16 Stage Performances to Watch Today, August 3
Manual Cinema: The End of TV
At 1 p.m. ET, here’s a dazzling treat: Over the next month, the multimedia theatre collective Manual Cinema, which combines shadow puppetry and filmic elements, is sharing recordings of one eye-popping show each week. This week’s show is The End of TV, a deconstruction of the American Dream set in a post-industrial Rust Belt city in the ’90s, as the aspirational promise of TV commercials is juxtaposed against declining opportunities. Watch for free until Monday, August 10 at 1 p.m. ET on the company’s website.
ContemporaryMusicalTheatre.com: Concert for Black Theatre United
At 7 p.m. ET, ContemporaryMusicalTheatre.com presents a benefit concert for the recently launched org Black Theatre United. Performers include Jordan Cole (School of Rock), Arielle Jacobs (Aladdin), Jelani Remy (Ain’t Too Proud), Thom Sesma (Superhero) and Aurelia Williams (In Transit). Register in advance to receive the free viewing link though donations are encouraged.
The Metropolitan Opera: The Magic Flute
At 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera shares Tony winner Julie Taymor‘s eye-popping, puppet-filled, English-language production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, a fantastical fable starring Golda Schultz, Kathryn Lewek, Charles Castronovo, Markus Werba, Christian Van Horn and René Pape. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, La Fanciulla del West, until 6:30 p.m. today.
Theater Breaking Through Barriers: Voices from the Great Experiment
At 7:30 p.m. ET, Theater Breaking Through Barriers, one of the country’s leading companies showcasing artists with disabilities, kicks off an eight-night live reading series featuring new shorts created for Zoom by dramatists who participated in its Virtual Playmakers’ Intensive. First up is The Olympians by Fareeda Ahmed, directed by Kristin Heckler and starring Shravan Amin, Samantha Debicki and Paul Pryce. Watch for free with live captioning on the company’s YouTube channel.
SolFest 2020 Virtual Edition: A Latinx Theater Festival
At 7:30 p.m. ET, The Sol Project, a national theatre initiative devoted to showcasing Latinx voices, brings its third annual festival of works-in-progress online. Night one features excerpts from Torched!, a new musical written by Rosalba Rolón with original music by Desmar Guevara, along with a pair of selections from Pregones/PRTT’s 21 Islands International Short Film Fest: The Bathtub and Noon Express. Register in advance to receive the free viewing link.
Echo Theater Company: breakfast lunch dinner
At 10:30 p.m. ET, L.A.’s Echo Theater Company presents a live reading of Kira Obolensky‘s breakfast lunch dinner, a new dinner-table play about middle-class American life. Abigail Deser directs Samantha Cavestani, Brian Henderson, Megan Ketch and Carol Locatell. Register in advance to receive the free viewing link.
Available to Watch All Day
Great Performances: Kevin Kline in Present Laughter
PBS Great Performances is streaming Moritz von Stuelpnagel‘s effervescent 2017 mounting of Noël Coward’s Present Laughter starring Kevin Kline, who earned his third Tony Award for portraying narcissistic actor Garry Essendine, plagued by midlife fears, an uncontrollable libido and obsessed fans. Kate Burton, Kristine Nielsen and Cobie Smulders costar. Watch for free until Saturday, August 29 on PBS’ website.
Sophocles in Staten Island
One of NYC’s premier Asian-American theatre companies, Ma-Yi, just launched a new broadcast studio showcasing the work of some of its affiliated artists. New to the site is Sophocles in Staten Island, a 30-minute short written by Michi Barall and Sung Rno and directed by Jack Tamburri about the aspiring filmmaker patriarch of a Filipino-American clan forcing his family into making a movie of Oedipus Rex and Antigone during lockdown. Watch for free on Ma-Yi Studio’s website.
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Top image: Cheyenne Jackson. Photo by Karl Simone.
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