Today’s Highlights:
* “Baking with Broadway,” an Actors Fund benefit baking class with Jared Sullivan and Stephen Lowry, livestreamed at 8 PM ET here.
* New York Theatre Barn presents a FREE sneak peek at Richard Allen & Taran Gray’s Walt & Roy, and Marshall Pailet & A.D. Penedo’s Loch Ness, featuring Jeremy Kushnier, Kaylin Hedges, Charity Farrell, and Payson Lewis, streamed at 7 PM ET.
* Rubicon Theatre‘s Music of the Knights: Celebrating the Songs of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney drive-in concert, directed by James O’Neil, featuring Ted McNeeley, Teri Bibb, David Burnham, Davis Gaines, Chris Lash, Tami Tappan Damiano, and Ty Taylor, closes at CA’s Ventura County Fairgrounds parking lot.
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Reviews for The Three Kings (streamed production) at London’s Old Vic:
NY Times (Jesse Green): It’s a ridiculous result of the restrictions of livestreamed theater that one of the best performances to emerge from the new medium is also one you might never get to see… In the hourlong monologue Three Kings by Stephen Beresford, Zoomed from the Old Vic…the Irish actor Andrew Scott seems to squeeze all the roles for which he’s become known, from a thin-skinned Hamlet to the so-called Hot Priest in Fleabag, into one soulful, awful, sorry excuse for a man… Beresford’s script is nasty fun… Patrick’s transition from lovesick boy to careworn man is central to the shock and strength of Scott’s performance.
The Guardian (Catherine Love): Stephen Beresford’s monologue is a measured and meticulously crafted tale of fathers and sons, tenderly performed by Andrew Scott. Played against the eerie backdrop of the Old Vic’s empty auditorium in London, there’s something melancholy and at times almost funereal about it – an elegy broken by moments of sharp humour… Scott – for whom the script was written – is a transfixing presence on the screen. Shifting between Patrick at different stages of his life and his estranged, swaggering father, Scott’s performance shows us the forces that ricochet down the generations, from little gestures that pass from father to son to the enduring pain of abandonment.
The Arts Desk (Marianka Swain): … [Andrew] Scott evokes both characters [Patrick and his absentee father] with pin-sharp precision, as well as several others: Patrick’s vain, fragile, pill-popping mother, who disparages his father just as he does her; his older sister, who recalls them fleeing from debt collectors in Dublin; his father’s friend Dennis, awkward conveyer of yet more hurtful revelations; and his younger half-brother, also called Patrick, innocent and pathetically grateful for a shred of fraternal affection… Beresford’s incisive script constantly shows the agonising gulf between expectation and reality… Matthew Warchus’s direction is unfussy, but that suits the piece well.
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GRACE NOTES Quote of the Week: “Working with [Sophia Loren] is like being bombarded by watermelons.” ~ Alan Ladd
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Video: “Stars in the House,” a Be More Chill reunion, featuring Joe Iconis, George Salazar, Will Roland, Jason Tam, Britton Smith, Tiffany Mann, Katlyn Carlson, Lauren Marcus, Gerard Canonico, Jason SweetTooth Williams, Cameron Bond, Troy Iwata, Talia Suskauer, Joel Waggoner and Stephanie Hsu. (1:38:50)
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Article: Washington Post: “New York City can’t rebound without Broadway. And Broadway’s road back is uncertain.”
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Bob Gale, Alan Silvestri & Glen Ballard’s Back to the Future The Musical will begin previews on May 14, 2021, with an opening date TBA at the Adelphi Theatre, directed by John Rando, with choreography by Chris Bailey, and music supervision by Nick Finlow.
Roger Bart (Dr. Emmett Brown), Olly Dobson (Marty McFly), Hugh Coles (George McFly), Rosanna Hyland (Lorraine Baines), Cedric Neal (Goldie Wilson), Aidan Cutler (Biff Tannen), Courtney-Mae Briggs (Jennifer Parker), and more TBA.
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Video: “Jim Caruso’s Pajama Cast Party,” with special guests Tom Kitt, Michael Kitt, Derek Klena, Bryan Carter, Stephen Mahy, Rich & Jill Switzer, Warren Wright, and Terry Burrell. (1:30:24)
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The centennial anniversary of Noël Coward’s West End debut of A Marvellous Party, in support of The Actors Fund, will take place Sun. Sept. 20 at 7:30 PM BST/2:30 PM ET on YouTube (link TBA).
Judi Dench, Cush Jumbo, Giles Terera, Kate Burton, Stephen Fry, Montego Glover, Derek Jacobi, Josh James, Robert Lindsay, Kristine Nielsen, Bebe Neuwrith, Julian Ovenden, Patricia Routledge, Kate Royal, Emma Thompson, Indiria Varma, and Lia Williams.
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Article: The Oscars announce new inclusion requirements for Best Picture eligibilty.
