Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be limited theatre news for the foreseeable future. I will continue to search for anything meaningful and/or fun to report. Stay safe and healthy.
Today’s Highlights:
* London’s National Theatre FREE livestreamed of This House (2013), by James Graham, directed by Jeremy Herrin, featuring Phil Daniels, Reece Dinsdale, Charles Edwards, and Vincent Franklin, at 2 PM ET here (and available for 7 days).
* The Blank Theatre‘s Nathan C. Jones: A Love Story?, world premiere by Vanessa Claire Stewart & Brendan Milburn, directed by Daniel Henning, starring Amir Levi, livestreamed at 5 PM PT (available for 3 weeks).
* Musical Theatre Audition MasterClass, with instructors Debbie Gravitte & Michael Orland, special guests Megan Hilty and Christopher Gattelli, and singers Amanda Kruger, Lauren Racz, Jayda Freeman, James Dawson, Peyton Wood, and Emmaline Tolley, at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET on Zoom (ID: 663 981-0058, no password required).
* Skylight Theatre‘s Close and Far Away virtual reading, by Corey Hinkle, directed by Elina De Santos, featuring Melissa Paladino and Jennifer Pollono, at 3 PM PT.
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Video: “Plays in the House,” with a reading of David Ives’ All in the Timing, a compilation of 3 plays, with original stars Nancy Opel and Robert Stanton. (1:09:50)
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Video: “Stars in the House,” with special guests Victoria Clark and Debra Messing. (1:10:54)
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RIP: Playwright Larry Kramer has died at the age of 84 from complications from pneumonia.
Kramer co-founded the AIDS activist group New York City Gay Men’s Health Crisis, but feuded with the board, which eventually revoked his membership. Kramer then inspired the creation of an even more strongly activist group, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), which plastered the slogan “Silence = Death” across New York starting in the 1980s. He eventually locked horns with ACT UP as well.
At a time in the 1980s, Kramer insisted on shouting from the rooftops that the community had no time to waste, and demanding immediate action from political leaders including President Reagan and NY Mayor Edward Koch. He also demanded that people at risk of contracting and spreading AIDS modify their sexual behavior. In the process he alienated many, including in the power structure of the gay community and the organizations he helped found. Kramer then did an end-run around them all, turning his outrage into The Normal Heart.
He battled both opponents of the LGBTQ+ community and the community itself. However, his uncompromising attitude coupled with his plays helped alter the political and social reaction to AIDS and saved many lives—though nowhere near the number he had hoped.
After graduating from Yale in 1957. He began writing films, including an adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, which earned him a 1970 Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Despite the acclaim, Kramer had not enjoyed the experience of writing screenplays and longed to write about homosexuality, still a largely forbidden topic in the early 1970s. He tried writing an autobiographical film about his struggles being a gay man at Yale, which he called Sissies’ Scrapbook, but he could not get it financed. Instead, his agent submitted it to the recently formed Off-Broadway company Playwrights Horizons, which accepted it and produced in 1973. It was later produced commercially at the Theatre de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel Theatre) in Greenwich Village under the title Four Friends.
As the AIDS epidemic began to gather force in the early 1980s, Kramer was one of a half dozen founders of a group called the Gay Men’s Health Crisis to provide crisis counseling, legal aid, and social services for those suffering from a mysterious disease that seemed to be targeting gay men. Kramer was the most outspoken member of the group and constantly pushed it to become more political. When GMHC resisted, he helped found ACT UP.
These experiences fueled The Normal Heart, which opened at the Public Theater in 1985. It ruthlessly named the names of people and institutions, including The New York Times, that Kramer felt were not focusing attention and resources on the growing “plague” that was decimating its sufferers, mainly members of the gay community.
The success of the play prompted Kramer to follow it with Just Say No (1988), a full-bore ad-hominem attack on political leaders modeled on Reagan and Koch. The play lasted out its one-month limited run at the WPA Playhouse, and did not continue. However, the stress of its failure sent Kramer into the hospital, where it was discovered that, in addition to liver damage, he himself was HIV positive. Kramer later had to fight to obtain a liver transplant, which were being routinely withheld from AIDS patients.
Kramer’s 1992 play The Destiny of Me, effectively a sequel-prequel to The Normal Heart, was cited as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1993 and won an OBIE Award and Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play. In 2013, Kramer was given the Isabelle Stevenson Award from the Tony Awards for his public service to the theatre community.
The Normal Heart attracted a wider audience in 2011 when it was revived on Broadway with Joe Mantello, Jim Parsons, John Benjamin Hickey, and Ellen Barkin. The show won three Tony Awards including Best Revival. That led to the 2014 TV version from Ryan Murphy, which featured Mantello and Parsons along with Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Alfred Molina, Jonathan Groff, B.D. Wong, Denis O’Hare, and Julia Roberts.
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Video: The original Broadway & London casts of The Drowsy Chaperone have united to sing “As We Stumble Along” (reprise), in support of The Actors Fund.
