***Please note that the Next to Normal Reunion was rescheduled to September 15th. Last night was Daisy and Violet Hilton Reunion with Emily Skinner and Alice Ripley

Virtual Godspell Concert By Hope Mill Theatre. Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre will present a virtual concert of the Stephen Schwartz musical Godspell August 27–29.

The cast will be led by Ruthie Henshall (Chicago) and Darren Day (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), who were featured in a 1993 cast recording of the musical. They’ll be joined by Sam Tutty (Dear Evan Hansen), Ria Jones (Evita), and Jenna Russell (Sunday in the Park With George).

The cast will also include Jodie Steele, Danyl Johnson, Jenny Fitzpatrick, Natalie Green, John Barr, Sally Ann Triplett, Gerard McCarthy, Alison Jiear, Shekinah McFarlane, and Lucy Williamson.

Godspell, which tells a series of parables leading up to the Passion of Christ, features a score by Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin, The Prince of Egypt) and a book by John-Michael Tebelak. Songs include “Day By Day,” “Save The People,” “Learn Your Lessons Well,” “All Good Gifts,” “Turn Back, O Man,” and “By My Side.”

9am: Q&A with Jonathan Hollander London-based Dance Dispatches presents a Q&A with Battery Dance Founder and Artistic Director Jonathan Hollander.

1pm: Practical Playwriting: How to Write for Commercial Production Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) presents a virtual workshop, Practical Playwriting: How to Write for Commercial Production, open to playwrights everywhere. 

This one-day intensive will be taught by TRU Literary Manager Cate Cammarata and commercial producer Patrick Blake (The 39 Steps, My Life Is a Musical, Bedlam Theater’s Hamlet/St. Joan, The Exonerated, In the Continuum, Play Dead) founding artistic director of Rhymes Over Beats.

2pm: Plays in the House The Smell of the Kill  By Michele Lowe.  Starring Krysta Rodriguez, Courtney Reed, Olivia Puckett, Jason SweetTooth Williams.  Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt.  Artistic Director: Jane Abramson.  Streaming Director: Hudson Flynn.

2pm: SummerStage Anywhere: Brooklyn Dance Festival The Brooklyn Dance Festival celebrates dance and performance art for all Brooklynites, providing services, opportunities, and outreach for all manner of dancers and highlighting diverse talents throughout the borough. They are joining us for the final SummerStage Anywhere: People Speak Sunday, with guest curation by the festival’s co-founder Tamia Santana and hosted by former Alvin Ailey star dancer, Dwana Smallwood, whose youth ensemble will join Earl Mosley’s Diversity of Dance, the New York City Ballet, The Orsano Project, Kristin Sudeikis Dance, Ballet Hispanico, the Urban Dance League, Maria Torres Dance Company, and the Brooklyn Dance Festival’s own company with Ailey Professional Division students as featured dance companies. On the 1s and 2s is the DJ, barber, and community organizer, DJ Zaki The Barber. Tune in for the first hour at 2pm EST, which will feature IG Live interviews with Smallwood and Diversity of Dance founder Fredrick Earl Mosley and Kristin Sudeikis, founder of Kristin Sudeikis Dance and FORWARD_SPACE.

2pm: Theater for the New City: Liberty or Just Us: A City Park Story

3pm: The Seeing Place: A Midsummer Night’s Dream These couples in just can’t catch a break, have you noticed that? Everyone is trying to tell them how to be and who to love: the government, their parents, themselves, crazy woodland fairies. It’s a lot like the society we live in now where lovers, especially in the LGBTQIA+ community, just can’t do their own thing without everyone and their mother trying to get involved. Our cast and production team, with a majority representing the LGBTQIA+ community (featuring Hermia and Lysander as a lesbian couple and a herd of non-binary fairies), will dive deep into this messy web of tyranny and prejudice to expose it for how silly it really is.

3pm: Fabulous Fanny: The Songs and Stories of Fanny Brice Legendary Fanny Brice– Torch Singer, Comedianne, Ziegfeld Follies Broadway Star, voice of “Baby Snooks’ on the Radio, Golden Era Movie Star and inspiration for  musical/movie Funny Girl and Funny Lady, come alive in this critically acclaimed solo show.  

Fabulous Fanny takes the audience on a nostalgic journey into the life and relationships of Brice and entertains with many of her popular hits including “My Man”, “Second-Hand Rose”, “Rose of Washington Square”, “Cooking Breakfast for the One I Love”, “When a Women Loves a Man”, “Sadie Salome”, as well as songs inspired by the legend herself such as “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and “People”.  

Treat yourself to a program of stunning musicality and intimate stories; entertainment that will leave you in the musical moment, feeling entertained and enlightened by Fanny’s anecdotes,  antics and artistry captured as no one else does. 

