[I’m an associate member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA), the professional organization for theater reviewers in print, on line, and on electronic media. Every couple of weeks, ATCA sends out an e-mail newsletter to members called The Update with the latest news from the association. One regular feature of The Update is entitled “This Just In,” a list of “select articles by ATCA members that popped-up in our newsfeed.” On 24 March, the list included several articles about the effects of the theater-closings because of the coronavirus pandemic.
[Rick On Theater isn’t a news site; I don’t usually report on current events aside from
the occasional editorial post that refers to a topical development in theater
or the arts. It struck me as appropriate
for me to use my blog to spread the word about how this unprecedented situation
is affecting communities, especially theater communities, around the U.S.
[I haven’t researched this issue, but I can’t
recall an event in theater history when all the theaters in a region were
closed this way. Individual theaters have
been closed, usually on charges of obscenity—I believe nearly all of Mae West’s
plays were shut down by police on this basis in 1920s New York City and back in
2017, Broadway saw the première of Paula Vogel’s Indecent, a play that recounted the story of the abortive
production of Sholom Ash’s The God of Vengeance in 1923, closed by authorities on this charge—but the only general
theater shut-down that I can think of was in 1642 London when Puritan Oliver
Cromwell closed all the theaters on moral grounds.
[Strikes have closed theaters briefly over
the decades, but I don’t know what happened in, say, 1918 when this country was
attacked by the Spanish flu. New York
City theaters went dark after the 2001 terror attacks, but other parts of the country
didn’t take similar action.
[So the current situation may be unprecedented. Of course, I recognize that the
theater-closings are a part of an overall shut-down that includes not only
large entertainment spaces, but shops, restaurants, transportation systems, sports
arenas, parks, playing fields and playgrounds, and so on. And it’s important to note that the shut-downs
affect not only the customers for these venues, potential audiences in the case
of theaters, but the performers and other artists as well as the theater employees
like stage hands, ushers, and box-office personnel. Theater companies have reduced and furloughed
staff people and, as you’ll see, reviewers and theater journalists have little
on which to report.
[What has this done to the art and business
of live theater? Some New York shows
have already closed, some without ever having officially opened such as Hangmen (scheduled to open on 15 March, it ceased preview
performances, started on 28 February, on 11 March) and Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf? (closed on 11 March after
starting previews on 3 March; scheduled to open on 9 April for a limited run
through 2 August). Below are some
reports, from different perspectives and different parts of the country responding
to the current situation.
[Update listed seven articles by ATCA members
concerning the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. I’ll present four in Part 1 and later this
week, I’ll post the remaining three articles.]
“A
THEATER CRITIC CONFRONTS NO SHOWS TO GO TO, NO CURTAINS TO CATCH”
by Chris
Jones
[The following article from the Chicago Tribune of 17 March relates how review-writer Chris
Jones responded to the closing of his city’s vibrant theaters after Governor J.
B. Pritzker banned all gatherings of 100 people or more as of 12 March.]
I’ve written a Friday theater column for the Chicago
Tribune for close to 25 years. The topics and issues have varied, but they’ve
all had one thing in common. Each and every one has been inspired by the
artists of the Chicago theater.
This week, for the first time, there is nothing going on.
No valid listings. No Chris Jones Recommends, because I
could not in good conscience recommend that you do anything other than stay
home for your own safety and that of your fellow citizens. This week, and
probably for weeks to come, the Chicago theater is officially closed for
business.
So by necessity, this has to be a column about absence.
It’s personal, of course. I go to the theater most
nights, most ordinary nights anyway. Being there, as some curtain somewhere
goes up, is close to an obsession of mine. Strike “close to.” The experience —
the beauty, the ugliness, the rush of ideas, even the difficult confrontations
— have sustained me though a good chunk of my adult life. It always has felt
not so much like a job as a gift that transforms into something different every
night and the chance to sing what happened from the rooftops.
Like many journalists — in times that were uncertain even
before coronavirus — I’ve long had in my head a farewell speech. In my case, I’ve
always wanted to tell the people of the Chicago theater one thing: that
everything I have been doing all these years is merely reactive.
