress, featuring Charles Busch, Brandon Contreras, Jennifer Cody, Edith Sussman, Willie Garson, Ruth Williamson, and BD Wong. (1:53:40)
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Black Theatre Networks’ Black Theatre Week will run July 27-31, with a host of stage artists taking part in tributes, readings, and more, hosted by André De Shields
Click here for the complete list events.
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Video: “Stars in the House,” with comics Rebecca Drysdale, Colette Hawley, and Wendy Liebman. (1:13:50)
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Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company has announced the launch of Dream Boston, a series of short audio plays. Each play is set at a specific local landmark with 1-2 characters, and is about 6 minutes in length. All plays are available now.
* Overture, by Kate Snodgrass, featuring Elle Borders and Richard Snee. The play takes place on top of MIT’s Great Dome during the Boston Pops concert on July 4, 2024.
* By the Rude Bridge, by Melida Lopez, featuring Lonnie Farmer. The play is set by the Concord Bridge at the Minuteman National Historical Park on Patriots’ Day – Apr. 19, 2025.
* McKim, by Brenda Withers, featuring Krystal Hernandez and Nael Nacer. The play takes plce in the Bates Hall of the Boston Public Library’s McKim Building on Jan. 16, 2023
* The 54th in ’22’, by Kirsten Greenidge, featuring Brandon G. Green and Lyndsay Allyn Cox. The play is set at the Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial on the edge of Boston Common, in the spring of 2022.
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“The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” by Suzan-Lori Parks, directed by Lee Daniels, in currently in development.
Andra Day (Billie Holiday), with Trevante Rhodes, Garret Hedlund, Natasha Lyonne, and more TBA.
Timeline, additional casting, and more information TBA.
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Audio: Two singles have been released from the recent Saturday Night Seder benefit concert:
“When You Believe,” by Stephen Schwartz, with Cynthia Erivo and Shoshana Bean
“Next Year,” by Shaina Taub, with Taub and Skylar Astin
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Video: Kinky Boots — “Raise You Up” at the International Pride Cast Reunion 2020.
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Dominique Morisseau is writing a new limited series, “Unruly,” for HBO.
Casting, timeline, and additional information TBA.
The series chronicles the life and legacy of boxer Jack Johnson, and is based on the PBS documentary “Unforgivable Blackness: The rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.” Nicknamed the “Galveston Giant,” Johnson became the first Black world heavyweight boxing champion at the height of the Jim Crow era. His 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries has been called the “fight of the century,”
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Video: During a recent panel discussion for “Homeland,” Mandy Patinkin launched into a story about the early days of creating Sunday in the Park With George.
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The 2021 SAG Awards telecast, originally scheduled to air Jan. 24, 2021, has been rescheduled to Mar. 14.
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Video: Angela Lansbury and Carol Channing perform songs from Mame and Hello Dolly! (2013)
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Ellen Tovatt Leary’s “The Understudy” is now available on Kindle and in paperback here.
The story of Nina Landau, an actress, living in New York City in the early ’70’s and trying hard to make it on Broadway. We follow her from her Broadway audition nerves, to her eventual success on stage. Along the way we discover what goes on backstage during a Broadway show, how actors deal with the mistakes that occasionally occur and how exciting it is to be at an opening night party at Sardi’s. Nina experiences thrilling triumphs as well as crushing setbacks and has a passionate love affair with her leading man.
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Audio: Jane Connell performes “Gooch’s Song,” from Mame (1966)
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Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theater has announced its Short New Play Festival: Private Lives, offering 8 new 10-minutes plays of heightened language and classic themes, to take place Mon. July 20 at 7:30 PM ET, directed by Vivienne Benesch and Em Weinstein.
* Jeremy O. Harris (title TBA)
* Theresa Rebeck, The Panel
* Ben Beckley, Outside Time, Without Extension
* Avery Deutsch, Old Beggar Women
* Leah Maddrie, Love Adjacent, or Balcony Plays
* Jessica Moss, In The Attic
* Matthew Park, Plague Year
* Mallory Jane Weiss, Evermore Unrest
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Video: CBS interview: Amanda Kloots discusses her husband, Nick Cordero
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* Lincoln Center’s Act One, (concludes today), starring Tony Shalhoub, Santino Fontana, and Andrea Martin. Click here.
* Mood Music (July 8-14), featuring Ben Chaplin, Pip Carter, Kurt Egyiawan, Seána Kerslake, Jemma Redgrave, and Neil Stuke. A young songwriter and producer who go to battle over who owns a hit song. Click here.
* Les Blance (through July 9), by Lorraine Hansberry. A man returns home from England for this father’s funeral, to an African country teetering on the edge of civil war. Click here.
* The Deep Blue Sea (July 9-16), by Terrence Rattigan, starring Helen McCrory. In 1952, Hester Collyer is found by her neighbours in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt. Click here.
* Carousel (July 10 – Sept. 8), at Lincoln Center, starring Kelli O’Hara, Nathan Gunn, Stephanie Blythe, Shuler Hensley, Jason Danieley, Jessie Mueller, Kate Burton, John Cullum, Robert Fairchild, and Tyler Peck. Click here.
* Amadeus (July 16-23), starring Lucian Msamati and Adam Gillen, directed by Michael Longhurst. Click here.
* Ann, (through July 17), starring Holland Taylor, on PBS. Click here.
* Gloria: A Life (through July 24), starring Christine Lahti, on PBS. Click here.
* Much Ado About Nothing (July 24 – Sept. 11), the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production, starring Danielle Brooks, Grantham Coleman, Chuck Cooper, on PBS. Click here.
* Present Laughter (July 31 – Aug. 28), starring Kevin Kline, Kate Burton, Cobie Smuthers, and Kristine Nielsen (2017) on PBS. Click here.
* Macbeth (available until UK schools re-open), starring Ekow Quartey. Click here.
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BroadwayHD has added some fabulous musicals & theatre films to its site:
* Sunday in the Park With George, (currently available) with Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters
* Into the Woods (begins July 9), starring Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason, and Chip Zien
* Into the Woods (July 9 – London production), starring Jenna Russell and Hannah Waddingham
* Funny Girl (July 21 – London production), starring Sheridan Smith
* “Meet Me In St. Louis” film (currently available)
* “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” film (July 16)
* “Leonard Soloway’s Broadway” film (July 30)
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Video: Lucy teaches Ethel Merman to sing on”The Lucy Show” (1964)
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RIP: Christina “Tina” Tippit Brown, writer, photographer, performer and longtime wife and collaborator of The Wiz librettist William F. Brown, died at her Westport, CT home on July 2 at the age of 94.
After college, she wrote comedic pieces for “The New Yorker” and performed on “The Tonight Show,” which led to developing material for Imogene Coca, George Gobel, Hermione Gingold and Virginia Graham.
In the theater, she was co-librettist of Have a Nice Day, wrote her own musical (Gringo) co-author of the revue, Cole, and contributed material to many revues —Twist, The Wiz, Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know; Style, Baby, Style; Playboy on Broadway; Any Number Can Play; More Sweet Reason and Straight Up with a Twist.
With her late husband, William F. Brown, she was co-librettist of the musical Have a Nice Day, ans co-author of the comedy Mixed Doubles
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Video: Altar Boyz cast reunites to sing “I Believe”