Thinking Theater NYC

Blythe Danner. Image courtesy Emily Owens PR Neo-Political Cowgirls (Kate Mueth, Founding Artistic Director), an organization created for women in theater to help increase the female voice in the narrative of our society’s stories, will present its annual fundraiser, Andromeda’s Sisters: An Arts and Advocacy Forum, remotely via Zoom on Friday, August 14 and Thursday, September 3. Tickets for Andromeda’s Sisters will be tiered, providing access to audiences from all walks of life. To purchase tickets or for more information, please visit the Cowgirls' site . All funds raised will directly support the theater work and arts education outreach of The Neo-Political Cowgirls.  This fundraiser is an opportunity for not-for-profit social justice organizations and leaders to speak about their work; for audiences to network and get engaged in advocacy and creative exploration; and for female-identifying playwrights and actors to be celebrated through their stage work. This signature event w

Image courtesy Michelle Tabnick PR The little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY) presented Mozart & Friends , a livestream pop-up concert on Thursday, July 9, 2020 at 7:30pm from St. John's in the Village. The concert is now available to stream on-demand from any device - phone, tablet, computer, TV - or, if you miss that live feeling of being in the room together and want a new, immersive way to experience performances, Musae can send you a VR headset along with your ticket purchase. Tickets are $5 - $50 and can still be purchased online here , or you can call Musae at 917-740-9694 should you need extra assistance. For more details, please visit https://www.lotny.org/ . Mozart & Friends spotlighted several arias from little OPERA's postponed production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Shepherd King in a newly commissioned singing translation from Mark Herman and Ronnie Apter, based upon the libretto by Pietro Metastasio. The livestreamed performance featured tenors Kame

Accent Dance NYC. Photo by Tania Palomeque Photography Battery Dance has announced the 39th Annual Battery Dance Festival with FREE virtual performances from August 14-22, 2020, available online nightly 7pm - 8pm via YouTube. For more information, visit the festival's website . Films will remain only through August 31, 2020. Themed evenings will include World and U.S. Premieres on film, with works from the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas, and pieces that celebrate the resiliency of New York City and the Festival itself. A special India program will be presented on August 15th, India's Independence Day. Established in 1982, the Battery Dance Festival (BDF) has been celebrated as New York City's longest-running free public dance festival as well as one of its most wide-ranging. Audiences are traditionally drawn to Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park in Battery Park City from the large downtown working population, residents, families, tourists, senior citizens and dance f

In These Uncertain Times Devised by Source Material Directed by Samantha Shay Presented by Source Material via Zoom July 25-August 2, 2020 Raven Scott. Photo courtesy Emily Owens PR "In these uncertain times," like "stay safe," has become a ubiquitous rhetorical gesture over these past months, and with the current mix of ever more brazen governmental corruption and authoritarianism, ever worsening climate change , and a COVID-19 pandemic that is far from under control in the United States and has no clear end in sight, "uncertain" starts to sound like an understatement. With new show In These Uncertain Times , the theater collective Source Material focuses primarily on the uncertainty caused by the pandemic through and for theater. When and if life will return to "normal" is for the theater an existential question in multiple senses of the word, and what the theater community does in the meantime raises its own practical and philosophical—as wel

Brooklyn-based Asase Yaa Cultural Arts Foundation , which is celebrating its 19th year, has announced that it will premiere its first virtual performance event, the Raising Our Voices for Black Youth Benefit Concert, on Thursday, July 30, 2020 at 8 PM. It will be broadcast via OBS streaming services on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. All funds raised from the concert will be donated to its Asase Youth Summer Employment Initiative Mightycause crowdfunding campaign, which has been running since early June. The Initiative's goal is to raise $50,000 to employ 20 teenage youth (ages 14-19) to work at the Foundation and its 14th annual Children's Summer Arts Camp. R & B/Soul artist Amma Whatt will serve as Master of Ceremonies of the 45-minute concert, featuring guest performances by the Asase Yaa Youth Ensemble, African Djembe ensemble Farafina Kan Next Generation, musician Kofi Hunter, rapper Kudonyc, and Philadelphia-based hip hop dance ensemble Illstyle & Peace. In addi

Rooted Theater Company, Inc., will present the Relevantly Rooted Festival on Friday July 24 at 8:00pm EST on  IG LIVE  and  FB LIVE  for the performance of  I'm Fine , written by Shadenia Davis and featuring Corey Brooks and Shandenia Davis. R.S.V.P. for the Festival

Image courtesy No Peeking Theatre No Peeking Theatre, which presents immersive theater experience without the use of sight (you can read our review of their 2020 show Mother Leeds here ), now presents Indigenous , an online theatrical presentation of the Native experience.  No Peeking Theatre has begun a virtual reopening by producing its repertoire for an online experience that is free to the public. On July 25th, it will release its second show online, titled  Indigenous .  Indigenous  premieres July 25th at 8:00 PM (“doors open at 7:30) on  Youtube Live .  Indigenous  is a compilation of stories, poems, songs, and narratives that  discuss the Indigenous experience. Following suit of previous shows like BLACKOUT and In Lak’ Ech , the show sets out to invoke a hard discussion by confronting issues through the vein of genuine experience. From blood quantum, stereotypes, and identity, to rituals, songs, and poems,  Indigenous  implores the audience to absorb some of the most authentic,

Dutchman Written by Amiri Baraka Directed by Brandon Walker Presented by The Seeing Place Theater via Zoom July 18-19, 2020 Timothy Ware and Erin Cronican. Photo courtesy The Seeing Place Theater With The Seeing Place Theater's "Unplugged Reading" of Amiri Baraka's 1964 Dutchman (written and published as LeRoi Jones), the company continues its season focused on body politic, which began with George Orwell's Animal Farm earlier this year (you can read our review of the production here ), in the virtual realm and with another play whose continued timeliness underscores the persistence of institutionalized modes of oppression and the need for fundamental systemic change. The Seeing Place's reading of Baraka's scathing work about an encounter in a New York City subway car between a white woman and a Black man premiered on the same day that civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis died and even his colleagues' tributes unintentionally highlighted

im ur hamlet. Written and directed by Genny Yosco Presented by Sour Grapes Productions in association with FRIGID NY via YouTube Live July 17, 19, 15, 29, and August 1, 2020 In a summer when Shakespeare is absent from both the boards and the parks, writer and director Genny Yosco's brisk new comedy im ur hamlet.  takes a parodic look at bringing the Bard into the virtual realm in which we conduct so much of our lives these days. im ur hamlet. is part of FRIGID NY's Hamlet -themed So Many Shakespeares Festival (tickets to all shows can be purchased on the festival page ), and the post-show talkback included guests from some of the festival's other offerings. Audiences can catch previews of all of the show's during im ur hamlet. 's short intermission and can support FRIGID through its Patreon and Sour Grapes Productions through Venmo donations to the address given during the performance. im ur hamlet. plays out as a videoconferencing call among the main cast assem

The Living Room Plays Presented by Eden Theater Company via Zoom July 16, 2020 The Pedicure Written and performed by Annie Larussa and Mark Moses First Day Devised by Amanda Enzo with Diane Davis; performed by Amanda Enzo; directed by Diane Davis snapped-shot Written by Mario Louis Gonzalez; directed by Ran Xia; featuring Frank Humphrey The second in Eden Theater Company's three-part series of "room plays"—short plays performed on Zoom that explore some aspect of the isolation that has defined American life under the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic—shifts from the bedroom to the living room (you can read our review of The Bedroom Plays here ). The Living Room Plays features three more diverse responses to the series's theme (one of which moves beyond the context of the pandemic, a first for the series so far). There is a greater emphasis on the social this time around, as opposed to the focus on individual experience in The Bedroom Plays , which is perhaps an effect of t

George Bartenieff and Emily Fury Daly. Photography@Beatriz Schiller2019 Andrew Revkin, founding director of a new Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at Columbia University's Earth Institute, is hosting a Sunday Brunch Reading of Obie award-winning Theatre Three Collaborative’s cli-fi eco-feminist fable Other Than We , written and directed by Karen Malpede.  Other Than We will be performed live on Revkin’s weekly Sustain What arts webcast, on Sunday, July 26, 2020 from 10:30 am - 12:30 pm. The video link will be posted here a week before showtime: http://j.mp/sustainwhatlive . Viewers can type comments and questions to be explored in the post-show talkback. A cli-fi fable with music that moves from a dystopian reality to astonishing hope, Other Than We is harrowing yet hope-filled. “The play which is set in the future after a climate crisis fits this pandemic-global-heating time because it is about imagining life anew, without the injustices that have gotten us here

