Streaming Theatre

scenicdesign71 · Jun 04, 2021, 06:42 AM

This looks very interesting:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/theater/chekhovos-an-experimental-game-review.html

Partly I'm intrigued by the Pirandellian gimmick of Chekov characters wanting out of the gently depressive stasis (or, as suggested here, the latent cruelty) of his plays.

Even more so by the formal experiment, bringing together theatre, film and gaming/interactivity. (It looks to me as though this group may, in the crucible of this past year, have made more progress than most along these lines).

But perhaps most of all -- because, without this, I'm not sure I'd find those other two factors quite as persuasive -- by the sheer visual polish evident in these trailers; the greenscreen/CGI here is much more sophisticated than in other "virtual theatre" projects I've seen so far. (See more by director Igor Golyak linked at the end of the Vimeo clip above).

More at https://www.zerogravity.art, including schedule and ticket links.

DiveMilw · Jun 14, 2021, 11:37 AM

The Kill One Race

Is was filmed at Playwright's Horizon.
It's free to watch.
It has seven episodes.
They are available until July 4th.
" Over the course of seven days, seven contestants compete in a social and ethical obstacle course to be proven the most ethical—and earn the singular prize of death. Replete with ice-breakers, speed dates, confessionals, sacred rituals, murder plots, and copious dancing, The KILL ONE Race is part-documentary, part-theater, and part-reality TV game show."

scenicdesign71 · Aug 10, 2021, 09:26 AM

Come From Away streams on Apple TV+ starting September 10:

https://broadwaydirect.com/come-from-away-film-premieres-on-apple-tv-september-10/

scenicdesign71 · Aug 19, 2021, 02:54 PM

A little over a year ago I posted a link to Theater in Quarantine on this thread; at that point, performance artist Joshua William Gelb had already been livestreaming random acts of experimental microtheater from his East Village apartment closet for several months, starting almost immediately after the shutdown.

Since then I've managed to catch only a handful of TiQ's pieces online, but in that time Gelb & friends have amassed an impressive body of work. This past spring they were the subject of an NPR feature, and just yesterday the NYT published a warm retrospective appreciation by Jesse Green.

I'm grateful to Green and the Times for bringing them back to my attention; TiQ was one of those streaming-theater projects that I'd meant to keep a regular eye on, but it had slipped my mind for far too long. Also, after missing Heather Christian's Oratorio For Living Things live at Ars Nova near the end of March 2020, I'm grateful to TiQ and Theater Mitu for a glittering consolation prize of sorts: I Am Sending You the Sacred Face, a searching, whip-smart and altogether gorgeous thirty-five-minute "lip-sync drag musical" about Mother Teresa which has, in OFLT's stead, become my new introduction to Christian's work and should tide me over until Oratorio finally returns to the stage next spring.

IASYtSF - NY Times review: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/theater/heather-christian-joshua-william-gelb-review.html
IASYtSF - New Yorker review: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/28/a-one-man-musical-about-mother-teresa
(Also check out this behind-the-scenes featurette: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUTvHOKymtA)

...So I guess file Theatre in Quarantine somewhere in the general vicinity of Manual Cinema on my personal shortlist of pandemic godsends: both are unclassifiable multimedia performance-art miniaturists wringing a seemingly inexhaustible supply of beauty out of astonishingly limited means, with virtuosic skill and inventiveness.

Theatre in Quarantine's YouTube page, beautifully organized for hours of happy bingeing:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqMhCVLpToyrC9Xj1-WWSfg

DiveMilw · Sep 01, 2021, 07:21 AM

Barrington Theater Company's special concert by Aaron Tveit will now be available to stream. The concert was on July 31st.

Streaming September 9–12

Due to the popularity of our SOLD-OUT concert starring Aaron Tveit, we'll be streaming Aaron Tveit Live! in concert. Singing beloved theatre, rock and pop favorites, Aaron's performance — available for one weekend only — is sure to delight.

Here's a preview of the concert.

scenicdesign71 · Oct 03, 2021, 01:45 PM

I'm ordering in Seamless and about to watch Diana: The Musical on Netflix, because what else is there to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon in early October?

Okay, true: literally almost anything. Has anyone seen it since it dropped on Friday? If so, is it as godawful as it looks? I guess I'll find out...

