25+ Stage Performances to Watch Friday Through Sunday, August 14-16
Friday, August 14
Roundabout Youth Ensemble: Hidden Truths
On Friday at 5 p.m. ET, Roundabout Theatre Company’s education department presents Hidden Truths, a brand-new drama written by and starring members of the Roundabout Youth Ensemble, a student-led company modeled after the nonprofit’s professional productions. This play is a contemporary take on Othello, with an atypical teen named Omari romancing the principal’s daughter while trying to outwit the high school sociopath. Watch for free until Friday, August 28 on Roundabout’s YouTube channel.
Kinesis Project: Breathing with Strangers
On Friday at 6:30 p.m. ET, dance-theatre company Kinesis Project reimagines its waterfront work Breathing with Strangers as a series of solos and duets, performed live and streamed online. Tonight Sumaya Mulla Carrillo and Jiemin Yang dance the piece at Riverside Park South. On Saturday at 6:30 p.m. ET, choreographer Melissa Riker will do it at Inwood Hill Park. Watch for free on the dance troupe’s website.
Ice Factory: A Burning Church
On Friday at 7 p.m. ET, the New Ohio Theatre wraps up its 27th annual Ice Factory festival with A Burning Church, an epic new musical tracing the dramatic history of a church and its members through protest movements, tragedies and spiritual epiphanies. This virtual event will present songs and scenes from this work in progress in the form of parables. Book and direction are by Alex Hare and Zhailon Levingston; lyrics are by Levingston and music is by Nehemiah Luckett. Pay-what-you-can tickets start at $1. There will be a final performance on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET.
Neo-Political Cowgirls: Andromeda’s Sisters: Monologues
On Friday at 7 p.m. ET, women’s performance collective Neo-Political Cowgirls presents an evening of monologues by female-identifying playwrights. Blythe Danner, Catherine Curtin, Portia, Ellen Dolan, Welker White, Laura Gomez and Florencia Lozano will perform solos by Joy Behar, Tanya Everett, Lucy Boyle, Dipti Bramhandkar, Sarah Bierstock and Lynn Grossman. Tickets are $25.
The Metropolitan Opera: Tristan und Isolde
On Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera presents Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde featuring Robert Dean Smith and Deborah Voigt as the title couple whose all-consuming love defies the law. James Levine conducts this 2008 mounting. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, Turandot, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.
Irish Repertory Theatre: Love, Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Coward
On Friday at 8 p.m. ET, Irish Rep presents Love, Noël, a virtual reinvention of its 2019 celebration of playwright, songwriter and sparkling wit Noël Coward. Barry Day devised this two-person tribute featuring seasoned cabaret stars Steve Ross and KT Sullivan singing Coward’s songs, such as “Mad About the Boy,” “Together with Music” and “I’ll Follow My Secret Heart,” and channeling his famous friends, including Gertrude Lawrence, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Elaine Stritch. Tickets are a suggested donation of $25 but TDF members get a discount. There will be a final performance on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET.
John & Jen Reunion on Stars in the House
On Friday at 8 p.m. ET, Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley host a John & Jen reunion on Stars in the House. An early musical co-created by Tom Greenwald and Tony-nominated Addams Family songwriter Andrew Lippa, the two-person show starred James Ludwig and Carolee Carmello, who went on to earn three Tony nominations. Watch for free on YouTube though donations to The Actors Fund are encouraged.
La MaMa: Downtown Variety
At 8 p.m. ET, experimental theatre mecca La MaMa presents the 13th edition of its eclectic Downtown Variety show, a smorgasbord of short performances that experiment with form. Tonight’s lineup includes Peter Case, Maura García, Joshua William Gelb, Shauna Davis, Aroji Otieno and video art by Split Britches. Watch for free on the theatre’s website.
Lena Hall: Obsessed: Alanis Morissette
On Friday at 9 p.m. ET, you oughta know that Lena Hall is a major Alanis Morissette fan. That’s why the Hedwig Tony winner and Bat Out of Hell star is doing an evening of the feminist rocker’s songs as part of her Obsessed concert series. Guitarist Daniel Palese accompanies Hall for the intimate acoustic set, which goes way beyond Jagged Little Pill. Tickets are $15.
Saturday, August 15
Stars in the House: Regional Theatre Spotlight on WaterTower Theatre
On Saturday at 2 p.m. ET, Stars in the House welcomes creatives from Texas’ WaterTower Theatre. Founded in 1996, it’s the resident company of the Addison Theatre Centre and is housed in a 32,000-square-foot state-of-the-art space. Learn more about this venerable institution for free on YouTube.
Christopher Jackson: Live from the West Side
On Saturday at 7 p.m. ET, Christopher Jackson performs an intimate live concert from midtown’s New World Stages. The Hamilton Tony nominee will be backed by a full band but the audience will be online only. The lineup includes numbers from the shows he’s starred in (In the Heights, Freestyle Love Supreme, Holler If Ya Hear Me), pop hits and some original tunes, plus backstage stories about his longtime pal Lin-Manual Miranda. Viewers will even have the chance to text questions or make special requests in real time. Tickets are $40 per household and proceeds benefit the nonprofit Dallas Summer Musicals, Inc. A recording will be available for 72 hours after the performance.
