1, 2 and 3pm: Ice Factory Festival: we need your listening an interactive, virtual show created by multidisciplinary artists Velani Dibba, Ilana Khanin, Elizagrace Madrone, and Stephen Charles Smith.
In a shifting theatrical landscape, individual audience members enter a dim space between digital and analog reality and are taken through a series of intimate, one-on-one exchanges with performers—discovering and re-discovering the act of listening as radical engagement.
The piece, which runs July 30–August 2, was created with the performing ensemble, made up of Hilary Asare, Alex Bartner, ChiWen Chang, Sam Gonzalez, Alice Gorelick, Julia Greer, Nile Assata Harris, Annie Hoeg, and Sam Im.
1pm: Renée Fleming in Washington, D.C. By The Metropolitan Opera. For more than 30 years, soprano Renée Fleming has been one of the Met’s most important artists. This Saturday, she continues her historic Met career, as she gives the second performance in our new Met Stars Live in Concert series. Her concert, streamed live from the beautiful Dumbarton Oaks estate, will begin at 1PM EDT on August 1 and will remain available for on-demand viewing for 12 days. Tickets are $20. Buy now: bit.ly/3eOk6I9
1pm: #Ham4Change A series of live streamed fundraisers featuring original Hamilton cast members, including Tony winner Renée Elise Goldsberry, Tony nominee Phillipa Soo, and Jasmine Cephas Jones, the trio who originated the Schuyler Sisters. Conceived and organized by Hamilton alums, #HAM4CHANGE will benefit organizations that are working to end systemic racism, with a goal to raise over $1 million.
Click here to buy tickets for the live streams. In addition to these events, VIP packages with special 1-on-1 experiences are also available for purchase.
The live streams will include behind-the-scenes insight, trivia, interactive games, prizes, and original content from the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical, the movie capture of which recently debuted on Disney+. Each #HAM4CHANGE will benefit three organizations.
The first event live streams August 1 at 1 PM ET on Looped, hosted by Sasha Hutchings. In addition to Goldsberry, Soo, and Jones, the live stream will include appearances by Tony nominees Jonathan Groff and Christopher Jackson, Javier Muñoz, Andrew Chappelle, Neil Haskell, Thayne Jasperson, Morgan Marcell, Seth Stewart, Betsy Struxness, and special guests Brian d’Arcy James, Rory O’Malley, and Andrew Rannells. Proceeds will go to Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective, Law Enforcement Accountability Project, and When We All Vote.
A second and third live stream will take place August 9 at 1 PM and August 15 at 7 PM, with a lineup to be announced at a later date.
2pm Plays in the House: Stick Fly with Seth Rudetsky and producer James Wesley. by Lydia R. Diamond. The reading stars Jelani Alladin, Laura Benanti, Crystal Monee Hall, Keith Randolph Smith, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, Daniel J. Watts and Renika Williams.
Dell Howlett directs with Kayla Coleman as assistant director and stage manager.
3pm: Tonya Pinkins: A Spotlight on Red Pill Tony winner Tonya Pinkins, who is the writer, star, director, and producer of her first feature film Red Pill, will join with TV and Broadway star Ciara Renée for an exclusive, one-on-one conversation on Pinkins’ horror film that is set to be released this fall.
Pinkins: A Spotlight on Red Pill will take place on Zoom with ticket proceeds going towards funding of Red Pill.
From Pinkins comes a progressive dystopian nightmare. Shot by cinematographer John Hudak Jr., the film is a metaphor for all our fears and a reminder that there are worse things than death. Cassandra (Pinkins) is a Black American woman fearful for the fate of her country in the next election. Election weekend 2020, she reluctantly accompanies her best friend Rocky, land preserver activist (Ruben Blades) and his wife Emelia (Luba Mason), her roommate Lily (Kathyrn Erbe), friend Nick (Jake O’Flaherty), and partner Bobby (Adesola Osakalumi) to canvas in newly blue Virginia. As the friends arrive at their “Super-Host” housing, they encounter signs that point to possible trouble and before the weekend is over, their fight for the country becomes a fight for their lives
5pm: RoosevElvis By Play-PerView the spirits of Elvis Presley and Theodore Roosevelt, on a hallucinatory road trip from the Badlands to Graceland, battle over the soul of Ann—a painfully shy meat-processing plant worker—and what kind of man or woman Ann should become.
Created by The Team, RoosevElvis, sees the original cast of Libby King and Kristen Sieh reuniting August 1 at 5 PM ET in a production directed by Tony winner director Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown).
