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:
* Another Opening, Another Debut! Broadway Debuts of the 2017-18 Season FREE livestreamed concert, at 6:30 PM ET here.
* “Unprecedented: Real Time Theatre,” a series of short digital plays written & performed in isolation, with a cast of 50+, premieres at 10 PM PST, on BBC Four (continues through May 28).
* The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Musicals livestream at 6 PM ET here.
* “The Show Must Go On Show” variety show, featuring Christiani Pitts and chef Dave Becker, livestreamed at 7 PM ET here.
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Video: “Stars in the House,” with guest host Laura Benanti, and guests Linda Benanti, Madison Smith, Bryan Andes, and Javier Muñoz (1:03:20).
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Video: “Stars in the House,” with a coven of Wicked‘s Elphabas — Eden Espinosa, Brandi Chavonne Massey, Julia Murney, and Jessica Vosk. (1:19:05)
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Josh Groban: Great Big Radio City Show, originally scheduled for June 20, Sept. 6, and Oct. 5, will now take place Apr 15-17, 2021 at Radio City Music Hall.
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Video: Highlights from Broadway’s A Little Night Music (1999), starring Angela Lansbury, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Erin Davie, Hunter Ryan Herdlicka, and Aaron Lazar.
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Video: Shelly Goldstein performs her parody, “How Lovely When News Was Stupid.”
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Pride Plays and Playbill (along with Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre) will present livestreamed readings every Friday during the month of June, focusing on the LGBTQIA+ community:
Casting TBA.
June 5: Brave Smiles…Another Lesbian Tragedy, by The Five Lesbian Brothers, directed by Leigh Silverman.
June 12: one in two, by Donja R. Love.
June 19: Masculinity Max, by MJ Kaufman, directed by Will Davis.
June 26: Men From the Boys, by Mart Crowley, directed by Zachary Quinto.
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Shortly before the pandemic caused shut downs around the theatre world, Off-Broadway’s Joe’s Pub celebrated the vibrancy of NYC’s LBGTQ+ community in the 1920s and ’30s with a show called The Gorgeous Nothings: In Concert, in support of BC/EFA, directed by Travis Russ, with music direction by Joe Kinosian.
The concert will be now available on Mon. June 8 (for 48 hours). 
link TBA. 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.
Kevin Smith Kirkwood, James Jackson Jr., Stephen DeRosa, Nick Cearley, Aarom Kaburick, Davin Ilaw, Seth Sikes, Beth Kirkpatrick, Maclain, Whlen Dassatti, Kyle Price, and Benjamin Walker.
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Video: LA’s Center Theatre Group’s “L.A. Theatre Speaks,” offering a fiery and inspiring discussion of what some of the great voices in American playwriting are thinking about and working on right now, and where they want theatre to go next, hosted by Neel Keller & Meghan Pressman. 
Available only on Facebook. Scroll to 4:33 to start.
Luis Alfaro, Boni B. Alvarez, Bekah Brunstetter, Aleshea Harris, Jeremy O. Harris, Molly Smith Metzler, and Dominique Morisseau.
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Video: Highlights from Broadway’s Once (2012)
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RIP: Norma Doggett died on May 4 at the age of 94.
She made her Broadway debut as a dancer in Magdalena (1948) at the age of 23. Other Broadway credits include All for Love, Miss Liberty, Wish You Were Here, Fanny, and Bells are Ringing.
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Video: Anika Noni Rose, “I Want a Friend,” from the May 18 Game Changers Virtual Gala (starts at 1:27).
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Video: Trailer for “Royalties,” a new series premiering June 1 on Quibi, starring Darren Criss.
The series is a satirical take on the oft-untold story of songwriters behind the world’s biggest hits. The show follows the ascent of a ragtag songwriting duo – Sara and Pierce – as they navigate the strange and hilarious challenges of creating a truly great song, week after week. Each episode will feature real-life entertainment personalities – the newly announced guest talent – portraying fictitious (and ridiculous) music stars, along with original songs penned by Criss.
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LA Opera has announced its upcoming online schedule.
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RIP: Walter Dallas, director, playwright, musician, teacher, and leader in African-American theatre, has died at the age of 73 of pancreatic cancer.
He was best known for his leadership of Philadelphia’s Freedom Theater, one of the nation’s top African-American companies. Dallas led the company from 1992-2008. During his time there, he made the an Actors Equity house. When it opened its 300-seat auditorium in 2001, his first play was Desire Under the Elms with an all-black cast.
Dallas also worked at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater and the Negro Ensemble Company, as well as at Yale Rep, the Mark Taper Forum, and Baltimore Center Stage, as well as directing more than 25 world premieres (Seven Guitars at the Goodman Theatre). He worked with James Baldwin, Denzel Washington, and Viola Davis, as well as many others.
Dallas was also a playwright. He wrote Lazarus, Unstoned based on the biblical tale, and including music from Stravinsky to Aretha Franklin. Dallas also wrote the script for “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” alongside Ntozake Shange and Allan Slutsky.
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Video: Erin Davie, “I Miss You Most on Sundays,” from the new Broadway musical, Diana: A True Musical Story.
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How to Ruin a Broadway Musical with one letter:
* Randy Rainbow: Annie Get Your Gum
* Audra McDonald: Lagtime
* Randy Rainbow: Funky Girl
* Javier Muñoz: Gamilton
* Justin Paul: Ragú
* Bebe Neuwirth: Do I Fear a Waltz?
* Julia Murney: Licked
* Benj Pasek: Fun Hole
* Andy Mientus: Dead Evan Hansen
* Gideon Glick: The Bank’s Visit
* Steve Kazee: Wacked
* Frank DiLella: Lame
* John Schindler: Evite
* Mark Ballas: Jerkey Boys
* Alec Baldwin: Rats
* Christina Bianco: Annie Get Your Gin
* Molly Pope: Male
* J. Smith Cameron: Lent
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Video: Ben Platt performs Tom Kitt’s “Oh, Columbia”
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Video: Hugo Armstrong performs Lord Buckley’s interpretation of Marc Antony’s Funeral Oration, from Julius Caesar.
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Audio: Dionne Warwick: “A House is Not a Home”
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Video: New York Theatre Workshop’s master class, How I Think About Directing Text, with Rachel Chavkin. (1:54:15)