Play-PerView: The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity
On Saturday at 7 p.m. ET, the live reading series Play-PerView presents The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, Kristoffer Diaz‘s 2010 play about a middle-rank pro wrestler whose chance to become a star involves exploiting cultural stereotypes. The insightful dramedy was a hit for Second Stage Theater a decade ago, where it won Obie and Lucille Lortel Awards for best new play, and this event reunites four members from that production, Usman Ally, Terence Archie, Desmin Borges and Christian Litke, with new addition Justin Kirk. The performance takes place on the free app Zoom, which you’ll need to download beforehand. Tickets start at $5 and benefit New Dramatists.
Ham4Change: A Virtual Fundraiser Event
On Saturday at 7 p.m. ET, original Hamilton cast members including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs, Anthony Ramos, Okieriete Onaodowan, Jasmine Cephas Jones and Renée Elise Goldsberry are joined by other actors in the Ham fam plus director Thomas Kail for a live-streamed event benefiting various orgs fighting against systemic racism. Tune in for songs, stories and social justice. Tickets are $25.
Different Stars: A Reckoning with Time, Trauma, and Circumstance
On Saturday at 7 p.m. ET, Bronx-based queer composer Karl Saint Lucy debuts a digital adaptation of his song cycle Different Stars: A Reckoning with Time, Trauma, and Circumstance. Written in the aftermath of his first major breakup, the numbers explore grief and ghosts as pne man grapples with his history. James Jackson, Jr., Danielle Buonaiuto, Victoria Huston-Elem and Saint Lucy star. Watch for free on YouTube.
The Metropolitan Opera: La Bohème
On Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera presents La Bohème, Puccini’s romantic tragedy about love, bromance and art. Kristine Opolais, Susanna Phillips, Vittorio Grigolo, Massimo Cavalletti, Patrick Carfizzi and Oren Gradus star in this 2014 mounting. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, Tristan und Isolde, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.
Sunday, August 16
Metropolitan Opera Stars Live in Concert: Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak
On Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera continues its series of live recitals with Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak. The husband-and-wife duo will sing popular arias and duets from Madama Butterfly, La Fanciulla del West, Cavalleria Rusticana, The Merry Widow and other classics, accompanied by a string quintet on an outdoor terrace in Èze, France. Tickets cost $20 and a recording of the performance will remain available until Friday, August 28.
Stars in the House: Moments in the Woods: A Virtual Gala
On Sunday at 7 p.m. ET, Stars in the House streams a celebrity-filled concert benefiting the Hancock-French Woods Arts Alliance, which brings year-round arts education to underserved communities. The lineup features alumni of the lauded French Woods Festival camp as well as supporters, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Todrick Hall, Jason Alexander, Marc Shaiman, Mandy Gonzalez, Jason Robert Brown and Georgia Stitt and their talented kids, Andréa Burns, Melissa Errico, and Stars in the House hosts Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley. Watch for free on YouTube though donations are encouraged.
The Metropolitan Opera: Luisa Miller
On Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera shares a gem from its vaults: Nathaniel Merrill‘s 1979 mounting of Verdi’s Luisa Miller, with Renata Scotto as the title romantic, who’s head over heels for Plácido Domingo‘s Rodolfo, but his father (Bonaldo Giaiotti) and a blackmailer (James Morris) derail their happily ever after. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, La Bohème, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.
Guild Hall: Comedies by Eugene Pack
On Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, East Hampton’s Guild Hall presents a trio of short romps by Eugene Pack, the creator of the popular Celebrity Autobigraphy live readings. The cast of cutups includes Matthew Broderick, John Leguizamo, Blair Underwood, Rachel Dratch, Cecily Strong, Santino Fontana and Andrea Martin. Tickets are $50 per household.
All Weekend
Scott Siegel’s Great American Songbook Concert: Volume 8
Scott Siegel has been producing starry cabaret concerts at Town Hall and other storied venues for years. Now he brings his talent for assembling crackerjack crooners to YouTube. Today’s lineup includes Tony nominees Jenn Colella and Tom Wopat, Aaron Lazar from The Last Ship and Brian Charles Rooney from The Threepenny Opera. Watch for free on YouTube.
Black Lives, Black Words International Project: Plays for the People: Proof of Love
Friday through Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, Black Lives, Black Words International Project, an activist theatre initiative that produces shows by Black playwrights, continues its virtual Plays for the People series with Chisa Hutchinson‘s one-woman show Proof of Love. A moving exploration of grief and forgiveness centering on Constance, a middle-aged, upper-middle-class Black woman, whose life is upended after a car accident leaves her husband in a coma, . Kyle Haden directs this online adaptation. Tickets are available to purchase from the theatre but TDF members get a discount.
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Top image: Christopher Jackson in Hamilton. Photo by Joan Marcus.
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