Understudies

[The two articles below, both from “Datebook” in the San Francisco Chronicle, are about understudies in the theater.  I’ve posted on understudies before, in “'The Unique Experience of a Professional Broadway Understudy’” by Steve Adubato (published on Rick On Theater on 22 August 2018) and “Swings” (9 March 2016), a collection of pieces from Equity News. 

[As Backstage, the theater industry trade newspaper, puts it, “an understudy is a performer cast in the ensemble of a musical (or a minor role in a play) who is responsible for covering a supporting or lead role” (“Swing, Standby, Understudy: What You Need to Know” [Swing, Standby, Understudy: What's the Difference? | Backstage], 22 March 2022).  ‘Covering’ in this usage means, of course, ‘replacing temporarily.’

[A “swing,” as which some of the performers featured below served, is a kind of understudy, common in musicals, who “is an off-stage performer responsible for covering any number of ensemble tracks, sometimes as many as 12 or more.”  A third type of understudy is the “standby,” “an off-stage performer whose sole responsibility is to cover the lead (usually a star) in a production.”

[Backstage expanded its definitions: “An understudy is in fact in the cast of a show for every performance, generally in an ensemble track or less sizable principal role.  However, they also understudy a larger role and their track will be filled by a swing if and when they are called upon to play that larger part.”

[“A swing is responsible for learning a number of tracks—ensemble and principal—so they’re able to step in at a moment’s notice if anyone in the cast calls out.  In most cases, a swing will step into a member of the ensemble’s role when that person has stepped into the more principal role they understudied.  Most nights, a swing is not actually on stage—and yet, the role is largely considered to be one of the most challenging gigs in theater.”

[“A standby is similar to a swing in that they rarely actually perform.  Standbys are granted only the heftiest roles in theater and are there to do exactly that: standby in the event that the actor is unable to perform. . . .  They cover just one role and must be ready to tackle it at any time.”

[In addition to swings and understudies, I’ve posted articles on ROT that define, describe, or explain the efforts of theater workers about whom most non-theater people (whom one of my teachers dubbed “civilians”) know little—or even nothing at all.  On 7 September 2010, for instance, my friend Kirk Woodward posted an article on being a Broadway investor in “Broadway Angel.”

[Then, on 14 January 2014, I posted “Stage Hands,” a description of the work of stage managers and dance captains; in “Two (Back) Stage Pros” (30 June 2014).  I ran articles that profiled set designer Eugene Lee and wig-designer Paul Huntley and on 28 November 2015, I posted “Broadway’s Anonymous Stars,” an article about actors who replace original stars on stage.

[I followed those posts with articles on theatrical intimacy coordinators (26 May 2019, plus follow-ups) and a theater photographer and another dance captain (6 May 2020), reviewers (6 July 2020), and theater boards (11 November 2022).

[I have also run several series of articles from American Theatre magazine on theater artists such as lighting designers (24 October-11 November 2018] and sound designers (25 March-9 April 2021), among others, and even pros on the business side of theater like arts administrators (2-17 December 2020).] 

“BAY AREA ACTORS ON UNDERSTUDYING DURING OMICRON,
WHEN THEY’RE NEEDED AS NEVER BEFORE”
by Lily Janiak 

[This report appeared in “Datebook” online on 18 January 2022 (updated: 19 January 2022).  “Datebook” is the art and entertainment guide for in the San Francisco Bay Area—books, theater, music, pop culture, and more—in the SFChronicle.]

Theater always depends on understudies, but never more so than in the omicron [a variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19] winter.

In late December on Broadway, “The Music Man” lead actor Hugh Jackman gave a moving curtain-call tribute to the industry’s unsung heroes after understudy Kathy Voytko filled in for Sutton Foster.

[Jackman made his remarks after the fourth preview performance on 23 December 2021, the night Voytko stepped in for Foster, who had tested positive for COVID.]

“I’m emotional because it humbles me — the courage, the brilliance, the dedication, the talent,” Jackman said in the widely circulated speech. “The swings, the understudies — they are the bedrock of Broadway.”

At around the same time, though, Broadway League President Charlotte St. Martin made comments (for which she later apologized) in a Hollywood Reporter interview theorizing that one reason some shows were closing was that some understudies “aren’t as efficient in delivering the role as the lead is” or weren’t as experienced.

[St. Martin’s comments appeared in “Broadway Boss Reveals Industry Plan Amid Omicron: ‘We’re Not Closing’” by Abby White, 20 December 2021.  St. Martin retired as Broadway League president in February 2024.]

These two incidents span extremes of the understudy experience. Understudies are hailed as saviors; they’re overlooked or disparaged as makeshifts.

For understudies in the Bay Area right now, as the variant makes them more in demand than ever, the reality is even more complicated.

For musicals at large companies and on Broadway, there’s an elaborate taxonomy for understudying. An umbrella term is “covering.” An “understudy” will usually already be performing an unnamed part in the ensemble but be prepared to cover for a named character. A “standby” waits offstage but is also prepared to cover a lead character. A “swing” can cover any track in the ensemble. At smaller companies, “understudy” might cover all these roles.

“Your job as the understudy is to keep the show open so that the work that all these other performers did can still happen,” said San Francisco actor Nic A. Sommerfeld, who’s understudied locally five times, including stepping up four times in Marin Theatre Company’s “Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley” this winter.

“There can be the stress of whether you match up, whether you’re quote-unquote ‘as good,’” Sommerfeld added, “and I don’t think that attitude is as helpful as just remembering that what you’re doing is making the show have another performance.” 

