15+ Stage Performances to Watch February 1-2
Monday, February 1
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater: Village Song
On Monday at 4 p.m. ET, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater partners with the prestigeous Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for a new series showcasing the program’s second-year songwriters. Tonight, hear numbers about a 1961 musical protest in Washington Square Park, Alex Haley writing The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Kaddish” and other Greenwish Village-related subjects. Watch for free on Rattlestick’s YouTube channel.
Theater in Quarantine: Blood Meal
On Monday at 7 and 9 p.m. ET, downtown multihyphenate Joshua William Gelb, known for deconstructing complicated classics like The Jazz Singer, presents the world premiere of Blood Meal, an unsettling one-act by Obie winner Scott R. Sheppard about a young couple plagued by blood-sucking insects. Gelb and Lee Minora perform the two-hander from their respective East Village closets-turned-streaming studios. There’s a Q&A with the artists in between the two live performances. Watch for free on Gelb’s YouTube channel.
The Metropolitan Opera: The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess
On Monday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera presents James Robinson‘s lauded production of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, which was recorded at the venue just a month before the shutdown. Eric Owens and Angel Blue star as the title couple trying to find happiness on Catfish Row, and the supporting cast includes Alfred Walker, Frederick Ballentine, Latonia Moore, Golda Schultz and Donovan Singletary. This is a breathtaking mounting of a classic, with a Tony-winning creative team and choreography by Camille A. Brown. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, Macbeth, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus: Open Stage Variety Show: Quarantine Edition
On Monday at 8 p.m. ET, the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus continues its live weekly variety show hosted by adorkable ringmaster Keith Nelson. Tonight’s awe-inspiring lineup includes aerialist Lisa Natoli, magician Lee Alan Barrett, fire artist Altamash Khan and rola bola master Atom Jane. Watch for free on Bindlestiff’s YouTube channel though donations are encouraged.
Tuesday, February 2
The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues
On Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET, catch the first 2021 installment of The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues, a six-hour series of solos about how we’re living today. Every 15 minutes from 6 p.m. until midnight, well-known actors—including Ato Blankson-Wood, Gabriel Ebert, Marcia Gay Harden, Sarah Steele and Ana Villafañe—perform tailor-made monologues, all penned and filmed within the last 24 hours. Participating playwrights include Alex Edelman, Kate Hamill, David Lindsay-Abaire, Monique Moses, Ife Olujobi and Harrison David Rivers. Watch on The 24 Hour Plays’ Instagram though donations are encouraged.
Irish Repertory Theatre: YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom
On Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET, this winter, the venerable Irish Rep is presenting encore streams of its entire digital season. Tonight, catch YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom, Aedín Moloney‘s solo adaptation of the “Penelope episode” from James Joyce’s Ulysses. This monologue play was a hit at the theatre in 2019 and offers intimate insights into one woman’s desires and dreams, with brief musical interludes composed by Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains. Tickets are free but required to receive the viewing link; donations are encouraged.
The Metropolitan Opera: La Forza del Destino
On Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera shares a gem from its vaults: John Dexter‘s mounting of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, starring the legendary Leontyne Price as an ill-fated Spanish noblewoman who loses three of her loved ones before facing her own demise. Giuseppe Giacomini, Leo Nucci and Bonaldo Giaiotti costar in this 1984 production. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.
Available to Watch Both Days
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company: Hi, Are You Single?
Washington, DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company and Los Angeles’ IAMA Theatre Company partner on a digital adaptation of Ryan J. Haddad‘s autobiographical comedy Hi, Are You Single? about his adventures as a horny young gay man with cerebral palsy. The show was hit at The Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival in 2017 and helped Haddad land a recurring role on Netflix’s The Politician. Now you can watch his riotous and raunchy breakout almost-solo work, codirected by Laura Savia and Jess McLeod and filmed at Woolly Mammoth during the shutdown. Tickets are $16 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, February 28.
Little Wars
British stage and screen star Juliet Stevenson headlines Little Wars, a play by Steven Carl McCasland about a sextet of real-life sheroes—Lillian Hellman, Agatha Christie, Dorothy Parker, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas and antifascist agent Muriel Gardiner—hobnobbing at a pre-WWII soiree. Stevenson plays Hellman and Sophie Thompson, Linda Bassett, Debbie Chazen, Natasha Karp, Catherine Russell and Sarah Solemani round out the cast. Tickets are $10 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, February 14.
Falling Stars
British stage and screen actors Peter Polycarpou and Sally Ann Triplett conjure the roaring ’20s in Falling Stars, a celebration of the composers, collaborators and music publishers of that effervescent era. Tickets are $10 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, February 14.
Round House Theatre: The Catastrophist
Prolific and popular playwright Lauren Gunderson turns her perceptive pen on her husband, famed virologist Nathan Wolfe, who helped track Ebola, swine flu and now COVID-19. Gunderson has written many plays about historical figures in science but this is the first time she’s explored the life and career of her spouse, who’s portrayed by William DeMeritt in this one-man play, which was recorded at California’s Marin Theatre Company and is co-presented by Maryland’s Round House Theatre. Don’t worry if stats and data make your head spin—as always, Gunderson is more interested in what makes her characters tick personally rather than professionally. Tickets are $32.50 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, February 28.
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Top image: Eric Owens and Angel Blue in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera. Photo courtesy of the venue.
RAVEN SNOOK