8am: 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. 

Each of the 14 plays will be released virtually, one at a time, between August Aug 17 – 30.  Tickets for one viewing of each 10 minute play will be $2 (or buy the whole series for $25) and each will be available from the day each play is released through the end of September, 2020. 

The playwrights expected to participate include Clare Bayley, Hannah Benitez, Susana Cook, Kelly Doyle, Jennifer Natalya Fink, Magdalena Gomez, Tamara Kissane, Carrie Knowles, Deb Margolin, Ruth Margraff, Kate Morris, MJ Perrin, Elaine Romero, Prageeta Sharma and Ariel Zetina.

The producing arts organizations will include Agape Theatre, Bulldog Theatre Ensemble, Burning Coal Theatre, the Gilbert Theatre, the Justice Theatre Project, NC Central University Theatre, the North Carolina Theatre, the North Carolina Opera, Raleigh Little Theatre, Sweet Tea Shakespeare, Theatre in the Park, William Peace University Theatre and the Women’s Theatre Festival.

The League of Women Voters of Wake County serves as production partner. 

1pm: The Broadway Q&A Series: Michael Greif By PlaybillThe Growing Studio. The Broadway composer-lyricist will answer questions about Dear Evan Hansen, Next to Normal, Grey Gardens, and more. 

2pm: Icons Of The American Songbook: Setting The Standard By 92 Y Performer, producer, and educator Harvey Granat presents a three-part program exploring some of the musicians, composers, and lyricists that helped created the Great American Songbook. Their standards transcend the time in which they were written to become the cultural fabric for generations of music lovers and are revived time and time again as reflections of the human spirit.

Dorothy Fields and Sammy Cahn  special guest, Lisanne Lyons, one of south Florida’s leading jazz vocalists and head of jazz vocal studies at FIU School of Music. 

3pm: The Seth Concert Series: Rachel Bay Jones Rachel Bay Jones is best known for originating the role of ‘Heidi Hansen’ in the Original Broadway Cast of Dear Evan Hansen, and received a Tony Award®, Emmy Award, Grammy Award, Lucille Lortel Award, and Drama League Nomination for her performance. She can currently be seen on the hit ABC series “Modern Family,” CBS’ “God Friended Me,” and in the feature film Ben Is Back, opposite Julia Roberts. She stars in the upcoming feature film Critical Thinking, directed by and opposite John Leguizamo. Additional Broadway credits include Pippin, Hair, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Off-Broadway & Regional/National Tour include Dear Evan Hansen (Drama Desk Nomination) at Second Stage, First Daughter Suite at The Public Theater, Hello Again, A Christmas Story, Pippin, Sylvia, and The King and I. On television, Rachel recently appeared on NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU,” ABC’s “The Family,” and the FX series “Louie.” She is currently touring her new solo concert series Something Beautiful, and her debut solo album ShowFolk can be purchased on iTunes and Amazon.

4pm: CyberTank Variety Show By The Tank. The Tank’s CyberTank Variety Show offers plenty of fun entertainment for audiences watching at home. Special guest this week: Girl Be Heard.

The CyberTank Weekly Variety Show is a remote, multidisciplinary variety arts gathering open to everyone. The arts community has been presented with a challenge to re-examine theatricality, and The Tank has reframed this as the gift of an opportunity to grow and choose community over despair. Each weekly installment is centered around a specific question and features guest artists who will perform and facilitate conversation.

4pm–9:30pm: Marie’s Crisis Virtual Piano Bar scheduled pianists are Alex Barylski (@Alexander-Barylski) and Brandon James Gwinn (@brandonjamesg).   

7pm: Loser Boy: Boom Boom on the Zoom Zoom By The Tank. Behold! A live improv show on Zoom! You probably don’t know Loser Boy as an improv team charting a course to undiscovered improvisation, but that’s who we are. We’re taking our show online and that’s a new thing in itself!

Loser Boy features Dana Patrice, Emily Keown, Deirdre Manning, Jordan McDonough and John Racioppo plus special guests!!

7pm: New Voices 2002: Celebrate the Magic of Lerner and Loewe By Paper Mill Playhouse. The annual New Voices concert is the culmination of Paper Mill Playhouse’s Summer Musical Theater Conservatory, featuring 120 talented student performers ages 10–18, directed and choreographed by Paper Mill Playhouse’s professional artistic staff.

7pm: 48Hours in…Harlem By Harlem9. The festival brings together six playwrights, six directors, and 18 actors, including A Strange Loop star Larry Owens and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly. Penning the pieces are playwrights are Keith Josef Adkins, Brittany K. Allen, Tracey Conyer Lee, Nadine Mozon, jeremy o’brian, and L. Trey Wilson. Kelly directs one piece, as do Marjuan Canady, nicHi douglas, Malika Oyetimein, Logan Pitts, and Dominique Rider.

The roster of performers includes Owens, Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew, Eric Berryman, Kaaron Briscoe, Ashley Bufkin, Brandon E. Burton, Shavanna Calder, Broderick Clavery, Rasheda Crockett, Patricia R. Floyd, Freddie Fulton, Ashley N. Hildreth, Manu Kumasi, April Matthis, Javon Q. Minter, AK Murthadha, David Ryan Smith, and D. Woods.

