What To Watch July 22th To Take Away The Blues

1pm: Folksbiene LIVE: Maida Feingold Living Room Concert: Sing Out For Peace and Justice Versatile Soprano Rachel Policar starred as Goldele in the Off-Broadway debut of Folksbiene’s Drama Desk-nominated The Golden Bride. Her concert will be performed in Yiddish and Hebrew, all with English supertitles.

1pm: The Broadway Q&A Series: Kathleen Marshall This episode features three-time Tony winner Kathleen Marshall. The Broadway director-choreographer will answer questions about Anything Goes, Nice Work If You Can Get It, The Pajama Game, Wonderful Town, and more. 

1pm: Primary Stages Lunch and Learn with Caroline Aaron The playwright will host a free hour-long writing workshop with prompts to get your ideas on the page so you can connect while creating new material and keep your skills sharp. After the workshop, stay online with each other via our platform to eat your lunch together virtually and chat about what you’ve written!

3pm: The Show Must Go Online: Henry V British actor and director Robert Myles launched The Show Must Go Online, a weekly online reading group—performed by actors via Zoom and live streamed on YouTube—that works through Shakespeare’s plays in the order they were written.

British actor and director Robert Myles launched The Show Must Go Online, a weekly online reading group—performed by actors via Zoom and live streamed on YouTube—that works through Shakespeare’s plays in the order they were written.

3pm: The Early Night Show with Joshua Turchin is available across all social media platforms with full videos on YouTube, Facebook Watch and www.theearlynightshow.com released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 3pm EST.

3pm and 7pm: The Weir By Irish Repertory Theatre In a remote country pub in Ireland, newcomer Valerie arrives and becomes spellbound by an evening of ghostly stories told by the local bachelors who drink there. With a whiff of sexual tension in the air and the wind whistling outside, what starts out as blarney soon turns dark as the tales drift into the realm of the supernatural. Then, Valerie reveals a startling story of her own….

Conor McPherson’s The Weir is a haunting, evocative evening in the theatre you will never forget. This new production has been filmed remotely from quarantine and designed for a digital experience; it is the third Irish Rep production of The Weir. The 2013 Irish Rep production of The Weir was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival. Due to audience demand, The Weir was revived again in Irish Rep’s 2015 season.

Written by Conor McPherson
Directed by Ciarán O’Reilly
Starring Dan Butler, Sean Gormley, John Keating, Amanda Quaid, and Tim Ruddy

4pm: Why We Do It: Clint Ramos joins The New Group Founding Artistic Director Scott Elliott for a conversation about theatre and performance. 

Since we’ve been thinking about “why we do what we do”, we’ve asked some of our immediate community of artists to join us for creative conversations that explore what continues to draw them to the theater, touchstones in their theater careers and what hopes they have going forward.

Moderated by Founding Artistic Director Scott Elliott.

Immediately following the free “Why We Do It” conversations, audiences are invited to keep the insightful conversation going over virtual drinks with these artists via Q&A in “Drinks With,” an intimate scale Zoom setting, with a very limited number of participants, moderated by Scott Elliott.  Original drink recipes curated by Sammi Katz, creator of A Girl’s Guide to Drinking Alone (AGirlsGuidetoDrinkingAlone.com).  Please visit TheNewGroup.org/why-we-do-it to register and make a donation for the “Drinks With” events only, available for a $50 tax-deductible donation per participant per talk.  

4pm–9:30pm: Marie’s Crisis Virtual Piano Bar Tonight’s scheduled pianists are James Merillat (@James-Merillat-2) and Franca Vercelloni (@Franca-Vercelloni).

5pm: Metropolitan Opera: The Merry Widow Franz Lehár’s frothy 1905 operetta The Merry Widow, starring the beloved American soprano Renée Fleming as a rich widow and Nathan Gunn as the handsome former flame whose pride prevents him from marrying her for her money. Sir Andrew Davis conducts this 2015 performance, which also features Broadway’s Kelli O’Hara. 

5pm: LAO at Home: Opera Family Time In this “Bard on Broadway” episode of Shakespeare Sings, soprano (and Shakespeare super-fan) Katherine Powers and dramaturg Stephanie Lim explore how Shakespeare inspired the titans of musical theater, and tenor Todd Strange performs beloved Broadway songs.

