Today’s Highlights:
* First Date virtual production, by Austin Winsberg, Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner, directed by Dean Johnson, featuring Samantha Barks (Casey) and Simon Lipkin (Aaron), with Nicholas McLean (Man #2), Rufus Kampa (Young Aaron), and Danielle Steers (Woman #1), opens at London’s Crazy Coqs.
* Skeleton Crew FREE benefit reading, by Dominique Morisseau, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, and featuring Jason Dirden, Wendell B. Franklin, Nikiya Mathis, Adesola Osakulumi, and Caroline Clay, streams through Oct. 24 here.
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Cats: With Love Now and Forever, featuring cast members from the Cats 3rd national tour, in support of BC/EFA, will stream Fri. Oct. 23 at 8 PM ET here.
Brian Stoked Mitchell and Tom Viola
Mark Agnes, Arminae Reames, Joanna Beck, Anthony Vincent Boya, Lisa Dawn Cave, Jonathan Cerullo, Leslie Ellis, Robert Barry Fleming, Deborah Geneviere Athens, Adrea Gibbs, JoAnn M Hunter, Jack Gaughan, Austin Jettong, BK Kennelly, Deidre Land, Karen Longwell, Aja Kane, Kari Nicolaisen, Bill Nolte, Donna Pompei, Cathy Susan Pyles, Randy Slovacek, Beth Swearinggen, Fred Tallaksen, Christine Toy Johnson, Rachell Rak, Amiee Turner, James Walski, Matt Zarley, and Julie Stiel.
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Video: The Schuyler Sisters from various companies of Hamilton perform “Work” together to help in our voting efforts.
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Ethan Hawke‘s dramatic reading of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead is now available for viewing at NYC’s 92Y.
A letter from an ailing Reverend to his young son recounting his life in all of its grace and beauty.
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Williamstown Theatre Festival has announced additional information on its Audible Theatre Season:
* A Streetcar Named Desire (available Dec. 3), directed by Robert O’Hara, featuring Joel Reuben Ganz, Joe Goldammer, Carla Gugino, Carmen M. Herlihy, Sullivan Jones, Brian Lucas, Audra McDonald, Stacey Raymond, Cesar J. Rosado, and Ariel Shafir.
* Photograph 51 (available Dec. 10), by Anna Ziegler, directed by Susan Stroman, featuring Anna Chlumsky, David Corenswet, Stephen Kunken, Aasif Mandvi, Omar Metwally, and Ben Rosenfield.
* Animals (available Dec. 17), world premiere by Stacy Osei-Kuffour, directed by Whitney White, featuring Madeline Brewer, Jason Butler Harner, William Jackson Harper, and Aja Naomi King. Lydia and Henry’s dinner guests are about to arrive when Henry’s spontaneous marriage proposal threatens to burn the evening to a crisp.
* Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club (available Dec. 29), world premiere by Shakina Nayfack, directed by Laura Savia, featuring Ivory Aguino, Kate Bornstein, Liz Lark Brown, Annie Golden, Bianca Leigh, Telly Leung, Dana Levinson, Pooya Mohseni, Shakina Nayfack, Angelica Ross, Ita Segey, Jason Tam, and Samy Nour Younes. A vibrant international group of transgender women band together at a hotel in Thailand to confront the challenges and joys of gender confirmation surgery.
* Paradise Blue (dates TBA), by Dominique Morisseau, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, featuring André Holland Kristolyn Lloyd, Simone Missick, Keith Randolph Smith, and Blair Underwood. Blue, a troubled trumpeter and the owner of Paradise Club, is torn between remaining in Black Bottom with his loyal lover Pumpkin and leaving behind a traumatic past.
* Row (dates TBA), world premiere by Daniel Goldstein & Dawn Landes, directed by Tyne Rafaeli, featuring Kerstin Anderson, John Ellison Conlee, Nehal Joshi, Tamika Lawrence, John McGinty, Grace McLean, Kathryn O’Rourke, Lance Roberts, Sean Stack, and Sally Wilfert. Tori aims to be the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic. As a child, she raised her younger brother Lamar, defending him against discrimination and neighborhood bullies. Now, with nothing but her body and a hand-built boat, she squares off with her own tormentor: the ocean.
* Wish You Were Here (dates TBA) world premiere by Sanaz Toossi, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch. Nazanin and her friends are on the brink of adulthood. As they prepare for a wedding, outside their living room the Iranian Revolution simmers and threatens to alter the course of their lives.
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Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre has announced all Fall 2020 – Winter 2021 season:
* A Christmas Carol: The Live Radio Play (Dec. 4-23), a safe drive-in production at Georgia State University’s Center Parc Credit Union Stadium, with a stage for live actors and big screens providing an interactive, concert-style experience. Details
* A Verry Terry Christmas (Nov. 27 – Dec. 31), with Terry Burrell sharing delightful stores and jazz-inspired versions of holiday songs. Details
* New Black Fest’s Hands Up: 7 Playwrights, 7 Testaments (Feb. 1-28, 2021), a FREE series of virtual conversations and performances exploring the role of artistic expression as a tool for activism. Details
* Data (Mar. 1-31), by Matthew Libby, directed by Susan V. Booth, Maneesh, an entry-level programmer in Silicon Valley, has a crisis of conscience when he is offered a transfer to the more-central Data Analytics team, where he learns the true nature of Athen’s confidential and highly controversial work. Details
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A two-disc set of he first complete recording of Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle will be released Dec. 4 here (nearly 3 decades after it was recorded). The National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Owen Edwards, plays Don Walker’s orchestrations.
