25+ Stage Performances to Watch This Weekend February 5-7
Friday, February 5
Stratford Festival: Othello
All day Friday: Ontario’s venerable Stratford Festival presents Othello, the Bard’s bloody tragedy of jealousy and manipulation. Recorded on stage in 2019 for the theatre’s Shakespeare on Film series, the production stars Canadian stage vet Michael Blake as the title general beset by the green-eyed monster. Amelia Sargisson and Gordon S. Miller costar and Nigel Shawn Williams directs. Watch for free until Saturday at 7 a.m. ET on the fest’s YouTube channel.
Virtual Halston: Lesli Margherita
On Friday at 5 p.m. ET, Julie Halston welcomes fellow stage scene-stealer Lesli Margherita to her weekly chatfest. An Olivier Award-winning diva best known stateside for her hilarious turn as the worst mother in the world in Matilda: The Musical, Margherita has also starred in Who’s Holiday! and Emojiland the Musical. Watch for free on YouTube.
The Metropolitan Opera: Le Nozze di Figaro
On Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera presents Mozart’s masterpiece Le Nozze di Figaro, a romantic comedy of marriage and madness with Ruggero Raimondi as the wily Figaro, who’s always trying to outwit his womanizing master Count Almaviva, played by Thomas Allen. Carol Vaness, Kathleen Battle and Frederica von Stade costar in this 1985 mounting, staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, La Cenerentola, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.
Irish Repertory Theatre: On Beckett / In Screen
On Friday at 8 p.m. ET, this winter, the venerable Irish Rep is presenting encore streams of its entire digital season. Tonight, catch Tony winner Bill Irwin in a virtual reimagining of his hit solo show On Beckett. Once again, the acclaimed clown takes the stage at the Chelsea theatre to explore the words and work of the groundbreaking Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. Only this time, no one is in the audience, which makes this meditation on Beckett’s themes of loneliness, loss and decay even more haunting. Tickets are free but required to receive the viewing link; donations are encouraged.
Stars in the House: Ann Reinking Celebration
On Friday at 8 p.m. ET, Stars in the House pays tribute to the late, great, Tony-winning choreographer, director and performer Ann Reinking, who passed away in December. Friends and collegues set to celebrate her life and legacy include her Chicago costar Bebe Neuwirth and Tony-nominated Jersey Boys book writer Rick Elice. Watch for free on YouTube though donations to The Actors Fund are encouraged.
The Shared Screen: Tape
On Friday at 8 p.m. ET, The Shared Screen presents a Zoom adaptation of Stephen Belber mind-bending Tape, about the tense and toxic reunion of three high school friends whose troubled past bleeds into the present. Usually set in a motel room, this production reimagines the meeting as a video call. Register to receive the free viewing link and stick around for the post-show talkback—this play leaves you with a lot to discuss!
Eden Theater Company: The Kitchen Plays
On Friday at 8 p.m. ET, the women-led Eden Theater Company wraps up its series of virtual shorts exploring the current state of our homebound world with a trio of playlets that take place in the kitchen: Ginger Bug by Jake Brasch, Passion Project by Cassandra Paras and For the Family by Madison Harrison. Tickets start at $5.
Saturday, February 6
Metropolitan Opera Stars Live in Concert: Anna Netrebko
On Saturday at 1 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera continues its series of live recitals with superstar soprano Anna Netrebko performing from Vienna’s gorgeous Spanish Riding School, accompanied by Pavel Nebolsin on piano. The set list includes enchanting Russian songs by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Rimsky-Korsakov, along with selections by Strauss, Debussy and Fauré, plus a pair of duets with special guest Elena Maximova. Tickets are $20 and a recording is viewable until Friday, February 19.
Irish Repertory Theatre: Molly Sweeney
On Saturday at 3 p.m. ET, this winter, the venerable Irish Rep is presenting encore streams of its entire digital season. Today, catch a matinee of Molly Sweeney, Brian Friel’s popular drama about a woman blind since infancy whose sight is restored with unexpected consequences. Geraldine Hughes and Ciarán O’Reilly reprise their performances as Molly and her husband from the theatre’s hit 2011 production, alongside newcomer Paul O’Brien as the surgeon who changes the title character’s life. Tickets are free but required to receive the viewing link; donations are encouraged.
Play-PerView: While I Yet Live
On Saturday at 7 p.m. ET, Play-PerView presents a live reading of While I Yet Live, Billy Porter‘s searing semiautobiographical family drama about growing up gay and abused in a devout Pentecostal household. Porter won a Tony Award for his fabulous turn as Lola in Kinky Boots, and this drama marked his playwrighting debut. This event reunites the powerhouse cast of Primary Stages’ 2014 production, including Tony winner Lillias White, S. Epatha Merkerson and Larry Powell as Porter’s onstage alter ego. Sheryl Kaller once again directs. Tickets start at $5 and proceeds go to The Actors Fund. Can’t make the live performance? For $15, you can watch a recording until Wednesday, February 10 at 11:30 p.m. ET.
