The New York Pops Up Festival a thousand in-person performances throughout the state from now through June. Most events associated with NY PopsUp will be unannounced (and unticketed) and will be designed so that New Yorkers happen upon them in their everyday lives. (Since we can’t have large gatherings right now, we want to bring a lot of small things to the public where they are) NY PopsUp is a surprise that you happen upon, rather than an event or concert you are alerted to via a notification or a schedule.

5pm: BPN LIVE: The Comeback Project l Reopening Theaters, Lessons From Countries Who Have Done It By Broadway Podcast Network.

The Comeback Project is a conversation series to help theatermakers restart in the wake of the pandemic. This premiere conversation features international theatermakers from countries which have been successful at presenting theater during this time.

By bringing together experts from within the industry and equally, from beyond the industry, The Comeback Project hopes to provide resources and strategies for arts-workers from all corners of the theatrical world planning their return to in-person work. These thought-provoking conversations aim to respond to the challenges the theater community is facing in real time and future conversation topics will include: Returning to the Rehearsal Room (featuring those who’ve done it), Lessons from Sports and Television, Making Outdoor Theater, and more.

Moderated by Sammi Cannold, participants include industry leaders who have been on the frontlines of reopening in their respective countries Michael Cassel (Hamilton, Harry Potter, Australia), Ginny Kim (Cats, Hadestown, South Korea), Haruka A. Nakagawa (Phantom of the Opera, Japan),  Alistair Smith (The Stage, UK), and Ariel Stolier (Paseo la Plaza, Argentina). They will illustrate the journeys their respective theater communities have been on in the past year and their future trajectories. The hope is that facilitating a sharing of best practices and strategies will help ensure success for those looking to follow suit. It is also an examination of  theater communities who have made strides in reopening and how they have handled challenges and set-backs that have arisen on that path.

Co-created by theater directors Sammi Cannold (Evita, New York City Center) & Rebecca Aparicio (Jack and the Beanstalk, A.R.T.) in partnership with Broadway Podcast Network.

Visit BPN.fm/TheComebackProject for more information!

6pm: Classic Conversations: Sarah Ruhl Classic Stage Company continues its free, online version of their discussion series Classic Conversations, hosted by Artistic Director John Doyle.

7pm: BPN Live: My Broadway Memory, with Christine Ebersole and Erik Liberman By Broadway Podcast Network. My Broadway Memory, a live, visual comedy podcast in its second season — a celebration of memorable experiences at the theatre with Broadway’s biggest names. During each episode, a guest will choose a Playbill from their collection at random and take a trip down memory lane. In addition to discussing the actual show, Michael, Remy, and guests will discuss other memories, folklore, specific performances, and geek out over Broadway — plus, you might even catch a performance or two.

Michael and Remy are calling out to theatre fans everywhere to join in on the fun by creating their own My Broadway Memory videos and sharing them to Instagram or Facebook. Be sure to tag @MyBroadwayMemory and use the hashtag #MyBroadwayMemory​​ to have a chance at being featured on the Broadway Podcast Network site.

7pm: Delejos (from afar) This performance is written and directed explicitly for Zoom. The show transforms a Zoom room into an immersive theatre experience, re-imagining it’s familiar presentation tools through live set changes, lighting cues, “camera angles”, a musical score, at-home VR “headsets”, and a sprinkling of magical realism.

Delejos takes you into Julie Piñero’s pre-pandemic pursuit of a question that became central to today’s COVID world: Do we lose something simply because we’re far from it?

When Julie’s partner Jose Zambrano unexpectedly died in 2019, she decided to take a journey through his work-in-progress design for a VR video game he called “Delejos.” It’s a game about overcoming physical separation, inspired by his own experience of forced immigration from Venezuela.

By his design, players journey to connect to something they love from afar. So, equipped with his larger-than-life legacy and the tools Julie mines from her own latinidad, she ventures through his game in search of connection with him. What she finds, however, is his larger path to hope in the face of chaos.

Writer-performer Piñero is a comedian and producer best known for her work on Audible’s Mind Power Mixtape and Come Out, Come Out, HuffPost’s Crash the Party, and Thrillist’s Food/Groups. Producer Caitlin Stone has worked for video teams at HuffPost, Bravo Digital, and Bon Appétit.

7pm: Jericho NNR Premiere. Marsha Mason, directs Jill Eikenberry in Jack Canfora’s play, which serves as New Normal Rep’s inaugural production. The thought-provoking piece explores how people cope with personal and collective catastrophe as a family reunites for Thanksgiving dinner after tragedy

7pm: Love, Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Coward By Irish Repertory Theatre. Get to know the life and times of one of the 20th century’s most dynamic creative icons – Noël Coward – through this intimate performance in which Steve Ross and KT Sullivan transform into some of the many characters that made up Coward’s unique life…Gertrude Lawrence, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Elaine Stritch, Lynn Fontanne, Virginia Woolf, Edna Ferber, the Queen Mother, and, of course, The Master himself, Noël Coward.