Even though a review might look like an evaluation or a
judgment, that is just a smokescreen.
While a review or a story may (or may not) be artful, it
has no purpose for existing without the work it critiques. With the loss of
that basis, it dies.
Without the work of the artists, there is nothing to riff
on, be inspired by, cry at, get angry at, marvel at, dream on, laugh at, shout
back at, object to, smile at, cheer on, ovate for, believe in, defend, attack,
get defensive over, feel fragile over, be empowered by, live through. To be
glad all the way to the bottom of your heart that this is the city where you
chose to spend your life.
Simple as that.
But fear not. As they say in the musical “Avenue Q,” this
is only for a while. While theater might seem like life and death, that is not
the case and it can wait, even if it will have to be back in production before
we will truly be able to say that we have come alive again.
And then it will be the job of the Chicago theater to
help us better understand all that we have been experiencing, and, in all
probability, to help us to heal.
In the meantime, faithful readers of this column, the
artists of the Chicago theater, even though they under great financial duress,
will find ways to keep you engaged. And I will do my part: this is time to
drudge up old stories and memories of times spent together, and I have plenty
of those to share.
And it’s a time to support your local artists, especially
if you are missing them. You can buy a gift certificate for a show in the fall.
You can pitch in to a campaign to help artists get through this income loss.
You can donate your unused ticket, and not ask for a refund from a theater that
may have very limited cash left in its accounts right now. I’ll try and help
you do that.
This is, for all its surface conflicts, a caring
community of the impassioned, and the audience is the biggest part of that
group.
As I was trying to figure out how to end this non-column,
the phone rang. It was Deb Clapp, the executive director of the League of
Chicago Theatres, telling me that she had been told that The Saints, the
volunteer (and mostly senior) group that ushers in most non-profit Chicago
theaters, had authorized an emergency grant of $25,000 to support laid-off
Chicago theater artists.
“They only had one question,” Clapp said. “Where should I
send the check?”
See, we’ll be back.
Watch this space.
[Chris Jones is a Chicago Tribune theater reviewer.]
* * * *
“MUMMENSCHANZ
SUGGESTS STREAMING IS VIABLE OPTION FOR THEATER IN CORONAVIRUS ERA”
by Lily
Janiak
[From the “Datebook” section of the San Francisco
Chronicle of 19 March, Janiak’s report recounts
the decision by Mummenschanz, the Swiss mime troupe, to live-stream its performances
in San Jose, California, after Santa Clara County, south of San Francisco,
banned gatherings of more than 100 people after 13 March.]
Curtain time was drawing near for Mummenschanz’s “you
& me” at San Jose’s Hammer Theatre Center, so to maintain a sense of
normalcy, I went through my standard theater criticism rituals as best I could.
I got dressed up and put on some lipstick. I opened my
notebook to a clean page. I couldn’t take my standard social-media-worthy photo
of the show’s program in front of the stage, so I asked my husband to take a
photo of me at my humble home office. I closed all windows and apps that might
ping, but I couldn’t shut down all my electronic devices. I’d need one to watch
the show.
It was my first time reviewing a live-streamed
performance, and I was nervous. What if I made a mistake with the technology?
Even worse, if the experience were lousy — if the translation of theater to my
laptop were so unpalatable that I couldn’t honestly recommend it to audiences —
would I have to write a review that cast further gloom on an art form facing
its greatest crisis in a generation?
Swiss mime troupe Mummenschanz had been scheduled to
perform “you & me” Monday-Tuesday, March 16-17, at the Hammer. But on
Friday, March 13, Santa Clara County banned gatherings of more than 100 people.
Hammer Theatre Center Executive Director Chris Burrill had already been
rereading the force majeure (act of God) clause in his contract.
“We made the decision to offer to refund everybody that
had an in-person ticket,” he told The Chronicle by phone. “And since we’re
located in Silicon Valley . . . we were able to instantly pivot and say, why
don’t we live-stream them?”
