30+ Stage Performances to Watch This Weekend January 8-10

Friday, January 8

Virtual Halston: John Tartaglia
On Friday at 5 p.m. ET, Julie Halston welcomes puppet master John Tartaglia to her weekly chatfest. The performer and puppeteer started his career on Sesame Street and went on to snag a Tony nomination as the human behind Princeton in Avenue Q. Watch for free on YouTube.

The Metropolitan Opera: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci
On Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera presents a pair of one-act works: Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana about a tragic love triangle, and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci about the leader of a vaudeville troupe. David McVicar staged this 2015 double bill, with tenor Marcelo Álvarez starring in both lead roles. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s opera, I Puritani, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.

The Exponential Festival: On View: WFH
On Friday at 8 p.m. ET, every January since 2016, The Exponential Festival has showcased cutting-edge stage works mostly on Brooklyn stages. For its sixth annual edition, the event goes virtual with performances by some of the most exciting theatre-makers in the digital space. Tonight, watch performer-choreographer Sunny Hitt work in On View: WFH, a durational installation as she creates at home in real time. Watch for free on the fest’s YouTube channel though donations are encouraged.

Saturday, January 9

Round House Theatre: Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side
On Saturday at 7 p.m. ET, Maryland’s Round House Theatre wraps up its celebration of Adrienne Kennedy with a brand-new work by the 89-year-old, avant-garde, African-American playwright: Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side. The haunting tale of two brilliant sisters whose lifelong rivalry is careening toward mutual destruction, the drama was filmed on stage during quarantine. Timothy Douglas directs. Tickets are $17.50 and the recording is viewable until February.

The Metropolitan Opera: Maria Stuarda
On Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera‘s presents David McVicar‘s acclaimed 2012 mounting of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda about Mary, Queen of Scots. Joyce DiDonato stars as the tragic title character, with Elza van den Heever as Queen Elizabeth and Matthew Polenzani as Leicester. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera’s website. You can still stream yesterday’s double bill, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.

The Exponential Festival: Triple Bill
On Saturday at 9 p.m. p.m. ET, every January since 2016, The Exponential Festival has showcased cutting-edge stage works mostly on Brooklyn stages. For its sixth annual edition, the event goes virtual with performances by some of the most exciting theatre-makers in the digital space. Tonight, catch a triple bill of short works: Virtual Queerality (VQ) Live, LGBTQ audio stories curated by performance artist Teresa Braun; Kennie Zhou‘s digital naturescape A Blueish Fever Dream; and Tina Wang’s meditation on the cost of comfort ¿comfortidades?. Watch all three for free on the fest’s YouTube channel.

Sunday, January 10

The Exponential Festival: Look Out Shithead
On Sunday at 5 p.m. ET, every January since 2016, The Exponential Festival has showcased cutting-edge stage works mostly on Brooklyn stages. For its sixth annual edition, the event goes virtual with performances by some of the most exciting theatre-makers in the digital space. Today, catch Object Collection‘s provocatively titled Look Out Shithead, a supernatural love story inspired by the films of Éric Rohmer. Watch for free on the fest’s YouTube channel though donations are encouraged.

The Metropolitan Opera: Il Trovatore
On Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera shares David McVicar‘s mounting of Verdi’s Il Trovatore, starring Marcelo Álvarez as Manrico, the passionate troubadour, Sondra Radvanovsky as his lady love and Dmitri Hvorostovsky as the evil Count di Luna 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, Maria Stuarda, until 6:30 p.m. ET today.

All Weekend

David Bowie’s Lazarus
On Friday and Saturday at 9 p.m., and Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, to mark the birth and death of David Bowie, you can stream Lazarus, a trippy sequel to the 1976 sci-fi movie The Man Who Fell to Earth featuring songs from the rock star’s catalog, a book by Once Tony winner Enda Walsh and direction by iconoclast Ivo van Hove. This surreal musical had its world premiere at New York Theatre Workshop during the 2015-2016 season and sold out within minutes. Sadly, it was one of Bowie’s final projects as he died of cancer during the show’s limited run. His demise informs this existential tale of Newton (Michael C. Hall), an alienated extraterrestrial (a part originated by Bowie in the film) who’s desperate to return to his home planet. As he wastes away on Earth, he’s wooed by his assistant, haunted by the ghost of a murdered girl and stalked by a very dapper demon. The narrative is, admittedly, weird, but the singing and stagecraft are breathtaking. This recording is of the show’s 2016 production at London’s King’s Cross Theatre, starring Hall, Bettlejuice‘s Sophia Anne Caruso, Michael Esper and Amy Lennox. If you’re a Bowie or Hall fan, you don’t want to miss this. Tickets are $21.50.