That doesn’t mean that understudying isn’t artistic, noted Vishal Vaidya, who’s currently understudying for John Gallagher Jr. in Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s “Swept Away” while also serving as an ensemble member.

“Someone like John Gallagher is a magical actor,” he said. “I can’t re-create that magic; I have to find my own magic.”

“Understudying is a blend,” he went on. “You don’t want the audience or the other actors to really feel like so much is different, because you have to honor the show that was built, but in order to honor the truth of the acting, you have to give it your flavor.”

Sommerfeld, who uses plural pronouns, found themself delving deeper into craft as they kept covering for principal actor Zahan F. Mehta, who had a back injury.

“The first show was just about making it happen. It was honestly a blur to me,” they said.

Their character happened to be a nervous person, so they were able to draw on their own in-the-moment feelings. “But by the fourth time I did the show, I found myself almost wishing I was getting notes,” they recalled. “I was starting to lean into certain moments and, other than audience reaction, didn’t really know what worked.”

San Francisco freelance casting director and Casting Collective founding member Laura Espino, who this season is casting San Francisco Playhouse’s shows, said that understudying demands a special kind of artist.

“You have to be satisfied with just playing the part in front of your closet mirror in your bedroom — and do it just as well,” she said.

Understudies have to deal with at least as much stress for a fraction of the glory and usually less pay. Self-motivation is key.

“You are the rehearsal process,” Espino said. “You are your director.”

Still, there can be great joy in it. San Francisco actor Michael Phillis recalled going on as understudy in his favorite role in his favorite play — Prior Walter in “Angels in America” — at Berkeley Rep in 2018.

“Your whole career flashes before your eyes,” he said. “You’re about to prove what all that money and study and struggle to be an actor was for.”

But there can also be deep concern for a lead actor who’s hurt or sick. Actor Kenny Toll, who’s now based in New York, remembered filling in for Joe Estlack, who had a back injury, during two technical rehearsals for “Bonnie & Clyde” at Shotgun Players, with the possibility that he might have to perform as well. He was ready to help — it was his job — but Toll and everyone else’s concern for Estlack, who soon recovered, cast a pall.

“Understudying is not as glorious or wonderful as it’s often portrayed,” Toll said. “It was a really awful thing. (The show) was Joe’s piece. That piece of theater was built for his body.”

Understudying demands extraordinary memory. San Francisco actor Rodney Earl Jackson Jr. has worked in various understudy capacities in several Broadway shows and tours — “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations,” “Motown: The Musical,” “The Book of Mormon” and, most recently, “A Christmas Carol” at BroadwaySF’s Golden Gate Theatre. In “Ain’t Too Proud,” he had to know all five harmonies of the five Temptations; he also had to memorize separate choreographies — who entered on beats one, three, five and so on.

“I’ve got to have the mental capacity and gymnastics to switch between them,” he said.

Jacob Keith Watson, another “Swept Away” ensemble member and understudy, says that his many years of understudying and swinging have given him an odd skill.

“I call it ‘swing brain,’ where you accidentally know other people’s stuff,” he said. It comes from having to learn where and how to enter and exit, to grab and deposit every prop, all by watching from afar instead of doing it himself.

“Randomly, someone will be like, ‘I don’t remember where I come in,’ and out of nowhere, I’ll be like, ‘Oh, you come in stage left. Couldn’t tell you why I know that. I just saw it once, and it stuck in my brain.’ ”

That skill comes somewhat in handy right now in rehearsal, when his ensemble role in “Swept Away” requires him to be asleep and keep his eyes closed for a long stretch — time when in an ideal world he’d be simultaneously observing Wayne Duvall, the actor he’s understudying. “I can kind of hear that he’s stage right,” Watson said.

Right now, Espino said, the bulk of her work at the Casting Collective — a small, new local outfit — is finding understudies, as a result of concerns about the omicron variant. The increased likelihood that an understudy will go on, she added, is tantamount to having to cast a role twice.

At Berkeley Rep, Vaidya, Watson and other understudies don’t go anywhere besides their hotel or the theater. They know that if they took risks, they’d risk everyone else’s health too. They’re also aware that these gigs, with a greater chance that at some point they’ll have to perform, could mean exposing themselves to contagion. Yet union actors don’t qualify for health insurance unless they work a certain number of weeks per year, which complicates the calculus for any job opportunity.

Still, Vaidya spoke with calm pragmatism about the possibility of filling in: “I’m ready, but I’m still going to feel like I’m shot out of a cannon.”

[Lily Janiak is the San Francisco Chronicle’s theater reviewer.] 

*  *  *  *
“‘ASTONISHMENT, HORROR AND GLEE’:
BAY AREA UNDERSTUDIES RECOUNT ON- AND OFFSTAGE DRAMA”
by Lily Janiak 

[The second article from “Datebook” was also posted to the SFChronicle’s website on 18 January 2022.  It continues the conversation about understudying with actors in the Bay Area.  Below this article is a list of the theaters and shows mentioned in the two Chronicle articles.]

Everyone loves an understudy story — when the drama behind the scenes rivals and perhaps heightens what’s onstage, when the art form reveals how the sausage is made, when routine evaporates and every gesture, glance and line crackles with danger and life.

