In our Best Bets at Home: October 9th – October 11th we have nine great shows for you. Amongst the highlights is the first part of an award-winning trilogy from the Latino Theater Company, cabaret shows from Tony Award-winner Beth Leavel and Jessica Vosk, the San Francisco Opera resumes streaming operas, there’s an on-going dance festival, a virtual play for the whole family and more.
Let’s get started with Best Bets at Home: October 9th – October 11th with a new show from the Geffen Playhouse:
Inside the Box – Geffen Stayhouse – October 8th – January 3rd
Part of the announced scheduled for this year’s season at the Geffen Playhouse included a show called The Enigmatist. It’s a show the New York Times called “An evening of tricks and brainteasers, it’s like a spin class for the frontal lobe, with drinks available.” That show’s creator is David Kwong. If the name sounds familiar it is because he has created crossword puzzles for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
So what can a puzzle master and theater do when a pandemic sweeps in and makes putting on a live show with an audience an impossibility? They think Inside the Box.
Rather, that’s the end result of Kwong figuring his way out of this conundrum. Fresh on the heels of the Geffen’s massively successful show The Present by Helder Guimarães, he and the Geffen Playhouse came up with another live streaming show.
Only twenty-four tickets are available for each performance. After receiving via e-mail a 9-page packet with instructions and some advance work required on your part, Kwong will challenge audiences with a series of games and wordplay, all while offering insight into some of the greatest puzzle-makers of all time.
Tickets, which are a hot commodity, are $75 per household. Or rather I should say, were $75. The initial run sold out immediately as did the extension into January that just went on sale Thursday, October 8.
A Mexican Trilogy: Faith, Part 1 – Latino Theater Company – Now – October 15th
In 2012, Latino Theatre Company produced an epic three-part play by Evelina Fernández that would go on to win the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle’s Ted Schmitt Award for the outstanding world premiere of a new play.
The company has begun streaming the first in that trilogy with the remaining plays to be streamed later this month.
The plays document several decades in the life of the Mexican-American Morales family.
Part 1 of A Mexican Trilogy is called Faith and begins in Arizona while World War II is raging. Esperanza and Silvestre are raising three daughters. Though the matriarch tries to keep the girls on a short leash, the attention they draw from neighborhood boys, nor the dreams of having a career as singers, can’t be so easily controlled.
By the time A Mexican Trilogy is concluded, this story has traveled from the 1940s to 2005.
José Luis Valenzuela directed A Mexican Trilogy. The cast includes Esperanza America, Olivia Delgado, Alexis de la Rocha, Sal Lopez, Xavi Moreno, Matias Ponce, Geoffrey Rivas and Lucy Rodriguez.
Home, Part 2 becomes available from October 13th – October 22nd. Charity, Part 3 will be available from October 20th – October 30th.
She Kills Monsters – Laguna Playhouse – October 9th – October 11th
Acclaimed playwright Qui Nguyen (Vietgone, Revenge Songs) created this version of She Kills Monsters specifically to be seen online. In fact, it is called She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realm.
The play, which is described by the playwright on his website as a Dungeons and Dragons comedy, has not only updated its many references, but has made adjustments so the play can be seen and performed using Zoom and other teleconferencing apps.
She Kills Monsters tells the story of a young girl, Average Agnes, leaving her home after the death of her sister, Tilly. When going through Tilly’s possessions she finds her Dungeons and Dragons notebook. That leads Agnes on an adventure where she learns more about her sister than she ever imagined.
Tickets are per household. General tickets are $20. There is an option for tickets for 16-24 year olds. Whatever the discount price is requires filling out a survey related to mental health issues and awareness of them.
If you are unable to watch She Kills Monsters this weekend, it will also be available October 16th – October 18th. Performances begin at 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT on each Friday and continue through 1:00 AM EDT Monday/10:00 PM PDT Sunday.
Los Angeles Dance Festival – October 9th – October 11th
This is the second weekend of this year’s Los Angeles Dance Festival. The programming begins at 9:00 PM EDT/6:00 PM PDT on Friday and continues through 3:00 AM EDT Monday/12:00 AM PDT. Each show is two hours in length.
The companies participating in this weekend’s programming are CyberYOGA (fitness and movement), 2DANCECOLLECTIVE, Jana Taylor and Dancers, Ironstone Dance (focused on queer narratives), cyan cian (performance art/dance), Luminario Ballet (Contemporary Ballet), Versastyle (Hip-Hop), Mixed eMotion Theatrix (modern dance), BrockusRED (multi-disciplinary), Danza Floricanto/USA (Mexican folk dance), Lula Washington (contemporary), Ken Morris Project, Kim Hyunsun, Kim Ok, Yoo Gawon.
