Category Archives: THEATER

THE WOOSTER GROUP STREAM

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Through the end of the week, five complete theatrical productions and two media works by The Wooster Group are now available to stream.

Selections include HOUSE / LIGHTS, TO YOU, THE BIRDIE!—a take on Racine’s Phèdre—HAMLET, parts one and two, BRACE UP!—a reimagining of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, and the video works FLAUBERT DREAMS OF TRAVEL BUT THE ILLNESS OF HIS MOTHER PREVENTS IT, and CHANNEL J, starring Anna Köhler, Kate Valk, Ron Vawter, and Willem Dafoe.

All productions were directed by Elizabeth LeCompte. See link below for details.

THE WOOSTER GROUP—CLASSIC WORKS

Through May 15.

The Wooster Group, from top: House / Lights; Hamlet, part one; Flaubert Dreams of Travel but the Illness of His Mother Prevents It; To You, the Birdie!, with Scott Shepherd, left; Channel J, with Willem Dafoe (left) and Ron Vawter (right).

ARNOLD SCHÖNBERG’S ERWARTUNG

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This week, Performa will stream an archival performance—Robin Rhode’s 2015 take on Arnold Schönberg’s ERWARTUNG, the first opera staged in Times Square.

Carole Sidney Louis and Moses Leo play Woman and Man in the production, which was part of Performa 15.

On Thursday, Rhode and Performa founder RoseLee Goldberg will discuss the work on Instagram Live.

See links below for details.

PERFORMA 15—ERWARTUNG: A STREET OPERA

Thursday and Friday, May 7 and 8.

7 pm, all time zones.

ROBIN RHODE and ROSELEE GOLDBERG IN CONVERSATION

Thursday, May 7.

11 am on the West Coast; 2 pm East Coast.

Robin Rhode, Arnold Schönberg’s Erwartung, a Performa commission, 2015. Photographs by Paula Court, courtesy and © the photographer and Performa.

JAAMIL OLAWALE KOSOKO — CHAMELEON

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Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s CHAMELEON (THE LIVING INSTALLMENTS)—the online response to the postponement of Chameleon: A Biomythography—will include the livestream world premiere of Stank from Chameleon: A Visual Album, a Somatic Healing session with Michelle Boulé, and, to close the presentation, a performance of The Hold, with music by Everett-Asis Saunders.

The event will also feature conversations with Kosoko and Ebony Noelle Golden, Bill T. Jones, Ashon Crawley, Autumn Knight, and Ni’ja Whitson.

CHAMELEON (THE LIVING INSTALLMENTS) is a co-production of the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and New York Live Arts.

See links below for schedule and streaming details.

JAAMIL OLAWALE KOSOKO—CHAMELEON (THE LIVING INSTALLMENTS)

Wednesday, April 22.

From 8 am on the West Coast; 11 am East Coast.

Link to Kosoko’s recent podcast season of American Chameleon as well.

Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, from top: Chameleon: A Biomythography in performance, photograph by Sara Griffith; Chameleon: A Biomythography in performance, photograph by Michael Valiquette; Kosoko, photograph by Erik Carter; Chameleon: A Biomythography in performance, photograph by Griffith; Kosoko, photograph by Carter. Images courtesy and © the artist, the photographers, and EMPAC.

SWEET LAND — A NEW OPERA BY THE INDUSTRY

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The Industry’s acclaimed, suspended production of the opera SWEET LAND—composed by Raven Chacon and Du Yun, with a libretto by Aja Couchois Duncan and Douglas Kearney—is available now to stream anytime.

Co-directed by Yuval Sharon and costume designer Cannupa Hanska Luger, SWEET LAND is a “grotesque historical pageant that disrupts the dominant narrative of American identity. Starting as a procession through Los Angeles State Historic Park, SWEET LAND becomes an opera that erases itself.”*

See link below for streaming details.

SWEET LAND—A NEW OPERA BY THE INDUSTRY*

Raven Chacon, Du Yun, Aja Couchois Duncan, and Douglas Kearney, Sweet Land, production photos by Casey Kringlen, Los Angeles State Historical Park, February, 2020. Images courtesy and © the artists, the actors, the photographer, and The Industry.

REVENGE SONG WORLD PREMIERE

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Don’t call it a comeback, but New York City’s irreverent theater troupe Vampire Cowboys are back with REVENGE SONG, a scorched-earth musical farce set—mostly—in seventeenth-century France.

Julie d’Aubigny—a queer, cross-dressing swordswoman—and her band of lovers and adversaries turn the sarcasm up to ten in this unexpected Geffen Playhouse diversion written by Qui Nguyen and directed by Robert Ross Parker.

“Satire is what closes on Saturday night,” opined playwright and wit George S. Kaufman, but Cowboys co-founder Nguyen concocts a hilarious mix of aggression and buffoonery, scored with contemporary hip-hop and 1980s-style power ballads. The brilliant comedic timing of Margaret Odette (Julie) and Amy Kim Waschke (as MC Madame de Senneterre) bring these hardcore heroines to raucous life.

REVENGE SONG—A VAMPIRE COWBOYS CREATION

Through March 8.

Geffen Playhouse

10886 Le Conte Avenue, Westwood, Los Angeles.

Qui Nguyen, Revenge Song, from top: Margaret Odette; Beth Hawkes and Odette; Amy Kim Waschke; Odette and Hawkes; Hawkes, Odette, Tom Myers, and Eugene Young (foreground); Myers, Young, and Noshir Dalal (right); Odette and Dalal; Odette and Waschke; Odette, Waschke, Dalal, Young, and Myers; Myers and Hawkes; Odette. Photographs by Jeff Lorch. Images courtesy and © the performers, the photographer, the Vampire Cowboys, and the Geffen Playhouse.