This winter, as the omicron variant makes the industry rely on understudies as never before, The Chronicle solicited Bay Area performers (or those with local ties) for their all-time favorite understudy memories. Here are a few, including one where actor Vinh G. Nguyen understudied in two different shows in one day:

Name: Valerie Weak

Understudy role: Viola in TheatreWorks’ “Twelfth Night,” 2007

“I had a dream where I had to go on last minute. It was terrifying, and in the dream there was a problem with me fitting into the costume. I woke up before I had to deliver any lines. I realized it had only been a dream. Then I realized it was June. The show had run the previous December and had been closed for six months. Understudying is an exercise in anxiety!”

Name: Alex Moggridge

Understudy role: Shakespeare in ACT’s “The Beard of Avon,” 2002

“At the end of the first act, Shakespeare has a gorgeous speech where he suddenly shows his amazing poetic side for the first time, impressing the hell out of the Earl of Oxford, played by Marco Barricelli. On my first performance, I completely biffed that speech. Like, it was gone. I have no idea what I said, but it was not what (playwright) Amy Freed wrote, and it was definitely not poetic.

I’ll always remember the look Marco — who I kind of worshiped and badly wanted to impress — gave me when he delivered his line in response. The line was ‘That’s not bad.’ And it was so bad. It was so, so bad. Marco’s look was a beautiful combination of astonishment, horror and glee. He almost winked at me.”

Name: Laura Domingo

Understudy role: Maria in Fairfield Civic Theatre’s “Lend me a Tenor,” 2013

“I played Maria in ‘Lend Me a Tenor’ originally with Ross Valley Players in the fall of 2012. Then in late January, now-defunct Fairfield Civic Theatre was about to open their own production when their Maria got a really bad case of the flu during tech week. It hadn’t been that long since I’d played the role, so the lines definitely came back quickly.

I think every actor has that period after a show has closed and you’ve had some space from it where you sit and think of all the things you would have done differently with the character, if you could do it all over again. And this was my opportunity to make some of those adjustments!”

Name: Benjamin Ismail

Understudy role: Damis in Berkeley Rep’s “Tartuffe,” 2015

“As soon as the cast arrived for Berkeley rehearsals, I was tapped that I’d potentially be going on for almost an entire week of performances.

[Berkeley Rep’s Tartuffe was a co-production with Costa Mesa, California’s South Coast Repertory and Washington, D.C.’s Shakespeare Theatre Company following the Berkeley mounting. The cast of the production was drawn from all three regions and assembled in each city for each presentation.]

I immediately drove down from Sacramento, learned the lines and blocking in (stage manager) Michael Suenkel’s office and was thrown onstage after watching one run. It was the fastest I think my brain has ever worked: trying to synthesize everything I was seeing and convert the actor’s choices into my versions of the same moments, do intricate blocking and — oh, yeah — say things. I was terrified and electrified.

Apparently they liked what I did because that led to a lovely relationship with Berkeley Rep and several more roles, including Louis Ironson in ‘Angels in America,’ an experience which will probably live in the most special corner of my heart for the rest of my life. And it all really ‘started’ with my shot as an understudy.”

Name: Mark Jackson

Understudy role: Characters in Shotgun Players’ “The Death of Meyerhold,” 2004

“I wrote and directed but did not perform — until one night an actor got sick, and the next night with 30 minutes notice I went on. Harrowing.

With 80 characters for the cast of 12 to play, and scenic changes also being actor-driven, the offstage show was as tightly choreographed as the onstage show. Moments of ‘break’ were rare. I have memories of seeing actors standing in the wings, beautifully lit by ambient light from onstage, closing their eyes for a precious few-seconds-long meditation before then leaping out into action. I already admired that cast for the depth of commitment and enthusiasm they brought to that piece (but) seeing their backstage ‘show’ up close, and especially the various ways in which they helped fold me into it on the fly, to keep me and the piece on track, only heightened my appreciation for what they had accomplished.

The next night when the actor returned, I was never so happy to see another human being in my life!”

Name: Vinh G. Nguyen

Understudy roles: Hilarion in Bay Area Children’s Theatre’s “Gold: The Midas Musical” and a male ensemble track in Palo Alto Players’ “Flower Drum Song,” 2019

“On one particular Saturday, I went on for two performances for ‘Gold’ in the morning and afternoon. One of the actors knew he was going to be out. I did my homework, came in, and they did a put-in rehearsal, which was nice.

I drove to ‘Flower Drum,’ and we knew that one of my castmates had injured himself the performance before, but we didn’t know how bad it was until the next day. I got a call. I ended up covering for him, along with my track. Luckily, my other track didn’t have to be onstage for the book scenes, so I just learned it really quick and hopped on. It was crazy, crazy, crazy.

As human beings we are so adaptable. I think we give ourselves less credit than we deserve. As a director, one of the things I’m very proud of is I’m very decisive. I can make a decision on the spot and back up my artistic decision and articulate that very clearly. I think some of that had to do with my experience as an actor and the times when I was swinging and had to direct myself and see what is the best course of action that will benefit the show and the bigger picture.”

Name: Lauri Smith

Understudy role: Becky in Berkeley Rep’s “Becky Nurse of Salem,” 2019

“My now-fiance and I  were hosting a football-watching party. The 49ers were playing the Seattle Seahawks. We had a bunch of people arriving at our house at 5 p.m. At around 5:15, somebody noticed that I wasn’t having anything to drink. I looked at my watch, and I said, ‘I have to wait until 6:35 for a 7 o’clock show, just on the off-chance that something happens.’ I swear to you, my phone rang when I finished that sentence. I saw the name on the phone, and it said Michael Suenkel. Michael said, ‘I really wish I was making this call in a couple of weeks.’