Creative Team: starring as Fanny Brice: Kimberly Faye Greenberg; Director:Brian Childers; Musical Director/Arranger:Jeff Biering;  Choreographer:Justin Boccitto; Costume Designer:Ryan Matthieu Smith; Writer: Kimberly Faye Greenberg; Additional Material: Brian Childers; Additonal Arrangements: Julianne B. Merrill and Creative Consultant:Kimberly Rehfuss

4pm: Marie’s Crisis Virtual Piano Bar scheduled pianists are Adam Michael Tilford (@Adam-Tilford-1) and Dan Daly (@DanDalyMusic). 

5pm: Madonna of Damascus Hypokrit Theatre Company and Rebel Theatre Company have teamed up, in association with the Equity in the Arts & Culture Committee of the Brooklyn Branch of the NAACP, to present a live virtual reading of Madonna of Damascus, a play by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj (artistic director of Rebel Theatre Company).

The reading is scheduled for Sunday, August 30th, 2020 at 5PM EST, and will be followed by a 30-minute conversation between the cast, creative team, and the audience.

The readings will be directed by Arpita Mukherjee (artistic director of Hypokrit Theatre Company), with the cast comprised of Aya Aziz, Mariam Bazeed, and SEVAN.

6pm: Escape From Camp Erie Andrew Barth Feldman has wrangled a host of Broadway favorites to star in the next edition of Broadway Whodunit, including Rob McClure, Lesli Margherita, Solea Pfieffer, and Celia Rose Gooding. Rounding out the cast are Feldman himself, Sky Lakota-Lynch, Gabrielle Carrubba, Jason Tam, Alex Boniello, and Will Roland.

Audiences will serve as detectives as they track down suspects in the live, unscripted, and interactive performance, this time set at an ill-fated summer camp. The stars will receive nothing but their character descriptions beforehand. When the show begins, they will receive a set of objectives to achieve their characters’ goals.

Ticketholders will receive a link to a website that contains virtual rooms, where they can follow characters around during the performance. In addition, chat rooms will be available to discuss theories as they track down the culprit. Detectives will also receive a link to submit their guess for who the murderer is. Those with correct guesses will receive points based on how quickly they submitted. Using those points, detectives will be ranked on the leaderboard. These points accumulate through all future mysteries.

7pm: LimeFest: Vessel of a Woman “Vessel of a Woman” is a poetry cycle concieved by Merlixse Ventura; exploring the themes of pandemic, privilege and patriarchy from the perspective of an Afro-Dominican woman. Written, Directed & Performed By Merlixse Ventura

7:15pm: Quantum Theatre: Constellations Roland, a beekeeper, and Marianne, a quantum physicist, meet through a chance encounter and a multitude of possibilities stretch out before them. Three couples of married actors lead us through shifting realities and an infinity of parallel universes in this romantic play exploring the intersection of free will, destiny, and love. Starring Julianne Avolio, John Michnya, Daina Griffith, Daniel Krell, Marva Williams-Parker and Rico Romalus Parker

Originally produced on Broadway by the Manhattan Theatre Club, Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director, Barry Grove, Executive Producer, and The Royal Court Theatre by special arrangement with Ambassador Theatre Group and Dodgers on December 16, 2014.

The production is offered in two live 30-minute segments, and presented over four nights. Live broadcasts begin each evening at 8:00 PM, preceded by recordings of Part 1 on Friday and Sunday. Though we hope fans will tune into the livestream, registered participants will also be able to view a recording of the broadcast at their convenience throughout the 4-day period.

7pm: The 19th Amendment Project Burning Coal Theatre is pleased to present The 19th Amendment Project, a collection of short plays written by some of the most accomplished women and/or non-binary playwrights working today, writing on the passage of the 19th Amendment 100 years ago and its ongoing impact. Tonight She drove me to the town hall when I turned 18 so I could register to vote by Kelly Doyle

7:30: Falstaff Verdi finished his sublime final opera when he was almost 80 years old, capping a fruitful career with a bawdy adaptation of scenes from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV. His classic operatic farce charts a knight’s gold-digging efforts to seduce two married women, leading to belly-flopping failure on both counts. The score, meanwhile, is a complete tour de force, demonstrating the old master’s still-youthful panache, as well as his profound insight into human nature.