Written and Devised by Barry Day

Directed by Charlotte Moore

Filmed (safely) at The Players this summer

Starring Steve Ross and KT Sullivan

7:30pm: Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte Mozart’s final completed opera is many things—mystical fable, earthy comedy, humanist manifesto, arcane Masonic credo. More than all this, though, it is one of the greatest testaments to the composer’s miraculous musical and theatrical powers. No matter how you approach or interpret the story, it whisks you away into its uniquely enchanted world, and, like the magic flute that gives the work its title, has the power to “transform sorrow” and “increase the joy and contentment of mankind.” In this 2017 Live in HD transmission, Mozart’s operatic fairy tale takes the stage in a spectacular production from Emmy and Tony Award­–winning visionary Julie Taymor.

8pm: Lookingglass Theatre Company’s unGALA

Lookingglass Theatre Company announces a one-of-a-kind experience brought to you by a one-in-a-million theatre company…and you don’t even have to be there in person! It’s the 2021 gglassquerade unGALA, a virtual event in support of the Tony Award-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company. Stay home, stay safe, stay cozy, and all the while, sustain America’s most innovative ensemble-based theatre.  

We’ll bring the ritz right into your residence as Ensemble (not) hosts Anthony Fleming III and David Schwimmer tour you through an evening of our former majesties and future feats of imagination. Featuring (dis)appearances by Lookingglass Ensemble Members Kareem Bandealy, J. Nicole Brooks, Kasey Foster, and Heidi Stillman, and along with (no) surprise celebrity visits (by no means the unparalleled Stephen Colbert), and concluding with(out) a performance by Lee Golub and the Dr. Bombay Band, the unGALA promises to make presence out of absence the way only Lookingglass can. Won’t you join us (by keeping in place)?  

8pm: amfAR’s A Gala for Our Time amfAR’s first virtual gala, A Gala for Our Time will pay tribute to Dr. Anthony Fauci and Glenn Close. 

 Fauci and Close will be presented with amfAR’s Award of Courage. Julia Roberts will “present” the award to Dr. Fauci and Bette Midler will “present” to Close. 

Kelly Clarkson, Rita Ora and Ava Max will give special performances, with additional presenters and special celebrity guests participating in the event including Olly Alexander and Lydia West of HBO Max’s new drama It’s a Sin, which chronicles the early days of the AIDS epidemic in 1980’s London.

Billy Porter, a newly elected amfAR Trustee, will also participate, along with Nathan Lane, Magic Johnson, Chelsea Handler, Boy George and more.

8pm: Open Play By Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Composer, director, and actor Troy Anthony and playwright and actor Ngozi Anyanwu host Open Play, a monthly series that gives any and every artist of any discipline a chance to share 5 minutes of live work including song, monologue, scene, and more.

Open Play is designed for those who know Rattlestick and for those who do not (yet) to find collaborators and community. This space is open to the public to listen.

8pm: 80’s Mall Murder Madness: LIVE! Join your host Brandon Hicks, with a special virtual appearance from Broadway’s Marty Thomas on a virtual night of murder mystery fun where you can: Be A Character in the Murder Mystery and Act “On-Stage” or Be A Detective and remain “Off-Screen” while watching the comedy at play and helping solve the crime!  The evening finishes with awards for performers and more!  Join us an awesome 80’s evening you won’t soon forget!

8pm: Stars in the House Duke Ellington: The Music That Defined A Century with Mercedes Ellington, Judith Jamison, Teri Klausner, Ty Stephens and Kenneth Hanson

An Iliad (Streaming) Court Theater. A film of the site-specific production at Chicago’s Oriental Institute by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare.

Smithtown The Studios of Key West $20 In this play by Drew Larimore starring Michael Urie, Ann Harada, Colby Lewis and Constance Shulman, a single text message overturns life in a small Midwestern university town, a riff on the effects of social media.

 Julius Caesar, Starring Patrick Page By Shakespeare@ Tony nominee Patrick Page (Hadestown) stars in the title role with Jordan Barbour (The Inheritance) as Brutus and Keith Hamilton Cobb (American Moor) as Cassius. West End Harry Potter and the Cursed Child performers Jamie Ballard and James Howard co-star as Mark Antony and Metellus Cimber, respectively. 

The production is also be available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, and Stitcher.

Produced by Jersey City’s Shakespeare@, this audio production is the third installment of the season, produced and adapted by Artistic Director Sean Hagerty.