We had had one understudy rehearsal but hadn’t even finished it. They didn’t have clothes for me, so he started naming, ‘Can you bring a pair of shoes? Can you bring a pair of jeans? Can you bring a shirt of your own?’ I had to drive to the theater in the pouring rain, and, rapid-fire, the lines were going through my head. 

I wear a necklace around my neck most days that has a charm that says ‘Believe,’ a penguin charm, and then the third charm is an infinity symbol with my mother’s ashes in it. I took it off and laid it in my spot in front of the mirror. ‘Becky Nurse’ was so much about magic. It was sort of like I was tapping into my mother and my ancestors and their power to help give me a little extra something. I even remember thinking of Pamela (Reed, the lead actor) several blocks away. She had said something about being the channel for the role to speak through her. It was almost like I was like, ‘OK, Pamela, if you could direct some energy a couple of blocks this way so that I could be the channel tonight?’

During the first monologue, there was a moment in the middle where I finished a sentence, and I had no idea what came next. I inhaled. A thought came to me. I knew it wasn’t the next line, but it popped into my head and I just kept going.

Afterward, I had so much adrenaline going through me. I felt like I was going to be up until 4 in the morning. I wanted to do it again.”

Name: Mary Lins

Understudy role: The Baker’s Wife in Berkeley Playhouse’s “Into the Woods,” 2021

“On Thursday, at around 5 o’clock, we made the final call. That started my clock. I left all of my managing director duties and had about 26, 27 hours before curtain.

I have a background in performing — I went to school for it — but it had been 20 years. It’s a big role, and it’s Sondheim. With the timing of his death, for me there was an element of truly wanting to honor that work. As a staff member at the theater, there’s also a piece of, ‘I still have to show up for work on Monday.’

I was already off book. It was basically like auditing a class. I had sat through a lot of rehearsals, but I had not been on my feet. It was like reading and memorizing an entire textbook on how to ride a bike but never actually having hopped on a bike.

I had to make this choice to trust, and it paid off in this really human way, especially after having a couple of years where we’re separated from others.

Every time I walked backstage with the other cast members, it was like the wildest pep rally of my life. I felt like I had gotten to crowd surf through the show.

The challenge and the joy of theater really is a practice of people coming corporately together and making it happen. As a managing director, I’m looking at rights and royalties, contact lists and budgets. But to actually have the honor of embodying the thing that I’m usually managing was such a gift.”

[Below are lists of the Bay Area theaters and productions named in the two SFChronicle articles above.  I’ve listed them in the order of the reports; if I could find a web address for the theater, I’ve included it in the information noted.]

BROADWAY PRODUCTIONS

The Music Man: Winter Garden Theatre, 10 February 2022-15 January 2023

Ain’t Too Proud: Imperial Theatre, 21 March 2019-16 January 2022

Motown: Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 14 April 2013-18 January 2015

Book of Momon: Eugene O’Neill Theatre, 24 March 2011-Present

BAY AREA THEATERS

Marin Theatre Company (https://www.marintheatre.org/) – 397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, CA 94941-2885; (415) 388-5200; e-mail: info@marintheatre.org

Berkeley Repertory Theatre (aka: Berkeley Rep; https://www.berkeleyrep.org/) – Admin Offices: 999 Harrison Street, Berkeley CA 94710; (510) 647-2900; e-mail: customerservice@berkeleyrep.org

San Francisco Playhouse (https://www.sfplayhouse.org) – 450 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102; (415) 677-9596; e-mail: info@sfplayhouse.org

Shotgun Players (https://shotgunplayers.org/) – 1901 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94703; (510) 841-6500, ext. 303; e-mail: boxoffice@shotgunplayers.org

BroadwaySF Golden Gate Theatre (aka: Golden Gate Theatre; https://www:broadwaysf.com) – 1 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA 94102; booking house, no resident company; (888) 746-1799; e-mail: feedback@broadwaysf.com

TheatreWorks (aka: TheatreWorks Silicon Valley; https://theatreworks.org/) – Admin Offices: 350 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 127, Redwood City, San Mateo County, CA 94065; (877) 662- 8978; e-mail: boxoffice@theatreworks.org

American Conservatory Theatre (aka: ACT; https://www.act-sf.org/) –  415 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA 94102; Box Office: (415) 749-2228; e-mail: tickets@act-sf.org

Fairfield Civic Theatre – community theater in Fairfield, Solano County, California; now defunct (before 2021)

Ross Valley Players (http://www.rossvalleyplayers.com/) – 30 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, Ross, Marin County, CA 94957; Admin Office (415) 456-9555 ext. 3

Bay Area Children’s Theatre – closed in 2023; formerly located in Oakland, California

Palo Alto Players (https://paplayers.org/) – Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA 94301; (650) 329-0891; e-mail: info@paplayers.org

Berkeley Playhouse (https://berkeleyplayhouse.org/) – 2640 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94704; Main Office  (510) 845-8542; boxoffice@berkeleyplayhouse.org

BAY AREA PRODUCTIONS

Georgiana and Kitty: by Lauren M. Gunderson and Margot Melcon; Marin Theatre Company; 18 November-19 December 2021 (world première)

Swept Away: book by John Logan, music and lyrics by The Avett Brothers; Berkeley Rep; 9 January-13 March 2022

Angels in America: by Tony Kushner; Berkeley Rep; 17 April-22 July 2018

Bonnie & Clyde: by Adam Peck; Shotgun Players; 17 August-19 September 2013

Christmas Carol: by Jack Thorne; Golden Gate Theatre; 26 November-26 December 2021