[Ed.: Yep, witless garbage. Not on the WTF-level of Cats, as some of the British reviews, especially, have opined (though there is plenty here to cringe at). It's just an awful lot of on- and backstage talent being criminally wasted on a piece of writing that never quite rises to the level of competent mediocrity, nor sinks to the level of enjoyably campy trash -- despite its unwarranted apparent confidence in the former, punctuated regularly by ineffectual flailings toward the latter. I've long mentally filed the creators under Successful Theater Careers So Shockingly Undeserved It's Both Baffling And Offensive; their place on that list remains secure.]

scenicdesign71 · Nov 11, 2021, 02:29 PM

Check out Manual Cinema's slick new website redesign:

https://manualcinema.com

The holidays are approaching, and MC's Christmas Carol is back for a second year, streaming on demand from November 26 through January 3.

scenicdesign71 · Feb 26, 2022, 08:49 AM

More Theater in Quarantine, from August 2020:

Time stops for a Jewish playwright sentenced to death during the Nazi occupation of Prague in this brand new retelling of Jorge Luis Borges' classic short story "The Secret Miracle". Created for spoken word and chamber orchestra, this new translation sets Borges' words to verse with an accompaniment inspired by Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, itself composed in a Nazi POW camp.

...which admittedly sounds like a grim watch; but, as usual, Gelb & co. approach their material with such exuberant curiosity and unique artistry that this engrossing half-hour left me too impressed to be depressed.

scenicdesign71 · Apr 22, 2022, 06:21 PM

I can think of no more perfect project with which to have occupied oneself during the shutdown a year and a half ago:

This was originally posted in September 2020, but I didn't come across it until just now, on the Facebook FTC board. It even comes with its own 20-minute behind-the-scenes featurette. The gifted singer, Will Blum, played Floyd in college and later performed "The Riddle Song" for a NYCFringe benefit in 2012, to equally impressive effect. But of course, it's the genius production design and cinematography that have me all hot 'n' bothered.

scenicdesign71 · May 03, 2022, 12:50 PM

The Orchard
May 31 - July 3, in-person (Baryshnikov Arts Center, NYC) and streaming:
https://www.theorchardoffbroadway.com

DiveMilw · May 04, 2022, 05:57 PM

Thank you for the reminder about that Will Blum video. I remember watching it at the beginning of the pandemic. It was (and still is) one of the best pieces of theater I've seen.

scenicdesign71 · May 12, 2022, 08:27 AM

Streaming May 16-29:

I've missed this in its previous NYC runs, so I'm going to try to stream it this month.

scenicdesign71 · May 16, 2022, 02:03 PM

Ann Morrison has a new cabaret act streaming live at 7pm tomorrow night from 54 Below:

https://54below.com/events/livestream-ann-morrison-merrily-from-center-stage/

$25 plus fees, livestream only (no on-demand).

scenicdesign71 · May 17, 2022, 10:22 AM

I watched Mac Beth with my mom last night.

Spoiler: Show

Reading Sara Holdren's 2019 Vulture review shortly afterward came as something of a relief: once again, she captured many of my own reactions to the show with startling precision. (I enjoyed her too-brief tenure as a critic here so much that I selfishly wish she hadn't moved to Chicago to pursue her Ph.D.).

Part of me wants to watch the whole thing again to see whether deliberately focusing my attention more on the relationships between these schoolgirls (and perhaps less on Shakespeare's characters, or their portrayals thereof) would make things any clearer. As Holdren points out, much of the (considerable) potential of a production like this would seem to lie in exploring the connections among the young performers, and between performers and roles. But in another sense, for better and worse, I think adaptor/director Erica Schmidt's ending actually does draw a lot of its power to upset from coming seemingly out of nowhere.

I also couldn't make out the very last line of the performance (which is not the very last line of Shakespeare's play). But multiple rewinds failed to clarify, so I doubt another full re-watch of the whole show would help on that particular front.

In any case, I understand why this production got so much buzz -- and also a slew of wildly mixed reviews -- when it opened: it's likely to stick in your brain and provoke conversation. I'd recommend it, as long as you're not too squeamish.

Catherine Cornell's deceptively stark, elemental set deserves mention. Less a static composition than a process unfolding over time, at once natural and ritual, it's one of those designs whose every smart choice, and the implacable logic governing them, can only be fully grasped afterward. (Cornell's portfolio page for Mac Beth traces its snaking evolution from concept sketches to model to stage, in different configurations for each of the play's three major productions to date).

scenicdesign71 · May 21, 2022, 06:51 AM

Interesting Red Bull "podversation" with Mac Beth's leading lady Ismenia Mendes: