Theater News

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Banana Bag & Bodice, Me’shell Ndegeocello, Public Enemy, Bruce Vilanch, et al. Set for SummerStage

Jason Craig in Beowulf
(© Jensen Studios NYC)
Jason Craig in Beowulf
(© Jensen Studios NYC)

The lineup for the 25th anniversary season of SummerStage has been announced, with events to be offered in parks throughout the boroughs. The festival will kick off on June 1 with Melody Gardot and the New York Pops in Central Park and Jay Electronica in Brooklyn’s Red Hook Park and conclude on August 29 with saxophonist James Moody, pianist Vijay Iyer and others in Tompkins Square Park for the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival.

One of the highlights will be a NYCPride Rally in Central Park on June 19 at 4pm. Participants will include Me’shell Ndegeocello, Martha Wash, NY Gay Men’s Chorus, Vickie Shaw, Billie Myers, and Bruce Vilanch.

The SummerStage season will include six theater events, plus Summer Shake Up!: A Special Event for Students (July 10, Crotona Park, Bronx). This event, offered by the Public Theater, is for students 6th grade and up, as well as their families, and will afford them the opportunity to participate in an extended workshop setting with an artist from the Public.

In Manhattan, SummerStage will present three productions in East River Park, including Waterwell’s Goodbar (August 20-22), with music by the rock band Bambi, which will explore the movie and novel Looking for Mr. Goodbar; Toshiki Okada’s Five Days in March (August 23-24), which looks at a disparate group of characters on the days leading up to the U.S. war in Iraq, and which will be performed by Witness Relocation; and Banana Bag & Bodice’s rock musical Beowulf – A Thousand Years of Baggage (August 25-27).

Other SummerStage offerings will include Zakiyah Alexander’s The Etymology of a Bird (June 11-12, Von King Park, Brooklyn; June 18-19, Betsy Head Park, Brooklyn), which investigates the fabric of Bedford-Stuyvesant; Radah Blank’s American Schemes (July 2-3, St. Mary’s Park, Bronx; July 9-10, Crotona Park, Bronx), which explores the concept of the American Dream and what it means to a variety of people; and Sharon Bridgforth’s blood pudding (July 23-24, Springfield Park, Queens; August 6-7, Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan), which is a multi-disciplinary theater piece that celebrates the history of African-Americans in New Orleans.


The festival will also include performances from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson’s Complexions Contemporary Dance Company, Tamboula and the Julio Jean Haitian American Dance Theater, rap pioneers Public Enemy, rockers Living Colour, Senegalese singer/songwriter Baaba Maal, jazz bassist Stanley Clarke, and contemporary R&B stars Ryan Leslie, Chrisette Michelle, and Mario.

For additional information, visit: www.SummerStage.org.