Adam Guettel's Myths and Hymns Begins Streaming; Find Out What Else Is Coming Up
MasterVoices is presented a new digital film series inspired by Adam Guettel's song cycle Myths and Hymns. Conceived by artistic director Ted Sperling, Myths and Hymns is divided into four chapters. The first edition of the digital series, titled "Flight," premieres January 13 at 6:30pm ET on the MasterVoices YouTube channel and will be available through June 30. It will include the songs "Prometheus," performed by Anderson & Roe; "Saturn Returns: The Flight," performed by Joshua Henry; "Icarus," performed by Mykal Kilgore and Norm Lewis; "Migratory V," performed by Julia Bullock, Renée Fleming, and Kelli O'Hara; "Pegasus," performed by Jose Llana, Capathia Jenkins, and Elizabeth Stanley; and "Jesus, the Mighty Conqueror," performed by Take 6. Watch the video above.
NewYorkRep will present CivilWrights, a ten-minute play series, on January 17. In response to the national crisis on systemic racism, four playwrights of color — Jerome A. Parker, Akin Salawu, Ren Dara Santiago, and James Anthony Tyler — have written 10-minute mini plays on racism. This short-play festival, a first in a series, will feature a range of subjects, perspectives and content within BIPOC realities, which explore the current and ongoing political and social climate around all forms of racism. Each series will be followed by a Town Hall style talk-back to foster conversation about equality and also create a more inclusive American theater. To register and watch, click here.
The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival (UTR) is entirely virtual this year, running January 6-17. Under the Radar 2021 will feature an exciting mix of innovative artists including 600 Highwaymen, Javaad Alipoor, Inua Ellams, Trinidad González, Alicia Hall Moran, Piehole, and Whitney White and Peter Mark Kendall. For programming information and tickets, click here.
The 2021 Origin 1st Irish Festival, a three-week celebration of contemporary Irish culture, will take place virtually January 11-31. The festival presents work by theater companies from Ireland, Northern Ireland, and New York. Highlights of this year's festival include Under the Albert Clock, a collection of short plays by five of Northern Ireland's most inventive female playwrights, Transatlantic Tales, a series of eight original plays, and Irish Rep's production of Darren Murphy's The Gifts You Gave to the Dark, the story of a man in Belfast on his last call with his mother in Dublin. For festival calendar and tickets, click here.
Sleep Squad, a family-friendly, interactive, virtual theater experience, turns your home into a rocket ship to launch kids into their dreams. This on-demand production creates a new kind of bedtime ritual for kids age 4-12. Sleep Squad stars Tony Award nominee, Lilli Cooper (SpongeBob SquarePants,Tootsie) as the Dream Queen, who guides adventurers through three different enchanting audio experiences, adapted from stories written by real kids, including a visit to a desert island, a dinosaur's birthday party, and an intergalactic nightclub. Tickets are available January 6-February 21. To purchase, click here.
Vineyard Theatre's original cast benefit reading of Gloria, the Pulitzer Prize finalist play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Evan Cabnet, will stream January 19-24, allowing for two additional days of viewing on demand. Proceeds from this reading will support the artists and programs in the nonprofit theater's 2020-21 season, with a portion of the proceeds supporting the Dramatists Guild Foundation. For tickets and more information, click here.
(© Joan Marcus)
Lincoln Center Theater will host a free online cast reunion of The Light in the Piazza on January 28 at 7pm ET. Stars Victoria Clark, Kelli O'Hara, and Matthew Morrison will take part in the event, which will be introduced by director Bartlett Sher and moderated by Ira Weitzman. The Adam Guettel-Craig Lucas musical premiered in 2005 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, and earned seven Tony Awards, including Best Original Score and Best Actress in a Musical for Clark. For tickets, click here.
The LCT Spotlight Series — Lincoln Center Theater's free program of digital events which features LCT artists in performance, conversation and more — resumes on January 14 at 8pm with "Turning the Page: LCT" Artists Read Their Own Poetry and Prose. To be introduced by poet Honor Moore, author of the recently published memoir Our Revolution: A Mother and Daughter at Midcentury, the event will feature playwrights David Adjmi, Ayad Akhtar, and Sarah Ruhl; playwright and director James Lapine; director Jack O'Brien; and actor and writer Andrew Rannells reading from their own nontheatrical works. To register for the Zoom webinar, click here.
Hershey Felder stars as Sholem Aleichem in Before Fiddler — Live From Florence, running for one night only on February 7. Before the beloved musical Fiddler on the Roof, there was Sholem Aleichem and his beloved character of "Tevye the Milkman." Before the beloved songs "Tradition," "If I Were a Rich Man," "Matchmaker," and more, there was music of the Old World … a music that imitated talking, laughing, weeping, and singing, where musicians didn't just make music, they spoke to you in song — Klezmer. In Florence, Italy, one of the oldest artistic centers in the world, a group of such musicians have been, by day, virtuosos in Florence's world famous Maggio Musicale symphony orchestra; by night, they are the Klezmerata Forientina … with their ancient European roots, and Hershey Felder as their storyteller, playing an array of characters and music from the "Old World," from a Tevyeh, to a Yenteh, to a Rabbi, to a newlywed daughter, to many many more … Purchase includes the live stream and a week of ON DEMAND viewing access to the recording of the live stream (through 2/14). For tickets, click here.
John Lloyd Young's Vegas Valentine will stream live from the Space in Las Vegas on February 12 at 9pm ET. The pay-per-view concert is $30 and the concert with VIP virtual after-party is $100 beginning at 10:45pm ET. The concert will be available OnDemand for one week following the live performance. For tickets and more information, click here.
(© David Gordon)
Josh Groban's latest live-streamed concert will be a romantic one, taking place on Valentine's Day, February 14, at 8pm ET. On Instagram, Groban teased that the "rip roarin'" concert will feature "tons of songs I've rarely (or never!) done." The new show will air in multiple timezones, with on-demand playback for up to 48 hours from the start time. For tickets and more information, click here.
Carrie Coon headlines Rajiv Joseph's new play Red Folder, presented as part of Steppenwolf Theatre Company's virtual Steppenwolf Now initiative. It streams beginning January 27. Coon narrates the 10-minute work, which is described as an "illustrated short." The plot is described cryptically as follows: "The red folder belongs to a first grader. It is the source of all his woes. Years later, he seeks vengeance." For more information, watch the video above and click here.
(© Matthew Murphy)
Hulu will release the film version of Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself on January 22. The production ran for more than a year at the Daryl Roth Theatre during 2017 and 2018. In & Of Itself is an intimate and powerful exploration of what it means to be and be seen. The film chronicles DelGaudio's attempt to understand the illusory nature of identity. His personal journey expands to a collective experience that forces us to confront the boundaries of our own identities. To subscribe to Hulu and Disney Plus, click here.
(image provided by the production)
Michael Urie, Ann Harada, Colby Lewis, and Constance Shulman will star in a virtual production of the new play Smithtown, written by Drew Larimore and directed by Stephen Kitsakos. Smithtown follows four residents of a fictional Midwestern university town who unwittingly become victims of technology gone awry. The 65-minute play is presented by the Studios of Key West. The play will stream online February 13-27. For tickets, click here.