The Metropolitan Opera: Ariadne auf Naxos
On Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera shares a gem from its vaults: Jessye Norman in Strauss’ opera-within-an opera Ariadne auf Naxos, about a commedia dell’arte troupe stranded on an island populated by mythic Greek characters. James King is Bacchus and Kathleen Battle is the leader of the itinerant players in this 1988 mounting. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, Le Nozze di Figaro, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.
The Shared Screen: Tape
On Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, The Shared Screen presents a Zoom adaptation of Stephen Belber‘s mind-bending Tape, about the tense and toxic reunion of three high school friends whose troubled past bleeds into the present. Usually set in a motel room, this production reimagines the meeting as a video call. Register to receive the free viewing link and stick around for the post-show talkback—this play leaves you with a lot to discuss!
Metropolitan Playhouse: The Outside
On Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, Metropolitan Playhouse, an Obie-winning company that revives forgotten works, presents a reading of Susan Glaspell’s The Outside, about two reclusive women living on an outer shore of the Cape whose lives are interrupted by a drowning man. A prolific writer and devoted feminist who cofounded the Provincetown Players with her husband, Glaspell won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1930 play Alison’s House. This is a chance to see one of her earliest works. Rachael Langton directs Lluvia Almanza, David Patrick Ford, Jonathan Horvath, Teresa Kelsey and James Ross. Watch for free on the company’s YouTube channel though donations are encouraged.
Sunday, February 7
Irish Repertory Theatre: Give Me Your Hand
On Sunday at 2 p.m. ET, this winter, the venerable Irish Rep is presenting encore streams of its entire digital season. Today, catch a matinee of Give Me Your Hand, a virtual tour of London’s National Gallery featuring Tony nominee Dearbhla Molloy and Dermot Crowley reciting Paul Durcan poems as paintings are projected. Directed by Jamie Beamish, this is a digital reimagining of the company’s 2012 hit production. Tickets are free but required to receive the viewing link; donations are encouraged.
The Metropolitan Opera: Tosca
On Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera shares a gem from its vaults: its 1978 mounting of Puccini’s Tosca, starring Shirley Verrett as the title diva, Luciano Pavarotti as her artist lover and Cornell MacNeil as the man who stands in the way of their happiness. Watch for FREE for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, Ariadne auf Naxos, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.
All Weekend
Patrick Page in All the Devils Are Here
Hadestown Tony nominee Patrick Page shows off his mellifluous voice and classical acting training in his solo show All the Devils Are Here, an exploration of Shakespeare’s villains. A medley of scenes and monologues that trace the evolution of the Bard’s baddies, the one-person play was originally presented in 2017. This production was filmed during the shutdown at Washington, DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company on the same stage where Page previously played Prospero, Coriolanus, Iago and Macbeth. Tickets are $25 and the recording is viewable until Wednesday, July 28.
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 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.
Center Theatre Group: Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue
California’s lauded Center Theatre Group kicks off its third annual L.A. Writers’ Workshop Festival: New Plays Forged in L.A. with a digital reading of Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue, Kemp Power‘s powerful drama about Black fraternal twins whose lives go in starkly different directions because one presents as white. Kemp’s impressive credits include the recently released movies Soul and One Night in Miami (which was based on his original stage play), so we’re excited to see his latest work. Jennifer Chang directs Giovanni Adams, Jovan Adepo, Amaia Arana, Lorena Martinez, Connor Paolo, Adam J. Smith, Cory Michael Smith, Larry Bates and Justin Lawrence Barnes. Tickets are $10 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, April 4.
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.
French Institute Alliance Française: Melissa Errico & Adam Gopnik: Love, Desire & Mystery
Tony-nominated chanteuse Melissa Errico and New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik continue their three-part concert and conversation series exploring what the French call l’amour fou, all-consuming love. In part II, Desire, they delve into sensual pairings such as sex and food, seduction and fashion. Filmed on stage at the French Institute Alliance Française’s Florence Gould Theatre, the performance includes songs from Gopnik’s musical Our Table, Stephen Schwartz’s The Baker’s Wife, Funny Face, Coco and the hits of Edith Piaf. Tickets are $15 but you can buy the three-concert package for $30.
Syracuse Stage: Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992
Syracuse Stage presents Anna Deavere Smith‘s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, about the uprising sparked by the acquittal of white police officers who beat a Black man named Rodney King almost to death. After interviewing more than 350 people both directly and tangentially connected to the unrest, Smith created a collage of disparate voices and perspectives, channeling citizens who were there alongside LAPD chief Daryl Gates, Congresswoman Maxine Waters and activist and scholar Cornel West. Patrese D. McClain stars in this new digital production, which was filmed on stage at the venue without an audience. Steve H. Broadnax III directs. Tickets start at $30 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, February 14.
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Top image: S. Epatha Merkerson and Sharon Washington in Primary Stages’ 2014 production of While I Yet Live, which is having a reunion reading on Saturday evening. Photo by James Leynse.
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