Twelfth Night: by William Shakespeare (et al.); TheatreWorks Silicon Valley (@ Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo Alto); 28 November-23 December 2007

The Beard of Avon: by Amy Freed; ACT; 10 January-10 February 2002

Lend Me a Tenor: by Ken Ludwig; Fairfield Civic Theatre; January 2013 (I could find no detailed record of this show by the now-defunct theater troupe; it was named in an article on the production and coverage of local theater awards, the Arty Awards of Solano and Napa Counties, but its performance dates weren’t reported)

                   Ross Valley Players; 11 September-12 October 2012

Tartuffe: by Molière; Berkeley Rep (co-production with South Coast Repertory [9 May-8 June 2015] of Costa Mesa, California, and Shakespeare Theatre Company [2 June-5 July 2015] of Washington, D.C.; I can’t reconcile the overlap of the dates of the closing at SCR and the opening at STC); 13 March-12 April 2015

The Death of Meyerhold: by Mark Jackson; Shotgun Players; 11-28 December 2003/7-25 January 2004 (world première)

Gold: The Midas Musical: book, music, and lyrics by Min Kahng; Bay Area Children’s Theatre; 23 February-12 May 2019 (world première)

Flower Drum Song: book by Oscar Hammerstein II, music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers; Palo Alto Players; 26 April-12 May 2019

Becky Nurse of Salem: by Sarah Ruhl; Berkeley Rep; 19 December 2019-26 January 2020 (world première)

Into the Woods: book by James Lapine, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; Berkeley Playhouse; 19 November-23 December 2021

Reviewers

“WHY WE DON’T REVIEW PREVIEWS, AND THE RARE JOYS OF SEEING A SHOW TWICE”

by Lily Janiak

[Some readers of Rick On Theater will know that I try to avoid seeing plays during previews.  The reasons Lily Janiak gives for not reviewing shows in previews are the same reasons I have for avoiding pre-opening performances.  Janiak’s article below was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Datebook” on 19 December 2019.]

Our theater critic explains why she needed to see 'Scrooge in Love' a second time.

At preshow curtain speeches, when a company leader takes the stage to welcome audiences, I usually feel excited. A show is about to start! This is what I live for! But before the Dec. 6 performance of 42nd Street Moon’s “Scrooge in Love,” co-Executive Director Daniel Thomas said something that made me feel fear and self-reproach.

“Welcome to the final preview of ‘Scrooge in Love,’ ” he began.

“Preview?” I whispered to my companion, blanching. “I’m not supposed to be here!”

Many theater companies give at least one preview performance before their opening night, which is when they invite the press to attend and review. Previews offer artists a chance to see how choices land for a live audience and then make final tweaks before a show is set, with no more changes from the director or playwright.

As Thomas said at “Scrooge,” a company in previews typically “reserves the right” to stop the show if need be, but most of the time cast and crew run straight through a performance. Audiences, knowing they’re not seeing a finished product, typically pay less for preview tickets, but they have the satisfaction of knowing they might help shape a production in some small way.

Critics aren’t supposed to attend previews, though. It wouldn’t be fair to a company if I reviewed a show before it was ready, and if I had any nits to pick, the company could always say, “Well, if only you’d come later, once you were officially invited!” An opening night is part of a mutually agreed upon contract between artist and critic; violate it, and you risk delegitimizing the whole project of criticism.

Burying my shame and frustration with myself, I started taking notes on “Scrooge” just as I would at any other performance. The show, which revisits Ebenezer Scrooge a year after Charles Dickens leaves him, charmed me at points, but I took issue with big chunks of the script. That criticism, I felt, might not change after opening — Moon first performed “Scrooge” in 2015 — but there was a slight shakiness among the cast that felt like pre-opening jitters. The show  seemed as if it hadn’t stepped fully into itself, as if it were still wriggling its final layer on, fastening its last buttons, which made me dread the prospect of reviewing it.

As I left the Gateway Theatre, I dashed off a note to my editor, explaining my goof. The next morning, we started exploring ways to handle the situation. Would I write the review as I usually would? Should I simply not give the show a rating? At first, I tried drafting an editor’s note that we would append to the bottom of the review. After explaining my mistake, I wrote, “Although 42nd Moon might still change the show, our critic in consultation with her editor decided it was close enough to its final version that she could still review it.”

“Close enough”? That made me shudder.

Paralyzed, I got a new idea. I’d rearrange my schedule and we could swap around the print publication dates of some of my articles. I’d ask 42nd Street Moon if I could see the show again, after opening. Immediately, I felt better.

Readers sometimes ask if I ever see shows twice. “What if there’s one you really love?” I love a lot of theater (it’s part of the job description), but repeat visits happen less than once a year because each revisit comes with an opportunity lost: That’s one more show I can’t see and review at all.

In addition to being on the other side of opening night, my second visit to “Scrooge in Love” differed from the first in still another important way. Now I sat near the front instead of near the back.

Settling into my seat, I felt an ease that often eludes me when attending a show means punching the time clock. This time, I already knew the show’s contours. I could relax and sit back and build on and deepen what came before. I could let new subtleties sink in.

I noticed new things, starting with the garlands lining the lip of the stage, which I couldn’t see before, many rows back. When Will Springhorn Jr. as the Ghost of Christmas Present did a ridiculous bit twitching his pecs, I could see what all the fuss was about. (Crafty chest movements don’t always register in Row J.)