Bob Martin, Troy Britton Johnson, Mara Davi, Eddie Korbich, Lenny Wolpe, Jason Kravits, Garth Kravits, Linda Griffin, Kilty Reidy, Joey Sorge, Jennifer Smith, Beth Leavel, Kecia Lewis-Evans, Ann Batchelor, Vanessa Barmby, Vivienne Carlyle, Andrea Chamberlin, Kenneth Avery-Clark, Alex Crandon, Georgia Crandon, Mark Dickinson, Jay Douglas, Stacia Fernandez, Nina French, Josie Hicks, Ciara Hudson, Cameron Jack, Sean Kingsley, Lisa Lambert, Casey Nicholaw, Sherri Pennington, Josh Pope, Angela Pupello, Ella Sabine, Adam Stafford, and Patrick Wetzel.
Donate here to The Actors Fund.
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“Life in a Pandemic — One Day At a Time” will take place Sun. June 14 at 7 PM ET here, hosted by RuPaul.
Norman Lear and Rita Moreno
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Video: Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli perform “The Prayer”
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Video: Karen Olivo, “Come To Your Senses,” from Encores’ tick…tick…BOOM! (2014)
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Article: Playbill chats with actor/director/producer Evan Pappas about how he is coping with the self-isolation on a daily basis, both physically and creatively.
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The San Francisco Ballet continues through June. All events are available for one week after their initial streaming.
June 5: Snowblind, a one-act adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novella “Ethan Frome,” and will include an interview with choreographer Cathy Martson.
June 12: Björk Ballet, by Arthur Pita, and will include social distancing-friendly activities such as virtual artist chats, DIY cocktail recipes, and a DJ-curated playlist.
June 26: Foreshadow, by Val Caniparoli,
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A reading of Will Abery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning, in support of Playwrights Horizons, will take place Sat. June 13 at 8 PM ET here, directed by Danya Taymor.
(original cast): Jeb Kreager, Julia McDermott, Michele Pawk, Zoë Winters, and John Zdrojeski.
Set in Wyoming, the play follows the return home of four conservatives to toast their mentor Gina. As their reunion spirals into spiritual chaos and clashing generational politics, the evening become less a celebration than a vicious fight to be understood.
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Chita: A Legendary Celebration will take place Fri. May 29 at 8 PM ET here.
Chita Rivera, Tommy Tune and Ben Vereen
The event includes an exclusive new interviews with Chita at home, conducted by Richard Ridge.
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Video: In rehearsal for Broadway’s All Shook Up (2015), with Cheyenne Jackson, Jenn Gabatese, Mark Price, Alix Korey, John Jellison, Sharon Wilkins, Jonathan Hadary, Leah Hocking, directed by Christopher Ashley, and book writer Joe DiPietro.
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The Gorgeous Nothings: In Concert, celebrating the vibrancy of NYC’s hidden LBGTQ+ community in the 1920s and ’30s, will take place Sat. June 20 at 8 PM ET (link TBA), with music direction by Joe Kinosian, and guest host Beth Kirkpatrick. The concert will be available for 48 hours. Proceeds will benefit BC/EFA.
Kevin Smith Kirkwood, James Jackson Jr., Stephen DeRosa, The Skivvies, Aaron Kaburick, Devin Ilaw, Seth Sikes, Maclain Whelan Dassatti, Kyle Price, and Benjamin Walker.
The concert features rarely heard songs of the era, reflecting the diverse queer communities that pulsed beneath the surface of NYC over 40 years before the Stonewall riots.
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The 2020 Obie Awards will take place June 4 here, hosted by Cole Escola.
As is tradition, there are no nominees announced in advance; instead, a judging panel forgoes traditional categorization to determine Off-Broadway honors worthy of distinction. This year, recipients will be informed in advance, with pre-recorded acceptance speeches shown during the stream.
Included:
* Headliner: Patti LuPone
* A musical tribute to Merrily We Roll Along
* In memoriam segment led by Shaina Taub
…and more
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Video: Free to Be (Jazz of the 1960s) concert, with Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Wynton Marsalis. (1:34:13)
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MCC Theater’s Miscast20 will take place Sat. June 20 at 8 PM ET here, in support of The Mental Health Coalition.
Casting TBA.
Video: Trailer
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Video: Danielle Wade, “My Own Little Corner”
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The New York Times is celebrating the Broadway season that was cut short with a livestreamed event, “Offstage: Opening Night,” on Thurs. June 11 at 7 PM ET..
* Patti LuPone, Katrina Lenk, and the cast of Company perform “Company”
* Elizabeth Stanley performs songs from Jagged Little Pill
* Six writers Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss in conversation with Michael Paulson
* Moulin Rouge! choreographer Sonya Tayeh, with dancers Khori Petinaud and Fred Odgaard, in conversation with Nicole Herrington
* Mary-Louise Parker performs a scene from The Sound Inside, and discusses the work with theatre critic Jesse Green
* Adrienne Warren performs a song from Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. and chats with NY Times critic Ben Brantley