The Hammer had recently benefited from more than $1
million in upgrades from San Jose State University, which operates the
facility. Among those upgrades was a high-definition, low-light camera, which
heretofore had been used only to live-stream shows in the lobby for latecomers.
On Monday, that camera made its debut broadcasting to a much wider audience.
(Originally, the Hammer planned to live-stream Tuesday’s performance as well,
but that was before the shelter-in-place order, which effectively canceled the
second live stream.)
Mummenschanz founding member Floriana Frassetto, who
created “you & me,” said that the decision to permit the live stream was
“very immediate.” She was glad there was some way audiences would still be able
to enjoy the show, in which a quintet of performers give rambunctious life to
abstract shapes of various sizes — some towering, monster-sized blobs, others
just the size of a gloved hand, all floating and darting and rearing through
the full length of the proscenium stage, and sometimes beyond it.
“It’s not the same when you’re not sitting in the
auditorium,” she said, “and you wonder how many people are in the shape, and
where their head is, where their behind is: ‘How are they doing it anyway, can
they breathe, can they see?’ On film it all looks a bit easier.” The afternoon
before the performance, she was hoping the film would still convey at least
some of “that magic and those emotions and that purity, that interactivity that
we love to portray.”
It wouldn’t be feasible to restage the show, which has
been touring internationally since 2016, for the camera, but “the intensity of
the lights will be stronger,” to make “you & me” look better on film.
The lights on that HD camera looked so gorgeous I
frequently had the illusion — especially with all Mummenschanz’s shapes and
colors — that I was watching one of those wordless shorts at the top of a bill
with a full-length Pixar feature. At other times, particularly when the camera
zoomed out to take in some of the audience members (all invite-only as special
guests of Mummenschanz or Hammer Theatre Center workers, and all scattered many
seats apart to abide by self-distancing regulations), I felt as if a tiny
puppet stage had been packed into my computer, not just the seahorses and
lampreys and stick figures and fish that Mummenschanz ingeniously fashion from
scrunched tubes, coiled or inflated sheets, but also the audiences. Somehow
they looked like puppets, too.
At still other times, I felt acutely the mediation by
screen, my disconnection from performers and my fellow audience members — not
least when my browser evidently repeated two scenes already shown and then
skipped ahead to catch up.
I found myself craving and delighting in the laughter and
“aww” sounds from the few spectators who were there in person. They gave me
solace that I was still understanding many of the artists’ intentions. Yes, that
green slug is disappointed that it didn’t get to chow down on that leaf! Yes,
that little fish is terrified by the way those two swans have reared their
heads! Yet when audiences reacted audibly to a moment I couldn’t parse, I felt
all the more disappointed and frustrated.
Still, on the whole, Mummenschanz’s “you & me” was
blissful, a precious escape. They can position and reposition appendages such
that performers’ innards seem to be made of goo. They can take 10 white
rectangles and create two characters and a relationship and a story. They are
masters of the reveal — how a sudden switch of perspective can reveal hitherto
hidden mouse ears, or four hands where you thought there were two. When they
present an egg shape and hold it perfectly still for a few moments, your eyes
start to deceive you — you think you see it vibrating slightly, maybe growing.
“No, impossible,” your brain says. And then it does transform, though not in
the way you expect.
“You & me” is a testament to the human imagination at
a time when we have never needed it more. Mummenschanz’s ability to see the
potential in a simple shape, to keep playing with it and opening it up until
its myriad stories unfurl, is instructive for all of us when we’re stuck at
home, looking at the same old shapes in our kitchens and living rooms.
There was one moment in the show that made me weep with
joy, that I must describe fully, spoilers be damned: Two violins with beady
eyes were squabbling with each other, making discordant music via pizzicato. In
lumbered two giant triangles stacked on top of each other, rather like a
Christmas tree. The shape carried two sticks. Were they stringed bows, that the
violins might play more mellifluously? Swords, to augment their fighting? No,
they started swaying in time. It was a metronome, to help the two instruments
find each other’s rhythm.