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Off-Broadway’s Red Bull Theater will present a reading of The Revenger’s Tragedy on Mon. Sept. 14 at 7:30 PM ET, adapted & directed by Jesse Berger.
Cecil Baldwin, Jason C. Brown, Denis Butkus, Geraint Wyn Davies, Saudia Davis, Ryan Farley, Ryan Garbayo, Claire Lauter, Anthony Michael Martinez, Paul Niebanck, Howard Overshown, Petronia Paley, Naomi Peters, Matthew Rauch, Russell Salmon, Derek Smith, Chauncy Thomas, and Yaegel Welch.
This thriller is a searing examination of our social need for justice and our animal desire for vengeance. Part black comedy, part social satire, it’s a gleefully macabre plot-twisting blender full of Shakespeare and the Joacbeans’ greatest hits.
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Off-Broadway’s Irish Rep has announced its Fall 2020 online season:
* Gregory Harrington: A Concert from The Irish Rep Stage (Sept. 17 at 7 PM).
* Belfast Blues (Sept. 22-27), written & performed by Geraldine Hughes, directed by Carol Kane. A tapestry of autobiographical stories told from Geraldine Hughes’ perspective as a little girl coming of age in the war-torn Belfast of the 1980s.
* Give Me Your Hand (Oct. 13-18), by poet Paul Durcan, directed by Jamie Beamish, starring Dermot Crowley & Dearbhla Molloy. The piece takes the audience on a virtual stroll through London’s National Gallery, discovering afresh the Museum’s masterpieces from Van Gogh and Van Eyck to Rubens and Gainsborough. The actors breathe fresh life into each painting’s subjects with poetic stories from poet Paul Durcan.
* A Touch of the Poet (Oct. 27 – Nov. 1), by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Ciarán O’Reilly, featuring Belle Aykroyd, Ciaran Byrne, Robert Cuccioli, Kate Forbes, Mary McCann, Andy Murray, David O’Hara, Tim Ruddy, David Sitler, and John C. Vennema. Proud and tempestuous Cornelius Melody (Con) owns a run-down inn and tavern near Boston in 1828. Laden with debt, Con clings to his tenuous identity as a landed gentleman and war hero and chastises his wife and daughter for actions that expose the family’s humble Irish origins. When his daughter Sara falls in love with a wealthy American guest at their inn, Con’s pride drives him to an explosive reckoning with his true place in the New World.
* A Beggar Upon Horseback / A Beggar on Foot (Part 1 – Nov. 9 at 7 PM ET, Part 2 – Nov. 10 at 2 PM ET), starring John Douglas Thompson. “Hurray for revolution and more canon shot! A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot. Hurray for revolution and canon come again, the beggars have changed places but the lash goes on” ~WB Yeats.
* On Beckett/In Screen (Nov. 17-22), conceived & performed by Bill Irwin. A new meditation filmed for our current times.
* Plaguey Hill: A New Workd by Paul Muldoon (Dec. 1 at 7 PM ET), read by Liev Schreiber. An account of day-to-day life during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the poem is set in Sharon Springs, NY, it harkens back to memories of the burial mound of Plaguey Hill, in Friars Bush Graveyard, Belfast, where victims of the 1830s cholera epidemic were laid to rest. The poem takes the form of an intricately locked series of 15 sonnets known as a crown, or corona.
* A Child’s Christmas in Wales in Concert (Dec. dates TBA), by Dylan Thomas, adapted & directed by Charlotte Moore, with music direction by John Bell. Casting TBA.
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VA’s Signature Theatre has announced its 5th season of SigWorks: Monday Night New Play Reading Series.
* At the Full Yum (Sept. 21 at 7 PM ET), by Rahima R. Rice. Complete opposites Darecia and Jacob struggle to civilly co-parent their teenage son, Ohaji, in their Northeast DC neighborhood. When a riot that breaks out after a Black teenager is killed by police causes a lockdown, the two are trapped together — with Ohaji nowhere to be found.
* The Story of Walter (Dec. 7 at 7 PM ET), by Audrey Cefaly. Walter, a recently single father to a spunky 7-year-old duaghter, struggles to navigate the world of single parenthood with dating and learning to live again..
* One-Shot (Feb. 8, 2021 at 7 PM ET), by Andrew Rosendorf. In 1999, a bigoted slur is spray-painted onto a video rental store in McLean, Virginia, disturbing and possibly outing, the owner and his high school employees. A life-changing film scholarship hangs in the balance as secrets are thrust into the open in a riveting examination of race, sexuality and identity in a world on the cusp of the digital age.
* Light (Apr. 5, 2021 at 7 PM ET), by Jarrin Davis. A prodigal sister returns home and upends the lives of her devout younger sister, family friends and, most of all, the eleven-year-old son she abandoned. The inevitable collision sparks a crisis that will either greatly reward or destroy everything they treasure in an intricate and suspenseful portrayal of one Black family’s journey of forgiveness.