Today’s Highlights:
Fully Committed, by Becky Mode, directed by David Saint, and starring Maulik Pancholy, begins streaming on demand at NJ’s George Street Playhouse.
A Little New Music FREE concert, featuring the songs of Tim Rosser & Charlie Sohne, streams at 7 PM PT here.
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Video: Jim Caruso’s Cast Party variety show, with special guests Dee Roscioli & Ben Clark, Jared Wayne Gladley, Denise Reis, Jason Kravits, and Joshua Colley. (1:30:32)
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Maestra Music has partnered with Broadway Unlocked to create a virtual venue (it’s a website, but it’s a venue — you’ll see) with Georgia Stitt.
On Mon. Mar. 29, you’ll enter at 7 PM ET here, where you can then check out the bar, the chat rooms, the gallery, the lobby, the piano bar, the green room… and then at 8 PM ET, everyone will head to the stage to watch the show together, communicating in real time and celebrating the people and the programs that make up the Maestra community. You’ll hear some really exciting performances and witness a world-premiere song!
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Lena Hall‘s next concert will celebrate the band Heart! on Fri. Apr. 9 at 7 PM ET here.
This bare and intimate show invites the audience to a private zoom room where they can participate, ask questions, or even request songs. Unlike other streaming shows you are invited to interact which lends itself to a more personal and social experience. VIP tickets get you into the private Zoom room with Lena, for video interaction, polls, games, and much much more.
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Video: Liz Callaway sings “Another Hundred People”
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A concert version of Tye Blue, Marla Mindlle & Constantine Rousouli’s Titanique, an irreverent musical send-up of the “Titanic” film, will livestream (from NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge) Sun. May 2 at 7:30 PM ET on Stellar, directed by Blue, with choreography by Ellenore Scott, with music supervision by Nicholas Connell.
Marla Mindella (Celine), Constantine Rousouli (Jack Dawson), Alex Ellis (Rose DeWitt Bukater), Frankie J. Grande (Victor Garber), Kathy Deitch (Molly Brown), Kyle Ramar Freeman (The Iceberg Bitch), John Riddle (Cal), Randy Blair (Ruth), and Jalynn Steele (Courtney Bassett.
The spoof was previously seen at NYC’s Green Room 42, having premiered in Los Angeles in 2017.
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The “R&H Goes Pop” video series will be released as an album series on Mar. 26 here.
(first album):
1. “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” with Jeremy Jordan
2. “Shall We Dance?” with Ariana DeBose
3. “Some Enchanted Evening” with Andy Mientus
4. “It Feels Good” with Lilli Cooper
5. “Something Wonderful” with Gavin Creel
6. “Lonely Room” with Rebecca Naomi Jones
7. “This Nearly Was Mine” with Ryan McCartan
8. “The Next Ten Minutes Ago” with Jeremy Jordan & Laura Osnes, a mashup of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Ten Minutes Ago” and Jason Robert Brown’s ” The Next Ten Minutes” from The Last Five Years
9. “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” with Ali Stroker
10. “Younger Than Springtime” with Derek Klena
11. “Something Good” with Katrina Lenk
12. “We Kiss in a Shadow” with Jelani Alladin & Matt Doyle
13. “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?” with Santino Fontana
14. “Do-Re-Mi” with Ashley Park
15. “The Sweetest Sounds” with Kyle Selig
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North Hollywood’s Loft Ensemble presents its monologue series, MonoLOFTSlam, which is now available, with more uploaded soon.
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Broadway Backwards, the show where gender doesn’t matter, but love does, in support of BC/EFA, will premiere Tues. Mar. 30 at 8 PM ET here (and will remain available through Apr. 3).
Chasten Buttigieg, Anderson Cooper, Ariana DeBose, Don Lemon, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Robin Roberts, Tony Shalhoub and Ben Vereen.
Amy Adams, Stephanie J. Block, Deborah Cox, James Monroe Iglehart, Cheyenne Jackson, L Morgan Lee, Raymond J. Lee, Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Ruthie Ann Miles, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jessie Mueller, Kelli O’Hara, Karen Olivo, Bernadette Peters, Sis and Elizabeth Stanley. The finale also includes special appearances by Debbie Allen, Matt Bomer, Brenda Braxton, Len Cariou, Glenn Close, Loretta Devine, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Cherry Jones, Aasif Mandvi, Michael McElroy, Javier Muñoz, Jim Parsons, Eve Plumb, Roslyn Ruff, Lea Salonga, and Tony Yazbeck.