May we all be each other’s duet partners and metronomes
right now.
[Lily Janiak is the San Francisco
Chronicle’s theater reviewer.]
*
* * *
“MOST SHOWS NOT GOING
ON IN BAY AREA AND BEYOND”
by Robert Sokol
[In the San Francisco Examiner of 13
March, Sokol wrote about his response to the shut-down of the theaters in San
Francisco, another of the country’s most active theater towns.]
Some local troupes offering live-streaming alternatives
After
the national theater industry announced on Thursday that Broadway theaters
would suspend operations until April 12 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a
cascade of similar individual announcements began to emerge across the Bay
Area, with most local troupes canceling current and immediately upcoming
productions.
American
Conservatory Theater announced the closure of the hit “Gloria” at the Strand
and of “Toni Stone,” which opened at the Geary in San Francisco the night
before.
“It is
critical to prioritize the safety and health of our patrons, employees, artists
and students, and this is the responsible action to take,” read a message from
Pam MacKinnon and Jennifer Bielstein, the artistic and executive directors.
“It’s a
wild and unprecedented time,” said Bielstein on Friday, adding that ticket
holders to both productions will be able to see recordings of the shows via
BroadwayHD, a New York-based media streaming company.
“We
knew we would not be able to continue to gather in large groups, so we worked
with our union partners and asked for permission to share a recording of our
current productions,” said Bielstein. She said patrons who have tickets to the
shows will soon hear from ACT on how to access the recordings, and expects that
99 percent will accept the offer.
On
March 16, ACT, due to demand, announced that new patrons also may purchase
tickets to both shows, which will be available for viewing until midnight March
29. For information, visit www.act-sf.org or call (415) 749-2228.
The
same goes for Berkeley Repertory Theatre, which will offer those with tickets
to canceled performances of “Culture Clash (Still) in America” and “School
Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play” access to those shows and Broadway HD’s
entire catalog for 30 days, according to publicist Tim Etheridge.
Due to
evolving public health orders, Hammer Theatre in San Jose has canceled plans
tostreamed a live performance by acclaimed Swiss mime troupe Mummenschanz at
7:30 p.m. March 17. . And“Fast Forward,” a performance by South Bay troupe New
Ballet, slated to be live-streamed from Hammer Theatre on March 28, has been
moved to June 7.
New
Conservatory Theatre Center previously canceled performances (through March 21)
as had the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus (on March 26), following Mayor London
Breed’s banning of large gatherings in San Francisco-owned venues.
On
March 10, as Broadway San Francisco announced its 2020-21 season of incoming
tours, the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre began a trickle of cancellation
announcements. Other companies like EXIT Theatre stated they were open but
taking extra precautions. (EXIT has since suspended performances through
March.)
On
Wednesday, Foothill Music Theatre and others started to announce early closure
of existing runs. Then, the floodgates opened.
Broadway
SF posted that remaining performances of “The Last Ship” with Sting were
canceled and that “Hamilton” was on hiatus until March 31. By Thursday night,
Magic Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, San
Jose Stage Company and Marin Theatre Company announced the scrapping of current
or coming productions, as did Feinstein’s at the Nikko.
Some,
like Custom Made Theatre Co. and Broadway by the Bay are postponing things a
week at a time. San Francisco Playhouse announced a two-week postponement of
the production slated to open next week. Shotgun Players have stopped shows
through April 5, and The Marsh in San Francisco and Berkeley have canceled
through April 1.
For
patrons, there is disappointment and hassle. For the affected artists, the cut
is far deeper, ranging from grief to economic insecurity. Social media began to
churn with shared disappointment, camaraderie, frustrations and the commitment
come back even stronger.
One
parent shared a brief video of her child preparing for a canceled musical. “I’m
missing it, and feeling pretty sad” she wrote, “but his dad sent me this clip
of his mic check.”
Cancellation
times vary wildly; venues are proactively contacting patrons with news, but
checking with websites and Facebook pages is recommended.
Patrons
with tickets to canceled productions at nonprofit companies are encouraged to
donate tickets back to the company as a tax-deductible contribution to help the
venues mitigate some of their unexpected losses.
