Top 5 Stage Performances to Stream This Weekend September 9-11
In-person shows have been back for over a year now, but sometimes we want to get our theatre fix at home. Thankfully, there are still wonderful stage performances to watch online. Our carefully curated list spotlights the five best performances to stream this weekend, Friday, September 9 to Sunday, September 11, for free or at low cost.
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Ensemble Studio Theatre: what you are now
After a well-received premiere at Ensemble Studio Theatre last fall, Sam Chanse’s what you are now is available to stream. Recorded live on stage and coproduced by docutheatre darlings The Civilians, the drama centers on a young researcher investigating cutting-edge ways to heal the mind from traumatic recollections. But her interest isn’t just professional, it’s personal as her mother is haunted by surviving the devastating violence of the Khmer Rouge in her native Cambodia. As the action toggles between the past and the present, the piece explores the mutability of memory. The Civilians’ artistic director Steve Cosson helms the production.
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TheatreSquared: It Came From Outer Space
The musical comedy duo behind Murder for Two, Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair, are back with a brand-new campy tuner: It Came From Outer Space. Based on the cult 1953 sci-fi flick of the same name, the show centers on a small-town astronomer who spots an alien spaceship in the desert. No one believes him… but then his fellow townsfolk start acting really, really weird. Is a takeover afoot? A coproduction of three acclaimed regional theatres, the out-of-this-world production was recorded live on stage at Arkansas’ TheatreSquared.
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Original Theatre Company: Stumped
Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter weren’t just groundbreaking absurdist playwrights, they were also very competitive cricket players. Shomit Dutta’s darkly comic one-act celebrates their passions as Beckett (Stephen Tompkinson) and Pinter (Andrew Lancel) share a game, a wordplay-filled chat and a pot of tea. Live-streaming from Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, the performance is followed by a discussion with theatre critic Michael Billington, former England cricket captain Mike Brearley and cricket journalist Emma John.
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Live from 54 Below: Fifty Key Stage Musicals: The Concert!
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Top image: It Came From Outer Space, a new sci-fi musical available to stream this month. Photo by Liz Lauren of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater production.
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