I noticed when the audience didn’t laugh at all at one of Andrea Dennison-Laufer’s lines as the Ghost of Christmas Past, as they had during the preview, even though she delivered it in exactly the same way. I appreciated more just how fully the large ensemble, under the direction of Dyan McBride, envisioned relationships and character arcs for their non-speaking parts.

Ultimately, the criticisms I planned to emphasize in my review still held true from Dec. 6 to Dec. 8. But in some intangible way, the cast seemed more at home onstage, more graceful in their choreography, more at ease in their characters. They looked like they were ready to be reviewed.

[Lily Janiak is the San Francisco Chronicle’s theater reviewer.]

*  *  *  *

“OPINION: IT’S TIME FOR CRITICS TO STEP IN”

by Jeremy Gerard

[Producers have long tried to keep theater press from reviewing their presentations.  Sometimes the show is in trouble and other times, the producer just doesn’t want coverage she or he can’t control.  One example of the former was the Broadway début of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.  I blogged on the issue of writing about shows that haven’t opened in “Reviewing the Situation: Spider-Man & the Press,” posted on ROT on 20 March 2011.  The article below was posted on the website Broadway News on 2 March 2020, https://broadwaynews.com/2020/03/02/opinion-its-time-for-critics-should-step-in/.]

“Crrrritic!” Estragon sneers as the trumping put-down in the battery of insults he trades with Vladimir in “Waiting for Godot.” You might say that for theater critics, it’s been downhill ever since. And when are critics not crrrritics? That’s easy: When we don’t write rrrrreviews.

Sadly, that’s happening too often these days. When producers announced last fall that Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick would co-star in a revival of Neil Simon’s 1968 comedy “Plaza Suite,” it was news. Married for 22 years, both actors have enjoyed critical and popular acclaim, but they haven’t worked together on Broadway since 1996. In an elegant example of history repeating itself, the revival would have its tryout run at the same Boston theater where George C. Scott, Maureen Stapleton and director Mike Nichols first put the show through its paces before heading south to Times Square.

Most of Boston’s major media showered the revival with enthusiastic features. But no one reviewed it. The critics and their editors were not invited to come until the second-to-last performance, I was told by one of the city’s most prominent critics. Apparently not wanting to appear impolite, they all agreed.

“No reviews” is a trend, spanning from Boston to a recent out-of-town tryout in Los Angeles and even to Broadway. I’m all for producers and the sometimes preposterous lengths they will go to in order to promote and protect their shows. That’s their job. But I’ve often wondered why we, the critics, so willingly go along with their manipulations. Especially when they interfere with the, well let’s call it the journalism part of our job — reporting to our readers and giving context to the cultural news of the day.

Sometimes producers’ manipulations manifest as previews extended beyond the typically agreed upon period of a few weeks. Sometimes it means encouraging fawning features, but telling reviewers the show’s not open to reviews at all. In the case of out-of-town tryouts, it can mean disregarding the local critics’ job of informing their readers — who, after all, are underwriting the tryout period with their ticket purchases.

New Haven, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston share a century-old tradition of being the places where producers wanted their shows to get exposure to audiences and their first notices from legendary critics including the Boston Herald’s Elliot Norton (who had famously advised Simon to bring back the Pigeon sisters in Act II of “The Odd Couple”) and the Globe’s Kevin Kelly. Typically, the critics reviewed shows after just one or two performances in their abbreviated run, setting the course for potential changes before Broadway.

“Plaza Suite” opened at the Plymouth (now Gerald Schoenfeld) Theatre on Valentine’s Day, 1968, after two previews. This time, Broderick, Parker and their tyro director John Benjamin Hickey, in addition to the free pass in Beantown, will have a month of Broadway previews before opening on April 13, for a three-month run that’s reportedly all but sold out.

Across the continent in Los Angeles, playwright David Mamet recently mounted the premiere of his new play, “The Christopher Boy’s Communion,” with a top-rung cast that included his wife, Rebecca Pidgeon and longtime colleagues William H. Macy, David Paymer and Clark Gregg. The venue was the Odyssey Theatre, one of the city’s premiere smaller companies. These are not unknown artists, and the brief run was promoted through feature stories across print, radio and television media. But the critics weren’t invited, and so there were no reviews of this new work by a world-famous playwright that was being seen by paying audiences. None, that is, until Los Angeles Times theater critic Charles McNulty attended the show as the guest of a patron near the end of the run.

McNulty did what critics covering developing work by important artists generally do in these situations: He wrote thoughtfully and sympathetically — telling readers that his was not a formal review and this was a work-in-progress. Paying attention to — and by proxy, alerting our readers to — the work of established and nascent artists is one of the best and most important parts of our job.

Back to Broadway, then, where Ivo van Hove’s revival of “West Side Story” opened Feb. 20 to an unusually divided critical reception (though the most negative reviews were in some of the most influential publications, including two from the Times, as well as New York magazine and The Wall Street Journal). What I found remarkable is that the reviews — mine included, so I plead guilty here — appeared in late February for a show that had been running at the Broadway Theatre since December 10; 78 performances in all. (An injury to one of the principals had added a two-week postponement.)

The preview period included a flood-the-plain public relations campaign. Leading the charge was an extensive, friendly cover story in the Times magazine complete with linked videos of interviews with key players, along with features in the New Yorker and elsewhere. Words extolling the show were selectively extracted from the Times story for quote ads in, yes, the Times. (On Twitter, Sasha Weiss, the author of the Times story, wrote that her quotes were taken “completely out of context” and that the paper had “pulled the ad.” But a Times spokesman told me no ad was pulled, and a new one in Sunday’s’ Arts & Leisure opened with the patchwork quote from her story. Through his spokesman, producer Scott Rudin said that he “stands by the NYT quotes.”)