[Robert Sokol is
the editor-publisher of BAYSTAGES, the creative director at VIA MEDIA, serves on the executive committee
of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA), is senior editor for BroadwayWorld-San
Francisco. He writes frequently about theater for the Examiner.]
* * * *
“STREAMING THEATER: A
VIRUS DOWNTIME GUIDE”
by Lou Harry
[Blogger Harry compiled
a list of live-theater alternatives which, while they may not be one-for-one
substitutes, may help the theater-addicted stay sane during the theater . . . I
mean, HEALTH crisis. The list below was
posted on LouHarry.com on 15 March.]
Nothing
can replace live theater.
But
while we find our way through this time of theatrical shutdowns, there are
options for viewing work from the stage…from your living room.
I’m not
talking here about movie adaptations. I’m talking about shows that were
actually staged on stage and transported via cameras to your home. Or, at
least, stayed true to the theater script even if played without an audience.
Here’s
a rundown of streaming options on where to find shot-from-the-stage gems.
(NOTE:
This is a work in progress. If you know of others, let me know and I will
update.)
A.C.T. [
It’s
not a happy show, but the Pultizer-finalist “Gloria” by Branden Jacob-Jenkins
is being streamed by A.C.T. Tickets are being offered as pay-what-you-can.
DALLAS
THEATER CENTER
Another
pay-what-you-can offering, “American Mariachi,” comes courtesy of Dallas
Theater Center. The play-with-music concerns a woman caring for her ailing
mother who attempts to form an all-women mariachi band in the 1970s.
FOLGER [Washington, DC]
Through
July 1 you can watch Folger Theatre’s “Macbeth,” directed by Aaron Posner and
Teller. There’s also a batch of special features.
MARQUEETV
Another
subscription service, this one is focused more on opera and dance. However,
theater buffs can find plenty of treasures. Recent additions include the 2018
“Julius Caesar” from the Donmer Warehouse and a load of Classic Spring
Theatre’s Company’s Oscar Wilde productions including “A Woman of No
Importance.” The RSC and Globe Shakespeare productions alone are worth the
price (and here I got to experience two productions of “Love’s Labour’s Lost”)
but if the classics don’t appeal to you, there aren’t many other choices.
UPDATE: MarqueeTV is offering free 30 days of streaming when signing up.
FURTHER UPDATE: MarqueeTV has added weekly Saturday evening premieres, which
will include the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Twelfth Night.”
OLNEY
THEATRE [Maryland suburbs of DC]
The
Maryland-based company is offering a $20 ticket to a streaming production of
Jordan Harrison’s “The Amateurs.” The offer is only available from March
28-April 5. It’s also offering free online classes beginning March 30.
NATIONAL
THEATRE [London]
Richard
Bean’s “One Man, Two Guvnors” with James Corden and Sally Cookson’s devised
“Jane Eyre” will soon be available free via National Theatre Live. The
productions will air each Thursday on YouTube.
KANOPY
Sign up
for free with your library card (You do have a library card, don’t you?) for
access to Satyricon Theatre’s “The Seagull,” Vakhtangov Theatre’s “Smile Upon
Us, Lord,” The Wooster Groups “To You, The Birdie!”, Moscow’s Young Generation
Theatre’s “Lady with a Lapdog,” and a lengthy slate of performance artists’
work.
BROADWAYHD
The
paid streaming service features productions you may have seen on PBS or
elsewhere (“Kinky Boots,” “Red,” “Indecent,” the BBC complete Shakespeare from
the 1970s/80s). But there are also recent dramas including “Pipeline,” “Thom
Pane (based on nothing),” and “If I
Forget.”
Gems
including the Stratford Festival’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (my favorite Bard
comedy–see below) and, for completists, “King John.” You’ll also find oddities
such as the West End musical version of “From Here to Eternity” (lyrics by Tim
Rice) and a slate of Spanish-language plays.
More?
“On the Exhale” with an intense Marin Ireland. “Buried Child” with Amy Madigan
and Ed Harris.