Maria Friedman, Julia McKenzie, John Barrowman, Arthur Laurents, Shezwae Powell, Ian Burford, Bill Nolte, Matt Zimmerman, Stuart Pendred, Marcus Alan Cooper, Catherine Porter, Paul Manuel, Tee Jaye, Tinuke Olafimihan, Sophie Marchant, and many more.
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“The Second Wave,” a new 6-episode drama series, will premiere on a date TBA on Spectrum on Demand.
Audra McDonald, Steven Pasquale, Taylor Schilling
The series will chronicle a surprise outbreak of COVID-19 in NYC.
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Off-Broadway’s Women’s Project Theater has announced its 2020-21 season, featuring all-free events:
* Ole White Sugah Daddy reading (available Oct. 23-27), by Obehi Janice, and directed by Caitlin Sullivan. A young Black female coder and MIT grad wrestle with love, identity, and the tension between striving and thriving.
* Final Boarding Call (available Nov. 20-24), by Stefani Kuo, directed by Mei Ann Teo. The play spotlights the current Hong Kong protests.
* Lockdown (available Dec. 3-7), by Cori Thomas, directed by Kent Gash. An examination of life in prison.
* The Nourish Project (available Jan. 25-29, 2021), created & directed by Rebecca Martinez. The immersive live event explores virtual space as a means of soul nourishment and connection.
* Galatea (available Mar. 22-26), by MJ Kaufman, directed by Will Davis. The trans love story, set against the backdrop of the climate crisis, is loosely based on John Lyly’s 1585 play.
* Weightless (available in April-May, dates TBA), by The Killbanes, directed by Tamilla Woodard. A rock opera inspired by the tale of Procne and Philmela from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the musical weaves ancient myth with indie rock to tell a story of a woman who refuses to be silenced.
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Red Bull Theater‘s reading of Anchuli Felicia Kings’ Keene is now available until Oct. 23 at 7 PM ET, directed by Ethan McSweeny.
Grantham Coleman, Paul Gross, Carol Halstead, John Harrell, Chris Johnston, Sam Lilja, Amelia Pedlow, Sam Saint Ours, Zoe Speas, Sarah Suzuki, and Sara Topham
A playful riff on early-career academia, Shakespeare’s Othello, and the power of American pop.
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NYC’s 92Y presents George Gershwin: Bidin’ My Time on Mon. Oct. 26 at 7 PM ET, directed by Paul Masse, and narrated by Beth Malone.
Farah Alvin, Allison Blackwell, James T. Lane, Kara Lindsay, and Zachary Prince.
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Video: The Public Theater’s FORWARD. TOGETHER is now available through Oct. 24 at midnight. (1:26:20)
Antonio Banderas, Laura Benanti, Oscar Isaac, Audra McDonald, and Jelani Alladin.
Alicia Keys and Lin-Manuel Miranda
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MA’s Barrington Stage will present a reading of Mark St. Germain’s Typhoid Mary, to run Oct. 30 & 31 at 7:30 PM ET, directed by Matthew Penn.
Judith Ivey, T.R. Knight, Joe Morton, Kate MacCluggage, Frances Evans, and Matthew Penn.
The true and turbulent story of Mary Mallon, known better as Typhoid Mary. As one of the most infamous women in America, her career as a cook left deaths in her wake. A carrier of Typhoid, Mary refused to believe she was responsible, citing God’s will and the lies of science instead.
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Video: Teaser for “The Prom,” which premieres Nov. 15 on Netflix, featuring Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, James Corden, Andrew Rannells, and Jo Ellen Pellman.
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Hershey Felder has announced a new season of live digital theatre from Nov. 2020 – May 2021. All of the productions will be filmed live from Felder’s home base in Florence, Italy.
* A Paris Love Story (Nov. 22 at 8 PM ET). Felder, as Claude Debussy, will explore how Debussy’s work help usher in the new world of “musical impressionism. 
here.
* Tchaikovsky (Dec. 20 at 8 PM ET). Just in time for Christmas, the work will feature an extended focus on the creation of The Nutcracker. here.
* Before Fiddler (Feb. 7, 2021, at 8 PM ET). Felder will play the novelist Sholem Aleichem and embody classic characters like Tevyeh and Yenteh. With specialg uest Klezmerata Fiorentina here.
* Puccini (Mar. 14 at 8 PM ET). Felder will explore the titular composer’s scandalous life and how the real women in his life helped inspire the characters in La Bohème, Tosca, Turandot, and more. here.
* Anna & Sergei (May 16 at 8 PM ET). This world premiere is a memory play which explores a strange meeting between the Russian composer and a woman named Anna Anderson, who claims to be the princess Anastasia. here.
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Video: Trailer for George C. Wolfe’s film adaptation of August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman, which premieres Dec. 18 on Netflix.
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A Little New Music will spotlight the music of composer/lyricist Gregory Nabours on Tues. Sept. 27 at 7 PM PT here.
Jason Michael Snow and Tegan Summer.