5pm: Watch Me Work: Suzan Lori Parks She’s back. A meditation on the artistic process, and an actual work session, featuring Suzan-Lori Parks working on her newest writing project. Traditionally hosted on the mezzanine of The Public Theater Lobby, this new version will bring the program to your home via Zoom sessions and HowlRound livestreams.

7pm: Babbling by the Brook Paper Mill Playhouse’s Summer Musical Theater Conservatory, a star-studded roster of performers, writers, directors, and more theatrical denizens.

7pm: Project Sing Out! A one-night-only livestreamed event featuring musical performances, spoken word and special appearances from a variety of Broadway and TV’s biggest names, including Audra McDonald, Chirta Rivera, Don Cheadle, Vanessa Willams.

7pm: Visitors in the Dark Charles Busch’s latest campy comedy tells the story of four women living together in a Greenwich Village tenement (cast includes Busch and usual co-conspirator Julie Halston) who suspect that space aliens may be involved in the 1965 blackout.

7pm: New York Theatre Barn: ¡Americano! and Tenn By New York Theatre Barn new musicals ¡Americano! and Tenn.

¡Americano! features lyrics by Michael Barnard, Carrie Rodriguez, and Jonathan Rosenberg, with music by Rodriguez, and a book by Barnard and Rosenberg, with a live (remote) performance by Sean Ewing. 

Inspired by the events of 9/11, Tony geared his entire childhood towards enlisting in the Marines on his 18th birthday. Yet when he did, Tony was devastated to learn his parents had not been honest with him and that he was an undocumented immigrant, unable to realize his dream. ¡Americano! casts a profoundly human light on what it means to be a Dreamer.

Jullian Hornik’s bio-musical Tenn follows the early years of playwright Tennessee Williams living in St. Louis and New Orleans. Performing numbers are Christian Probst (The Book of Mormon) and Bandits on the Run. 

7pm: Hastings Street Virtual Concert By Plowshares Theatre Company Michigan’s only professional African American Theatre, Plowshares Theatre Company, presents a virtual concert of songs from an original musical set in Detroit past. The play, Hastings Street, is a work in progress set in 1949 at the cusp of the order to tear down Black Bottom, the segregated Black community that was once where I-75 is now.

Sporting a book by local artists John Sloan III with a score written by Sloan and Kris Johnson, Hastings Street, explores the lives of Detroiters at a moment when the city was rewriting the landscape and displacing thousands of African Americans in the name of progress. The story follows the experiences of the Carson Family as they navigate issues of being uprooted on a personal and communal basis. 

7:30: Bay Street Theater 2020 Gala: A Starry Night By Bay Street Theater Tony nominee Richard Kind hosts the Bay Street Theater’s 2020 virtual gala, titled A Starry Night. The special celebration will pay homage to Broadway musicals of the 1970s, and harken back to the celebrity telethon specials popular at the time.

Set to perform are Tony winners André De Shields, Ben Vereen, Betty Buckley, and Tony nominees Raúl Esparza, Melissa Errico, Josh Young. Also on the line-up are Hunter Parrish, Trent Saunders, Arianna Rosario, and Omar Lopez-Cepero.

7:30pm: Verdi’s Macbeth The plot may be focused on the eponymous Scottish king, but Verdi’s high-flying take on Shakespeare’s drama boasts three powerhouse arias for Lady Macbeth, making it a signature showpiece for divas at the very top of their game. Drawing equally on showstopping vocal virtuosity and deftly crafted drama, Verdi’s version of this tale of intrigue and power will keep you on the edge of your seat for all four razor-sharp acts.

7:30pm Colonial and My Emancipation Pregones/PRTT The latest works-in-progress from the Remojo 2020 festival.In “Colonial” by Joel Perez (Fun Home), a man inheriting a colonial house in Old San Juan, discovers a box of journals kept by his grandmother which uncover the truth about his family and the part they played in the failed Puerto Rican Nationalist Party revolts in the 1950’s. “My Emancipation,” written and performed by Cedric Leiba, Jr., explores LGBTQ themes.

8pm: Mrs. Loman By The Tank It begins the day Willy dies. Mrs. Loman is written by Barbara Cassidy and directed by Meghan Finn. The work stars Monique Vukovic Monique Robinson, Nate DeCook, Matt McGlade, Jerry Ferris, Linda Jones, Joe Gregori, and Sophia Reyes on flute.

8pm: Stars in the House: Rent’s Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp SiriusXM Broadway host Seth Rudetsky and producer James Wesley bring the Rent co-stars together.