You may argue that in the case of “West Side Story,” the 1957 musical was being wholly revised by a risk-taking director and choreographer, without benefit of an out-of-town tryout. OK, but that amounted to nearly three months without a peep from us. The customers might reasonably have assumed — I mean, look at all those great photos and videos! — that they weren’t subsidizing a work-in-progress, but seeing a finished show. We should have gone in sooner and been part of the conversation in a more timely manner.

Along the same lines: The mostly heralded production of “To Kill A Mockingbird” has had a new Atticus Finch — Ed Harris replacing Jeff Daniels — since November 5. And yet, well into his fourth month of performances, Harris and other new principal cast members still have not been reviewed by the New York critics. Not long ago, a star of Harris’s stature in a reputed hit show would have guaranteed a second look. You’d think critics would want to weigh in on how the new star holds up — especially since theatergoers are being enticed by quotes from the original production.

Some of my colleagues strongly disagree with my long-held view that we shouldn’t let producers tell us what to cover and when (excluding the time-honored courtesy of a brief preview period that has blossomed to three weeks or even a month). When abuses happen, we should just buy a ticket and write.

In this online era where everyone’s-a-critic, we’re too often the last ones to comment. When Boston critic and blogger Bill Marx was asked by Broadway Journal why he hadn’t reviewed “Plaza Suite,” he said it was “just a commercial venture, a celebrity production for Broadway of a dated Neil Simon vehicle…so why bother?”

Why bother, indeed? Well, two reasons come to mind: One, because even commercial ventures can surprise us (I’ll admit it: I loved “Mamma Mia!”) and two, because we’re journalists: it’s the damned job and we’re privileged to have it. So when we minimize or self-censor, it’s downright dispiriting.

We don’t work for producers or playwrights. We have a stake in assuring our role in the ongoing conversation about art, highbrow, lowbrow and everywhere along the spectrum, and in offering our experience, insight and overview to the readers who are subsidizing our meager salaries. We yield that role not only at our peril, but at the risk of seeing live theater, which we deeply care about, grow ever more irrelevant to the culture around us.

[Gerard’s article above was published before the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States.  Shows and theaters he mentions here closed on 12 March and the Broadway League has announced that the commercial theater of the Theatre District in New York City won’t reopen before early January 2021.  Several shows have already announced that they won’t reopen at all and there will almost certainly be more that will close permanently.

[Jeremy Gerard is a columnist, critic, reporter, and editor at the New York Times, New York magazine, and Bloomberg News, covering arts and  entertainment, news, politics, media, and human rights.  He’s written reporting, criticism, and profiles for outlets including Vanity Fair, the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and the Columbia Journalism Review.  He’s held management posts at Variety, Radar, and Men's Health.]

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“HOW DO THEATRE CRITICS BECOME EXPERTS?”

by Alice Saville     

[This article first appeared in Exeunt, an online magazine whose focus is theater, on 18 November 2019, http://exeuntmagazine.com/features/theatre-critics-become-experts/.]

To deserve a job as a professional critic, you must be an expert.

To be an expert, you must be a professional critic.

Can you spot the problem? These two statements are a distillation of the arguments made by many, many articles decrying the current state of theatre criticism. They create a perfect, closed loop of logic – one which cheerfully shuts out the possibility of new voices entering the charmed circle of valid theatre criticism.

Michael Coveney marked Michael Billington’s recent announcement that he’s retiring with a blog in The Stage decrying the end of expert theatre critics, and complaining that “we shall be plunged into darkness”. Billington has seen an astonishing 10,000 shows, over nearly half a century, and has somehow retained a love of theatre that shines through in his responses to the kind of performances he loves (especially farces and dramas by serious 20th century playwrights). But darkness, really?

Coveney’s concern for the future lies in his fear that other critics aren’t as ‘expert’. He complains that in the olden days, you had to “earn the right” to write about theatre in a newspaper. In an interview with Matt Trueman, also published in The Stage, Michael Billington described his career trajectory. He started reviewing for The Times at the age of 25, after a few years working in regional rep theatre – sometimes as a director, but mostly as a PR. Was he an expert then? How about when he got the Guardian top job in his early thirties? At what point did he morph from person-with-opinions into expert – was he anointed by some divine spirit overnight the second his words were printed in a broadsheet, or was it a more gradual, more arduous process?

Coveney went on to write that “the general cultural shift is towards hiring non-experts to write about theatre. I don’t understand why this happened. No editor, online or in print, would pay for opinions on economics or medicine, or indeed football, from an ignoramus in those fields.”

David Benedict makes a very similar point in his blogpost, also in The Stage: “Everyone’s a critic – but only a few know what they’re talking about”. He complains that there’s a marked decline in expertise in theatre criticism, and that newspapers take theatre less seriously than other fields.

I’m not going to pretend I know anything about the credentials of football writers, but check the Daily Mail’s health pages and you’ll quickly find out people with no expertise in medicine do indeed get a regular platform, and are free to mangle the results of small medical trials into alarmist headlines as they see fit. Journalism is, for better or for worse, the skill of communicating complex ideas to a general audience. Some journalists have done a one-year journalism course, some have a relevant undergraduate degree, plenty more have no formal qualifications. You learn by doing it.