The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival
Since its founding in 2005, The Public’s Under the Radar Festival has been a mecca for avant-garde artists from around the globe, showcasing performances by hundreds of trailblazers. This year, the event goes online and all performances are free. This weekend, you can catch:

• On Friday at 8 p.m. ET, singer Alicia Hall Moran presents the motown project, a concert recorded at Joe’s Pub exploring the nexus between Motown classics and classical music. Watch for free until Sunday, January 17 on The Public’s website.
• On Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. ET, award-winning poet, performer and playwright Inua Ellams shares his immigration journey in his solo show Borders & Crossings. Born to a Muslim father and Christian mother, he recounts relocating from Nigeria to the U.K. in this live performance. Register in advance to receive the free viewing link.
• On Saturday and Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, playwright Javaad Alipoor presents Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran, a multimedia exploration of the global class divide fusing online performance and a live Instagram feed. The second installment of a trilogy examining identity in our high-tech age, the hour-long show is followed by a talkback. Register in advance to receive the free viewing link.
• On demand all weekend: Award-winning director Whitney White and stage and screen vet Peter Mark Kendall present Capsule, a nuanced meditation on the upheavals of the past ten months and the challenges of connecting at a distance. Watch for free until Sunday, January 17 on The Public’s website.
• On demand all weekend: Chile’s Teatro Anónimo presents Espíritu, a nighttime fantasia set in an unnamed city as denizens grapple with spiritual crises. Performed in Spanish with English subtitles. Watch for free until Sunday, January 17 on The Public’s website.
• On demand all weekend: Incoming! is a mini-festival within Under the Radar showcasing works in progress from members of The Public’s Devised Theater Working Group. The eight creators in the current cohort present an eclectic collection of digital shorts. Watch for free until Sunday, January 17 on The Public’s website.

HERE Arts Center: Prototype Festival
Since 2013, Prototype, a festival featuring works that fuse opera and theatre, has defied genre expectations. Co-produced by HERE Arts Center and Beth Morrison Projects, the event goes (mostly) digital this year with six eclectic pieces. All premiere this weekend, and five are online and on demand until Saturday, January 16. (Ocean Body is an in-person, by-appointment-only installation at HERE, so we are not including it below.) Most offerings are free.

• Starting Friday at 8 p.m. ET, catch Modulation, a digital, self-guided exploration of our new abnormal created by 13 contemporary composers. Tickets are $25; the recording is viewable until Saturday, January 16.
• Starting Saturday at 10 a.m. ET, catch Times³ (Times x Times x Times), a sonic journey through Times Square past, present and imagined, which can be enjoyed at the iconic intersection or at home. Tickets are free but required; the recording is viewable until Saturday, January 16.
• Starting Sunday at noon ET, catch The Murder of Halit Yozgat about the real-life 2006 slaying of a 21-year-old immigrant in Germany. Tickets are free but required; the recording is viewable until Saturday, January 16.
• Starting Sunday at noon ET, catch The Planet – A Lament, a staging of Garin Nugroho’s song cycle as dancers, a 14-member choir and searing images evoking our deteriorating home. Tickets are free but required; the recording is viewable until Saturday, January 16.
• Starting Sunday at noon ET, catch Wide Slumber for Lepidopterists, inspired by a.rawlings’ book of the same name exploring sleeping, dreaming and butterflies. Tickets are free but required; the recording is viewable until Saturday, January 16.

Feinstein’s/54 Below: Sondheim Unplugged
For the past decade, cabaret impresario Phil Geoffrey Bond has hosted Sondheim Unplugged, a series of concerts starring NYC stage favorites crooning songs by the musical theatre legend to piano accompaniment. Now he’s brought the show online with a performance filmed last month at the swanky Feinstein’s/54 Below. Go into the web with old friends Darius de Haas, Natalie Douglas, Telly Leung, T. Oliver Reid, Nicholas Rodriguez and Lucia Spina as they remind us why Sondheim is great company! Tickets are $25 and the recording is viewable until Saturday, January 23.

TWEED TheaterWorks: ‘Taint
Like many NYC nightspots, East Village alt-cabaret club Pangea is in dire financial straits. So, over the holidays, the camp masters at TWEED TheaterWorks put together an irreverent variety show to help see the venue through the new year. The lineup is a who’s who of downtown divas, including drag legend Charles Busch, storyteller David Cale, opera singer Joseph Keckler and vocal impressionist Amber Martin. Tickets are $20 and the recording is viewable until Wednesday, January 20.

Fake Friends: Circle Jerk
Fake Friends presents an encore stream of Circle Jerk, a critically acclaimed satire about gay white supremacists. Penned and performed by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley, who wrote the book for the viral Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, this is an unsettling examination of right-wing trolling in the queer community. Tickets start at $5 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, January 17.

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Top image: Amy Lennox, Michael C. Hall and Sophia Anne Caruso in Lazarus. Photo by Johan Persson.

RAVEN SNOOK