Hagerty has crafted the production into four weekly parts and partnered with the Emmy-winning team at Sonic Designs to capture the lost art and thrill of radio drama all without leaving the confines of quarantine.

Julius Caesar features original music composed by Joan Melton with sound design by the Emmy-winning team of Dan Gerhard and Ellen Fitton of Sonic Designs. Justin Goldner is the music producer and supervisor, and casting is by Robin Carus. Sydney Steele serves as the associate producer. 

 Upon These Shoulders By PlaybillBlack Theatre Coalition  Current Tony nominee Daniel J. Watts (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical), Tony and Emmy nominee Brandon Victor Dixon (Hamilton), Amber Iman (Shuffle Along…), Carly Hughes (Pippin), gospel star Bebe Winans, and more will take part in the upcoming Black History Month concert special Upon These Shoulders. The digital concert, co-presented by Black Theatre United and Playbill, honors Black creative artists past, present, and future.

Using performances, interviews, and video messages from Broadway stars and arts workers, the show will highlight the history of Black artistry, magnify the work of today’s Black creatives, and shed a light on the future of Broadway and theatres across America. The concert will also highlight the work of the Black Theatre Coalition, emphasizing its leadership as the community moves the needle towards equity.

The event will be ticketed, with all proceeds going to support BTC. Additional information, including purchasing instructions and further casting, will be announced in the coming days. To make a donation to Black Theatre Coalition now, click here.

The Things Are Against Us Susan Soon He Stanton’s The Things Are Against Us will be the next production in MCC’s LiveLab one-act digital reading series. Ellie Heyman directs the cast, which includes Juan Castano, Emily Davis, Susannah Flood, Babak Tafti, and Danny Wolohan, in tthe play set in a mysterious house with a mind of its own. 

John Lithgow, Daniel Breaker, More Sing Adam Guettel’s Myths & Hymns (Episode 2) By MasterVoices The central project of MasterVoices’ 2020-2021 season will be a virtual rollout of award-winning composer Adam Guettel’s theatrical song cycle, Myths and Hymns, in an online staging conceived by Ted Sperling. 

SoHo Playhouse Presents Typical Soho Theatre and Nouveau Riche present the world premiere of Typical, the film version of the stage play, released exclusively on Soho Theatre On Demand 

Written by Ryan Calais Cameron and directed by Anastasia Osei-Kuffour, Typical uncovers the man and the humanity behind the tragic true-life events of Black British ex-serviceman Christopher Alder and the injustice that still remains twenty years since his story emerged. 

Bad Dates George Street Playhouse through March 14. Andrea Burns stars in Theresa Rebeck’s one-woman comedy about a single mom in search of cute shoes, the perfect dress, and a romantic table for two 

7pm: Franz Kafka’s Letter to My Father M-34 through March 28
In 1919, the ailing writer wrote a letter to his father full of intense mixed emotions.

Far Away Quantum Theater through March 7 $10 to $50 Caryl Churchill’s surreal portrait of a descent into a hyper-partisan future 

Expirer Wilma Theater Dive into a cyberspace underworld through this interactive website. Demons, both classical and contemporary, lurk among the virtual artifacts, waiting to be purged. Part of this Philadelphia theater’s weekly Hothouse Shorts.

The Manic Monologues Current Slave Play Tony nominee Ato Blankson-Wood, Rent Tony winner Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Accidentally Brave playwright Maddie Corman, and more stage favorites will explore mental health this winter in a new digital production from the McCarter Theatre Center.

The Manic Monologues debuts February 18 with 21 true-life monologues that users can explore at their own pace and through an interactive element virtually respond to.

Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue Center Theater Group
through April 4. $10 Kemp Powers’ play tells the story of twins, one who dreamt of space, the other who became a successful attorney, who have lived starkly different lives, because one has dark skin and the other passes as white. The action plays out in 1980s New York and a Minnesota courthouse in 2006.

Simply Sondheim Signature Theater of Arlington. Available through March 26. Thirty Sondheim songs performed by a 16-piece orchestra and a dozen singers, including Norm Lewis, Emily Skinner, Solea Pfeiffer and Conrad Ricamora

Directed by Golden Globe winner Marsha Mason, Napoleon in Exile stars Emmy nominee Jane Kaczmarek and Will Dagger as mother and son. After the performance, the artists join host Claudia Catania to discuss writing for actors and bringing theater chops to the world of sitcom TV.

Clay Wilma Theater The Philadelphia theater continues its weekly Hothouse Shorts until March 7, with these intertwining audio tales of one everyday object.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice By Southwark Playhouse The Sorcerer’s Apprentice will now be streamed due to the pandemic and continued lockdown. The pay-per-view stream will be available February 26–March 14.