If you’re a ‘journalist’, your most meaningful qualification is your job title and the publication you work for. These things are a magical overcoat that give your opinions the widely perceived status of fact. And they’re ripe for misuse. In his blog, Coveney writes that the only remaining theatre critics worth listening to are two men called Dominic. As a personal opinion, that’s totally legitimate (if puzzling) – like loving pineapple on pizza. But as a statement that’s weighted with the implicit endorsement of the theatre industry’s most widely read newspaper, it’s borderline offensive. And if we also say this is a statement made by an ‘expert’, it’s something we suddenly have to give serious consideration, however ludicrous it might seem.

A 1993 psychology paper made the bold claim that 10,000 hours of practice can make you an expert in anything. Assuming it takes an average of five hours to see and review a performance, that means you have to write 2000 theatre reviews before you know what you’re talking about. But a study that debunked that paper found that some chess players took 26 years to achieve the level that others achieved in two. The more you look at ideas of expertise, the more it falls apart in your hands – and even Coveney grudgingly concedes that “Of course, if you write as brilliantly as William Hazlitt, Kenneth Tynan, Clive James or AA Gill, it doesn’t matter if you know nothing.”

Part of me doesn’t know why I’m even bothering to argue with two blogposts that are essentially just ragings against the dyings of the light; maybe I’ll write something similar in 50 years time, when the writers I love are all dead or hopelessly out of fashion. It’s easy to complain that “everyone’s a critic” if you’re working in the perma-threatened newspaper industry, with a chosen specialism that’s so niche that it’s a step, not a ladder; either you’re up on a platform, or you’ve lost it.

But I think I want to because it’s pieces like these that create a narrative around change – one that needs shaking up.

When Ann Treneman quit her job as lead critic of The Times after two years, she wrote a slightly mournful reflection that noted that other theatre critics were less than welcoming. Only a few people have openly questioned Arifa Akbar’s appointment at The Guardian, but I’d hate the same slight frostiness of reception to meet her first months in the job, as she steps into an exacting, crucial and very public role.

Historically, the status of ‘expert’ has been the property of establishment-endorsed white men, who together act as gatekeepers ready to exclude new entrants. But there’s no mystical Hogwarts-style theatre critic training college where expertise is handed down. You become a theatre critic by writing theatre criticism. That’s something you can do with care, like Michael Billington, or you can do with a vague sense that you’re being dragged to the theatre each night by malevolent dark forces beyond your control, like a couple of other newspaper critics I can think of. And admittedly, it’s a pretty gruelling job; it means having opinions five nights a week, all year round, and writing them up in serviceable prose for midnight deadlines. It’s not really the job for virtuoso writers who might toss it aside to pursue something else. It’s a job whose value is felt cumulatively, rather than in individual shining pieces of writing. And it’s one that means you’re acting as a fine copper wire, connecting a very specific experience in one dark room to millions of people across the world. As Andy Field wrote in his tribute to Lyn Gardner’s now-lost role at The Guardian;

“The tangible excitement (and gut-spasming nervousness) generated by Lyn’s presence is not about one person’s opinion, nor is it even about the potential boost in ticket sales that a positive notice might represent. It’s about the vital portal that she is able to open between your work and the wide-open spaces of our national, even international, cultural and political discourse.”

I’m not sure that ‘expert’ is useful word to bandy around, when it comes to theatre critics. I’m not sure it even means anything. It’s less a term, more of a distillation of a cluster of related concepts. I think when people say ‘expert’ in the context of criticism, they’re really talking about an opaque combination of platform, experience and trust.

Platform – the reach and perceived institutional validity of the place your words appear.

Experience – of writing and thinking about theatre, but also of seeing an omnivorous range of performances – something Gardner’s described as “stocking your larder for the winter ahead, like a squirrel”

Trust – the most nebulous one to define, but it’s something that’s accumulated through consistency, integrity and reasoned analysis.

I get why all these things are valued by producers, artists and audiences. But at the same time, none of the above are prerequisites for having a valid opinion on theatre, and at least two of them are things that pretty much automatically come with getting a job as a professional theatre critic.

If you wanted to, you could redefine who gets to be an expert. Maybe ‘platform’ could also refer to how many people subscribe to your tinyletter or follow your instagram or read your blog. Maybe ‘experience’ could also be lived experience of cultures that sit outside the establishment-endorsed mainstream, or experience of working in the arts yourself, or knowledge built up through study. Maybe ‘trust’ could be about standing up for what you believe in, about writing from your politics and the things that matter most to you.

In mental health, ideas of expertise have been democratised so that service users are called “experts by experience”; breaking down the steep traditional hierarchy between doctor and patient. In academia, there’s a growing scrutiny of the power structures and unspoken assumptions that determine what’s studied and what’s valued, and a move to reach outside institutions’ walls.

But within arts criticism, ‘expert’ is rarely a term that’s designed to be inclusive. Often, it’s a wire fence used to keep new voices out, or a way of undermining people with uncomfortable opinions. By all means complain about job insecurity for theatre critics, or lament the fact that roles that are vital for the theatre industry can be axed at will by newspaper editors who think they’re not valuable. But current ideas of expertise aren’t helping anyone; they’re rusted over, and ready for the scrapheap.

[Alice Saville is editor of Exeunt, as well as working as a freelance arts journalist for publications including Time Out, Fest and Auditorium magazine.]

Theaters Go Dark Across The Nation (Part 1)

[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.]

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“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.]

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“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. [American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco]

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.]

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[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.]