Image courtesy Spin cycle PR Internationally acclaimed one woman show Bette Davis Ain't for Sissies  will stream live at OnTheStage.com from July 15 - September 24. Written and performed by Jessica Sherr ( Blue Bloods , Claws , Annie ), this new 80-minute live streaming version is directed for the small screen by Karen Carpenter ( Harry Townsend’s Last Stand , Love Loss and What I Wore ). The production also features Bette Davis’ scarf and gloves, which were a gift from Bette Davis Estate, to wear in the show. In  Bette Davis Ain't for Sissies , Jessica Sherr channels 31-year old Bette Davis’s fight against the male-dominated studio system. On the night of the 1939 Oscars, Davis returns home knowing that she’s to lose Best Actress to Vivien Leigh’s Scarlet O’Hara, because the press has leaked the winners. Davis takes us on the bumpy ride of her tumultuous rise, as the tenacious actress fights her way through the studio system to the top while triumphing over misogyny to win ro

Mel England and Terry Ray. Photo by Mike Pingel Magical Iguana Productions and Kampfire Films will present the award-winning LGBTQ+ play Electricity ,   which chronicles the journey of two gay men from Stonewall to today. The critically acclaimed production and longest running play in Palm Springs stars playwright and actor Terry Ray and Off-Broadway veteran Mel England, is directed by Steve Rosenbaum, and is produced for the stage by Michael Darner, Katie Rosin, and Tony award-winning Sue Vaccaro. Electricity  will stream three performances only from the studio at Oscar’s Downtown Palm Springs (to an empty house). Performances are Thursday, July 16, 23, and 30 at 9:00 p.m. EST (6:00 p.m. PST). Tickets are $12 and can be purchased here . Part of the proceeds will go to benefit a nationally renowned LGBTQ+ organization. Immediately following the performance, Ray and England will host a live Q&A with the viewing audience, answering questions from the chat and talking about the LGBTQ

Tiffany Rea-Fisher. Photo courtesy the artist/Michelle Tabnick PR Black Dance Stories  has announced its July 2020 lineup, featuring stories by and discussions with well-known dancers and choreographers who use their art to create commentary on the Black experience. Created and conceived by performer, producer, and dance writer Charmaine Warren, the newly launched story-sharing and discussion series highlights Black creatives in the dance world. Black Dance Stories streams live via Zoom every Thursday in July at 6 pm. Join Black Dance Stories here . July 2020 artists include dancers who use their work to raise societal issues, strengthen community through their programming, and use history as a source of inspiration. The lineup includes Jamar Roberts (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre), Tiffany Rea-Fisher (Elisa Monte Dance), Cynthia Oliver (Cynthia Oliver Co. Dance Theatre), Marjani Forté-Saunders (formerly Urban Bush Women), Lorenzo "Rennie" Harris (Rennie Harris Puremov

The service organization Dance/NYC has announced its Disability. Dance. Artistry. Dance and Social Justice Fellowship Program, made possible by the support of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs,\ CreateNYC Disability Forward Fund and the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. The purpose of the Fellowship Program is to recognize the critical role that disabled dance workers and arts practitioners play in social justice movements and to ensure that these workers are supported while continuing to place disability front and center as a positive artistic and generative force. Dance/NYC recognizes that, despite the multiple ways disabled communities have been impacted by COVID-19 and ongoing racial violence, disabled dance workers have remained active in serving their communities through online programming, community organizing efforts, and mutual aid, often without compensation or funding. The Fellowship Program provides a recognition of all activities completed between March

Image courtesy Michelle Tabnick PR The little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY)  will present Mozart & Friends, a livestream pop-up concert on Thursday, July 9, 2020 at 7:30pm from St. John's in the Village. The concert will be available to stream from any device-phone, tablet, computer, TV-or, if you miss that live feeling of being in the room together and want a new, immersive way to experience performances, Musae can send you a VR headset along with your ticket purchase. Tickets are $5 - $50 and can be purchased online here . For more details, please visit LOTNY . Mozart & Friends spotlights several arias from little OPERA's postponed production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Shepherd King in a newly commissioned singing translation from Mark Herman and Ronnie Apter, based upon the libretto by Pietro Metastasio. The livestreamed performance features tenors Kameron Ghanavati and Rufus Müller and mezzo-soprano Heather Johnson, with instrumentalists Elliot Figg (Harps