The show will explore how the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic has specifically affected the LGBTQ community. The show will feature Jay Armstrong Johnson as an isolated New Yorker who dreams a fantastical journey guided by a late-night television host, portrayed by Jenn Colella. New performances will be merged with full numbers from previous editions to create a Broadway Backwards that feels distinctly of the moment.
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Harrison David Rivers’ This Bitter Earth will stream Mar. 26 – Apr. 30 at North Hollywood’s Road Theatre, directed by Gregg T. Daniel.
Matthew Hancock (Jesse) and Chase Cargill (Neil).
Jesse, an introspective black playwright, finds his choices called into question when his boyfriend, Neil, a white Black Lives matter activist, calls him out for his political apathy. As passions and priorities collide, this couple is forced to reckon with issues of race, class, and the bravery it takes to love out loud.
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Actors’ Equity Association has responded to the letter sent by union members requesting a virtual town hall to discuss reopening plans by promising that a meeting would take place, with details to be announced soon.
The response, which also detailed the steps AEA has said it has taken so far to keep its members safe, was posted (and subsequently taken down) on Medium on Mar 20.
Since last July, Actors’ Equity has been approving productions across the country at venues depending on a safety plan submitted to the union. In its letter, AEA said that it currently takes around 21 days for an approval, suggesting that producers submit their plan at least three weeks before work begins with approval coming “three-to-five days before a proposed start date.”
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Video: Watch a 100th Anniversary interactive timeline of Broadway’s Walter Kerr Theatre.
Stephanie J. Block, Crystal Dickinson, Tovah Feldshuh, Lewis Flinn, John Earl Jelks, Cherry Jones, Kenny Leon, Adriane Lenox, Andrew Lippa, Omar Metwally, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Jeremy Shamos, Jason Tam, Frederick Weller, and more.
The timeline, a definitive history of the building, features a century’s worth of history: from the earliest shows, musicals, and revues, through its history as a television and radio studio, brief spans as an adult film theater and later a children’s theater, and finally as one of the most beloved houses on Broadway. The timeline features a lovingly curated collection of seldom seen ephemera including old production photos, Playbill covers, sheet music, and press clippings. In addition, the people who have made the Walter Kerr their home over the last century – actors, directors, designers, writers, house and crew members.
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The Al Hirschfeld Foundation presents its latest online exhibition, “It Goes So Fast: Our Town by Hirschfeld,” which is now available here through May 15, guest-curated by Howard Sherman.
The exhibition features Hirschfeld’s reflections of the legendary Thornton Wilder drama featuring artists including Frances Conroy, Henry Fonda, Spalding Gray, Helen Hayes, Penelope Ann Miller, Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Frank Sinatra, Eric Stoltz and more. “Given the breadth of his career, it’s no surprise that Al Hirschfeld had occasion to draw actors from productions of Our Town, in light of the enduring popularity of Thornton Wilder’s play,” says Howard Sherman, guest-curator of the exhibition. “In only 10 drawings, Hirschfeld managed to commemorate all four productions that have played on Broadway to date, ranging from the original in 1938 to the most recent revival in 2002. He also captured all of the men who played the Stage Manager on Broadway, an estimable quartet made up of Frank Craven, Henry Fonda, Spalding Gray, and Paul Newman, as well as various other members of the companies.”
And learn more on the podcast here.
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Off-Broadway’s Mint Theater continues with the world premiere of Miles Malleson’s Yours Unfaithfully (written in 1933, but never produced), currently streaming through May 16, directed by Jonathan Bank
Max von Essen, Todd Cerveris, Mikaela Izquierdo, Elisabeth Gray, and John Hutton.
A refined, rueful and often shrewd comedy about polyamory, written decades before open relationships were quite so openly discussed. Its subject is no more scandalous than those of several plays by George Bernard Shaw or Harley Granville Barker, another Mint favorite. But the shock of its content, the gentility of its form and its strong links to Malleson’s own life must have made it a chancy undertaking. Yours Unfaithfully is both a daring play and a highly conventional one.
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Manhattan Theatre Club has extended its FREE streaming of Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain (MTC’s 1997-98 production) through Mar. 25, directed by Evan Yionoulis.
Patricia Clarkson, John Slattery, and Bradley Whitford.
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VT’s Dorset Theatre Festival has announced that its Summer 2021 will offer both live and recorded performances, although the specific plays are TBA.
StageFree Audio Plays, a new series written for a totally aural experience. Thersa Rebeck and Chisa Hutchinson will write the first 2-part plays in the series.
Outdoor Season at the Southern Vermont Arts Center. Productions TBA.