The new plays were written in 48 hours July 17–19, then rehearsed and recorded during an additional 48-hour period July 24–25.

For this year’s festival, playwrights were inspired by the same six Black plays from 48 Hours in..’s. inaugural year.

7:30 Verdi’s Rigoletto Michael Mayer’s acclaimed production, first seen in the 2012–13 season, sets the action of Verdi’s masterpiece in 1960 Las Vegas—a neon-lit world ruled by money and ruthless, powerful men. Piotr Beczała is the Duke, a popular entertainer and casino owner who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Željko Lučić sings Rigoletto, his sidekick and comedian, and Diana Damrau is Rigoletto’s innocent daughter, Gilda. When she is seduced by the Duke, Rigoletto sets out on a tragic course of murderous revenge. Štefan Kocán is the assassin Sparafucile and Michele Mariotti conducts.

7:30pm: Rise Planet Connections Zoom Fest A new batch of plays online on specific themes every Monday in August.This week: “An evening of comic social-justice themed monologues and short plays.” Written by Maggie Bofill, Jake Brasch, Glory Kadigan, Robin Rice, Jerry Polner, and Mark Jason Williams. To make a reservation, email Kim Jones at PlanetKimJ@gmail.com.

7:30: Righteous Temple Emanu-el Streicker Center. A new play by Jeff Cohen with a starry ten-member cast including Frank Wood, Denis O’Hare, Johanna Day, Jessica Hecht, and Richard Kind. “What would you do if you learned that your country planned to exterminate an entire race of people? That is the horrible question faced by Eduard Schulte, a captain of German industry and member of Hitler’s inner circle. Righteous is the true story of the man who sounded the alarm of Hitler’s plan to murder all the Jews in Europe. Schulte’s warning reached the desk of President Roosevelt in December 1942.” The reading is free to the public but you must register here in advance.

7:30: Eulogy and Notes from the New World. Planet Connections Zoom two plays the first written by Barry Lee Sheppard, Directed by Adam Chisnall: Can I say goodbye or am I in an endless turnstile? the second was written by Patricia Davis Directed by Susan Tenney: Playwright Olympe de Gouge, executed during the French Revolution, returns to the stage and working with murdered activists from our time—Berta Caceres, Digna Ochoa, and Anna Politkovskaya—builds a world where women can live. To make a reservation, email Kim Jones at PlanetKimJ@gmail.com.

8pm: Jim Caruso’s Pajama Cast Party with Kathy Najimy, comedy juggler Marcus Monroe, Broadway actress/singer Ruby Rakos, and burlesque performer Ariana Savalas. The show is free, but tips are welcome (Venmo: @Jim-Caruso-1). 

8pm: Sleep Out: Stage and Screen Virtual Edition. Stars from Broadway, film, and TV will join forces for a virtual edition of Sleep Out: Stage and Screen, the annual event supporting Covenant House and its mission to help young people who are facing homelessness.

In lieu of the traditional sleep out in New York, participants will take to the floors or yards of their own outdoor spaces due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. As in years past, the tradition is not to mimic homelessness, but rather to act in solidarity with the people the organization supports.

Among those set to take part are six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald and Emmy winner Rachel Brosnahan (both members of the organization’s Board of Directors), Ariana DeBose and Rachel Zegler (stars of Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film adaptation of West Side Story), Adrienne Warren, Rachel Zegler, Jason Ralph, Sam Pinkleton, Diana DiMenna, Rachel Sussman, Alison Cimmet, Shereen Pimentel, Kyle Selig, Jessica Phillips, and Judy Kuhn, with more to be revealed later.

8pm: On Seth Rudetsky fabulous series Stars in the House Andréa Mondays! Guest Host Andréa Burns and Tony-winning music director and orchestrator Alex Lacamoire (Hamilton).

8pm: The Producer’s Perspective LIVE! Episode 69: Patrick Page By The Producer’s Podcast. Hadestown, Hunchback on Notre Dame, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Spring Awakening and did you know Patrick has a podcast!? Hit the ‘GET REMINDER’ button below to get notified when we go LIVE! Don’t forget to SHARE this with your Broadway-lovin’ friends.

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.

8:30: Latino Victory Project: Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jasmine Cephas Jones, More Celebrate Women’s Suffrage

Tony winner Renée Elise Goldsberry, Tony nominee Phillipa Soo, and Jasmine Cephas Jones—the trio who originated the Schuyler sisters in Hamilton—will virtually reunite with Lin-Manuel Miranda during a special celebration in honor of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

Moderated by journalist Soledad O’Brien, the event will take place August 25 at 8:30 PM ET on Zoom, open to donors who pledge $10 or more to the Latino Victory Fund. Donations will support the charity’s aim to grow Latinx political power in all levels of government.

The virtual fundraiser will feature Soo, Goldsberry, and Jones discussing the role of women in Hamilton, the rehearsal process, and their perspectives on performing in the show as women of color—who were not allowed to vote until 1965 with the passing of the Civil Rights Act.