7pm: In These Uncertain Times By Source Material Collective is a digitally-devised theatre performance, made specifically for its medium. It is a new dramaturgy defined by dystopia, and it is a love letter to the art of theatre. Stemming from a group of artists wondering if COVID-19 is the death of theatre as we know it, In These Uncertain Times is a tragicomic, Chekhovian Zoom performance. From drinking competitions, sad Chekhov monologues, and corona-virus meme collages, In These Uncertain Times’ focal point is the impossibility of theatre as we’ve known it, and forges a new path in the artform, while grieving for the past.
The piece was created by Source Material collective, the members of which are currently quarantined all over the country.
Director Samantha Shay had the cast give her virtual tours of their homes, to figure out how to best utilize their shared resources. They also plan to utilize different aspects of the Zoom platform itself, including the chat box. I have yet to see anything that addresses this moment in this way, and I think this piece is an innovative addition to the ongoing question of what theatre is and what theatre could be in the future.
7:30 The Met: Verdi’s Ernani. Verdi’s early masterpiece is based on a Victor Hugo play with a complicated plot concerning a young woman and the three men vying for her affections—her elderly uncle, a king destined to become Holy Roman Emperor, and a bandit who is actually an overthrown nobleman. Though there is plenty of action arising from the various passions and grudges scattered among these characters, the opera is best appreciated as a feast of beautiful and dramatic Italianate singing. With virtuosic roles for a quartet of principals, the opera delivers one feat of heroic vocalism after another.
8pm: Guthrie Theater Virtual Benefit By The Guthrie Theater first-ever virtual benefit on Saturday, August 1 at 7 p.m. CDT. The online gathering will raise critical funds to help sustain the theater, celebrate local and national artists and uplift the community the Guthrie serves.
Attending the virtual benefit is free, but registration is required. Captioning and ASL interpretation will be available. For more information, click here.
Twin Cities actor Sally Wingert will emcee the live streamed event, which will feature performances by national and local theater artists, including Ryan Colbert, Santino Fontana, Marc Koeck, Meghan Kreidler, Mia Pinero, Ava Saunders, and Regina Marie Williams, as well as cameos by Ryan Michelle Bathe, Ricardo Chavira, Don Cheadle, John Carroll Lynch, David Hyde Pierce, Laila Robins, Mark Rylance, Emily Swallow, Courtney B. Vance, Brenda Wehle, and Rainn Wilson, among others.
8pm: Broadway Whodunit from the creators of Broadway Jackbox (Andrew Barth Feldman and Alex Boniello), drops your favorite Broadway stars in the middle of a live, unscripted murder mystery.
Joining Feldman and Boniello are Reneé Rapp, Shereen Pimentel, Will Roland, Gaten Matarazzo, Samantha Williams, and Antonio Cipriano.
Performers will play a slew of zany characters. One of them will be murdered, and one of them will be the murderer. You, the detectives, will be able to go between different “rooms” on our website to follow the clues, watch the mystery unfold, and find the murderer, all in real time.
You don’t know the ending, and neither do the players. It’s all of the hijinks you’ve come to expect from the Jackbox crew, infused with intrigue, mystery, and muder.
8pm: Roll With It, by Charlotte Ahlin By She NYC Arts The 2020 SheNYC Summer Theater Festival continues with The New Play Residency, Roll With It, by Charlotte Ahlin.
Dungeons. Dragons. Drama. A fantastical new screen capture comedy.
8pm: Stars in the House: Save the Arts with Audra McDonald, Misty Copeland, More By The Actors Fund. Stars in the House is the daily live streamed concert series created by Playbill correspondent and SiriusXM Broadway host Seth Rudetsky and producer James Wesley.
Episode guests: Save the Arts! with Misty Copeland, Justina Machado, Audra McDonald, Rosie Perez, Ben Stiller and more surprise guests!
9:30pm: Broadway Bares: Zoom In By Broadway Cares A host of Broadway favorites will be part of Broadway Bares: Zoom In, which streams August 1. As previously announced, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is taking its annual striptease fundraiser online for the first time due to the ongoing pandemic.
Newly announced for the evening are special guests Nick Adams, Charles Busch, Lea DeLaria, J. Harrison Ghee, Nathan Lee Graham, Debbie Shapiro Gravitte, Jane Krakowski, Nathan Lane, Beth Leavel, Judith Light, Andrew Lippa, Lesli Margherita, Angie Schworer, Marc Shaiman, Miriam Shor, Christopher Sieber, and Wesley Taylor.
Although the in-person 30th anniversary celebration, originally set for June 21, was postponed until 2021, the annual evening will live on digitally through streamed stripteases featuring New York City dancers. Viewers can expect new performances that make social distancing sexy, plus favorite numbers from years past.