DIGITAL
THEATRE
For
£9.99 a month, the British streamer offers Zoe Wanamaker and David Suchet in
“All My Sons,” the Regent’s Park production of “Into the Woods,” the revival of
“Funny Girl” with Sheridan Smith (which I wrote about here), Tricycle Theatre’s
“True West,” and Royal Shakespeare Theatre productions of “Twelfth Night,”
“Macbeth” and a post-apocalyptic “Troilus and Cressida.”
PLAY-PERVIEW
One-time-only,
live readings of plays are on the menu for this site, with proceeds from all
events will be directed to arts organizations impacted by the COVID-19 virus.
First up: “A Doll’s House, Part 2” on March 26. March 29 brings Alice Ripley in
“The Pink Unicorn.” Missed them? Check out the link above for the schedule.
GREAT
PERFORMANCES
With a
PBS membership, you can see Denielle Brooks in the delightful Public Theatre production
of “Much Ado About Nothing,” Laura Benanti in “She Loves Me,” Kelli O’Hara in
“The King and I” and more.
THEATRE
CLOSE-UP
If you
are in the NYC viewing area, you are in luck. WNET’s outstanding Theatre
Close-Up series has recorded productions of such shows as “School Girls; or,
the African Mean Girls Play,” Richard Nelson’s Gabriel family trilogy, “The
Originalist,” “Buyer and Cellar,” and a breathtaking “Uncle Vanya” starring the
great Jay O. Sanders. Some of their recordings, including “On the Exhale,” have
found their way to other services. Here’s hoping more do as well.
NETFLIX
Does
“Springsteen on Broadway” count as a theater production? I say yes. But there’s
more here, too, if you look deep.–particularly if you like shows focused on a
name entertainer or two being themselves. Among the choices: John Leguizamo’s
“Latin History for Morons,” “Steve Martin and Martin Short’: An Evening You Will
Forget For the Rest of Your Lives,” and a bunch of Mike Birbiglia one-man shows
including his recent “The New One.” (I’ll let others debate the difference
between these and stand-up comedy specials.) Want a fuller stage? Netflix also
has the Broadway production of “Shrek.”
AMAZON
PRIME
Not
exactly fitting into the shot-from-the-stage category but of interest to buffs,
there are some made-for-TV obscurities including 1955’s “One Touch of Venus,”
the 1962 “Arsenic and Old Lace” with Tony Randall and Boris Karloff, and 1956’s
“Bloomer Girl” with Barbara Cook. There’s also the
pretty-much-taken-right-from-the-stage “Top Banana” with Phil Silvers. You can
also catch 1986’s “Barnum,” starring a pre-Phantom Michael Crawford and Del
Shores’ “Southern Baptist Sissies.” Amazon Prime also has James Earl Jones and
Angela Lansbury in the stage production of “Driving Miss Daisy.”
METROPOLITAN
OPERA [NYC]
I’ll
let others argue the difference between opera and musical theater. For now,
let’s just agree on the coolness of the Metropolitan Opera streaming a
different opera every night on its website, www.metopera.org.
GOODMAN
THEATRE [Chicago]
Strap
yourself in as one of the country’s leading regional theater offers its epic
adaptation of Roberto Bolaño’s novel “2666.” It’s structured into five acts,
each staged in its own unique style.
INDIANA
REPERTORY THEATRE
Before
going on hiatus, the IRT had a hit show with “Murder on the Orient Express.”
It’s now available for streaming, offering not only a way to enjoy a show you
may have missed but also to help Indiana’s leading LORT theater. Tickets are
$25.
MILWAUKEE
REP
For
$15, you can watch a production of Danai Gurira’s play “Eclipsed.” The offer is
only available through April 1.
SCHAUBUHNE [Berlin, Germany]
The
German company, which premieres at least ten shows a season, is opening up its
archives for online viewing. Productions include “Hedda Gabler,” “Peer Gynt,”
and “Art.” Most on the content will have subtitles.
From
the site: “During the suspension of our performances we offer an online
substitute programme that includes TV recordings of productions from all
decades, from the founding to the present day. The programme will be available
daily from 6.30 pm until midnight (German time)…In addition members of the
ensemble will send video messages from their domestic isolation. Every day
before a recording is broadcast, we publish short readings, improvisations,
stories or songs at 6 p.m.”
HBO
“The
Pee Wee Herman Show on Broadway” and “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill”
would make for a very interesting double feature.
DISNEY+
Tucked
away in the midst of all of the animated characters and the snippets of relived
high school musicals on “Encores” are the real-life actors in Broadway’s
“Newsies” (not to be confused with the film version, which is also available
through the mouse.
HULU
The
2013 Broadway “Romeo and Juliet” with Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad is hidden
here along with “Jesus Christ Superstar Live” (I’ll let others argue, etc.).
TUBITV.COM
This
free streaming service (with commercials) has the 1981 “Pippin” with Ben
Vereen. (And, violating my own rule of
only-shot-from-the-stage, I’ll mention that it also has the 2018 film version
of “Hello Again” and a batch of documentaries on “The Fantasticks,” “Hamilton,”
and more.)
GLOBEPLAYER
There’s
an abundance of Shakespeare available here a la carte. Take a look at the Globe
to Globe lineup, which includes a Korean production of “A Midsummer Night’s
Dream,” a Macedonian “Henry VI, Part 3,” and a “Love’s Labour’s Lost” in
British sign language.
ONTHEBOARDS.TV
For a
decade now, this Seattle-based hasn’t just presented, but produced original
video of stagework including experimental pieces from around the world. For
example: “Songs at the End of the World” features a Dutch-Flemish group of
actors/musicians exploring “dreams, choices and possibilities” in a musical
piece set in Antarctica. Want to expand your horizons? A free trial is offered
through April. Details here. (Thanks,
Betsy).
BBC
The
network’s “Culture in Quarantine” series has announced adding six productions
to its lineup: “Macbeth” with Christopher Eccleston and Niamh Cusack, “Othello”
with Hugh Quarshie in the title role and Lucian Msamati as Iago, “Romeo and
Juliet” with Bally Gill as Romeo and Karen Fishwick as Juliet, “The Merchant of
Venice” with Makram J Khoury as Shylock, “Much Ado About Nothing” with Edward
Bennett as Benedick and Michelle Terry as Beatrice, and “Hamlet” with Paapa
Essiedu in the title role. No word yet on when they will be posted.
CENNARIUM.COM
Another
international presenter/producer, Cennarium offers shows from the stages of
Brazil, Italy, Spain, Argentina, and more. (Pictured: “The Cabaret of Lost
Men.”) I haven’t explored the content yet but like this philosophy: “95% of
large theatrical productions are restricted to major cities. The vast majority
of the populations around the world do not have access to performing arts.
Cennarium takes the greatest performing arts spectacles and performances from
the world’s main cultural capitals and makes them available to anyone, anytime,
anywhere. Furthermore, we foster the international performing arts community by
providing content to a wider audience.” It’s offering a free 10-day trial.
(Thanks, Janet.)
STREAMINGMUSICALS.COM
This
unique artists-run company creates what it calls “soundstage musicals.” That
is, musicals shot on stage but without a live audience. Actors sing live but
musical and underscoring is added later. I wrote about one of its productions,
“No One Called Ahead,” for Midwest Film Journal.
ACORNTV
And
allow me one that breaks my own “live theater” rule for one that’s about
theater. “Slings and Arrows,” the outstanding Canadian series, is available for
binge-ing. Acorn is offering a 30-day trial with code FREE30.
Know of more? Send me a note.
[Harry uses the
following as the epigraph for his blog: I'm a playwright
who does journalism. A journalist who
writes books. And a book writer who pens
plays.]
*
* * *
[These have been
the first four articles from ATCA members responding to the coronavirus
shut-down of theaters in most U.S. cities.
Log on to Rick On Theater again in a few days for the remainder of the Update list.]
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