8pm: The Seth Concert Series: Sierra Boggess is an Olivier nominated actress, best known world-wide not only for re-inventing the coveted role of ‘Christine Daae’ in Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, but for Lord Webber himself going on record to say that “she’s the best, the best Christine certainly.” Boggess portrayed the role in the Broadway, West End, and the televised 25th Anniversary concert productions of Phantom.Sierra made her Broadway debut as Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, receiving Drama Desk and Drama League Nominations. Her additional Broadway credits include Master Class, It Shoulda Been You, The Phantom of The Opera, and School of Rock. Boggess’ Off-Broadway credits include Love, Loss, and What I Woreand Music in the Air, alongside Kristin Chenoweth, for New York City Center’s Encores! Series. In the West End, Boggess has appeared as Fantine in Les Miserablesand originated the role of Christine Daae in Love Never Dies, the critically acclaimed sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, receiving an Olivier Award Nomination for her performance. Sierra starred as Cinderella in the highly anticipated Hollywood Bowl production of Into the Woods where the Los Angeles Times raved of her “crystalline singing and gameness for comedy… Boggess’ Cinderella was enchanting.” Prior to that she starred as Danielle DeBarbarac in the new musical, Ever After at the Alliance Theatre as well as starred in the world premiere of the new play The Age of Innocence at Hartford Stage for which she received a nomination for a Connecticut Critics Circle Award for her portrayal of Countess Ellen Olenska.Sierra’s concert appearances include multiple engagements with BBC Proms at Royal Albert Hall, Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series The Lyrics of David Zippel, The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, Broadway By The Year at Town Hall, Guys and Dollsat Carnegie Hall opposite Patrick Wilson, Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane, and The Secret Gardenat Lincoln Center. She has toured with her cellist sister, Summer Boggess and musical director, Brian Hertzall over the United States as well as Japan and Australia with her concert show which has been preserved live and released on CD, Awakening: Live at 54 Below.

8pm: Lucille Ball Virtual Comedy Festival: Debra Messing By The National Comedy Center Hosted by Frank DeCaro, the National Comedy Center presents a conversation with Debra Messing.

The sit-down will explore Messing’s work in comedy and discuss Lucille Ball, who was a major influence on Messing’s career. One of the last episodes of Will & Grace this past April was a tribute to I Love Lucy entitled “We Love Lucy,” in which Messing portrayed beloved I Love Lucycharacters Lucy Ricardo, Ethel Mertz and Fred Mertz.

8pm: Plays for the People: Cell Surface By Black Lives Black Words International Project. Black Lives Black Words International Project’s Plays for the People series continues with Dominic Taylor’s Cell Surface. Jerrell Henderson directs.

Cell Surface is a play about making a play in Zoom about two amazing African-American scientists,  Dr. E.E. Just and Dr. Roger Young. Ernest Everett Just was the first Black graduate of Dartmouth. His graduate assistant, while he was a professor at Howard University, was Dr. Roger Young. She was the first Black woman to get a Ph.D. in science from U Penn.

8pm: Brian Nash has been a proud member of the Duplex staff since 2003. Brian works extensively on the Broadway and off-Broadway theater scene, and is the Music Director and Orchestrator of the off-Broadway hit, SILENCE! The Musical. He was a producer on Bare: The Musical for its recent revival off-Broadway and is a resident music director and performer for Atlantis Events worldwide. His cabaret work with Natalie Joy Johnson has earned them recognition from the Village Voice and has been named one of the Top 10 Cabaret Acts by TimeOut New York. Brian has also music directed for Andy Bell of Erasure, Tonya Pinkins, Julia Murney, Rob Evan, Mandy Gonzales, Michael McElroy, Jonathan Hellyer, Trevor Ashley, and many others. His piano playing was recently extensively featured on alternative pop band Boys Like Girls 2012 album, Crazy World (Columbia Records). Other recent theater projects include The Last 5 Years (Asolo Rep) , A Night In Seville (Epic Theater Ensemble), Crossing Brooklyn (Transport Group), Writing Arthur and Something’s Wrong With Amandine at TheatreWorks New Works Festival in Palo Alto, CA, Writing Arthur at NAMT with Kelli O’Hara and Ana Gasteyer, The Unauthorized Musicology of Ben Folds I and II and But I’m A Cheerleader for the New York Musical Theatre Festival, and A Broadway Diva Christmas, starring Ellen Greene and Kathy Brier. Other NYC and regional credits include Songs for a New World, The Sexless Years, Red, Lend Me a Tenor, Jesus Christ Superstar, and The Rocky Horror Show. Brian has produced albums for singer/songwriters Justin Tranter, Shanna Sharp, and Stacy Allyn Baker, recently performed at Town Hall, the Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Birdland with Natalie Douglas, and produced and produced Kate Pazakis’ debut album, Unzipped: Live at the Zipper for PS Classics. Brian is in extensive demand as a pianist and singer throughout NYC and has played sold out concerts of the music of Tori Amos; he is also been a featured performer on Rosie and Kelli O’Donnell’s r family vacations cruises. His first songs were written for two recent editions of TheATrainPlays, and were featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Brian holds a Bachelor’s of Music degree from Boston Conservatory and studied record production at Berklee College of Music. For more info, please visit BrianJNash.com.