The Los Angeles Dance Festival continues for two more weeks. We will include each week’s line-up in the next two upcoming Best Bets at Home.
Tosca – San Francisco Opera – October 10th – October 11th
San Francisco Opera resumes their streaming opera productions with this 2014 production of Giacomo Puccini’s opera.
It is quite likely that Tosca was the first opera to premiere in 1900. Its first performance was on January 14 in Rome. Based on Victorien Sardou’s 1887 play of the same name, Tosca‘s libretto was written by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
The setting for Tosca is Rome in 1800. The Napoleonic wars were raging and political unrest was omnipresent. The opera takes place over the course of slightly less than 24 hours. Floria Tosca is the object of Chief of Police Baron Scarpia’s lust. He uses suspicions that her lover, Mario Cavaradossi, aided a political prisoner who has escaped as an opportunity to get him out of his way which will leave Tosca for himself. After capturing Cavaradossi, Scarpia says that if Tosca doesn’t become his lover, he will have Cavaradossi killed.
Jose Maria Condemi directed this production with Riccardo Frizza conducting. Singing the role of Cavaradossi is Brian Jagde. Singing Scarpia is Mark Delavan. But the person making this greatest impact, as it should be in Tosca, is soprano Lianna Haroutounian singing the title role.
Haroutounian made her San Francisco Opera debut with this production. Critics hailed her performance. Joshua Kosman, writing in the San Francisco Gate, said of her performance, “Her rhythmic control is fluent, her low notes robust and full of life, and her stage presence at once charismatic and vulnerable. And yes, the big Act 2 aria, “Vissi d’arte,” was delivered with sympathetic ardor — but Haroutounian’s entire performance surrounding it was so gripping, from moment to moment and scene to scene, that that number was merely one splendor among many.”
Tosca becomes available on Saturday at 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT and remains available through 2:59 AM EDT Monday/11:59 PM PDT Sunday. The production runs 2 hours and 2 minutes.
Jessica Vosk: Coco Catch up – Birdland – October 10th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
Jessica Vosk has appeared on Broadway in Wicked, The Bridges of Madison County, Finding Neverland and the 2015 revival of Fiddler on the Roof. She’s a stunning singer (listen to her contributions to Georgia Stitt‘s A Quiet Revolution) and she has eclectic taste in music, too.
Her album, Wild and Free, is, in a word, delightful.
It finds her singing songs by Sara Bareilles, The Beatles, Jason Robert Brown, Billy Joel, Elton John, Melanie, Prince, Bonnie Raitt, Sia, Stephen Sondheim and Jule Styne.
For her concert from Birdland she will mix songs from the album with songs by Eva Cassidy, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. Joining Vosk are Marissa Rosen and Michael DiLiberto.
Tickets for this show are $23.50.
Hold On to Me Darling – The Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theater in Los Angeles – October 11th – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Mark Ruffalo, Michael Cera and Gretchen Mol will perform a staged reading of Hold On to Me Darling by Kenneth Longergan on Sunday as a fundraiser for The Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theater in Los Angeles.
New York’s Atlantic Theater Company gave the premiere of Hold On to Me Darling in 2016. The play tells the story of a successful country/western star, Strings McCrane, who moves back to his hometown in Tennessee after his mother has died. Given the playwright, you know there are going to be complications.
Neil Pepe, who directed the original production, directs this staged reading.
Ben Brantley, writing in the New York Times, said of the play and Lonergan’s writing, “In other words, you might expect Mr. Lonergan to have a natural affinity for obsessive, self-sabotaging people. And so it proves with ‘Darling,’ a poignant comic study of the bad faith and bad behavior of a narcissistic celebrity and those around him.”
Ruffalo appeared in Longeran’s films You Can Count on Me and Margaret. Cera has appeared on Broadway in two Lonergan plays, The Waverly Gathering and This Is Our Youth. Mol appeared in his film Manchester By the Sea.
There are two different tickets available to watch Hold On to Me Darling.
For $10 you will be able to watch the reading and the Q&A that will follow. A $100 ticket will add a signed poster by Ruffalo, entry to the Q&A with private chat and the ability to submit, in advance, a question for the cast, Longergan and Pepe.
Get Happy: Angela Ingersoll Sings Judy Garland – Laguna Playhouse – October 11th – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Angela Ingersoll has performed in multiple productions of End of the Rainbow as the famed star of A Star Is Born (1954), The Harvey Girls and, of course, The Wizard of Oz.
This two-hour concert will be performed live from Chicago. Ingersoll will sing many of Garland’s classic songs including “Over the Rainbow,” “The Trolley Song,” “Get Happy,” and “The Man That Got Away.” Immediately following the concert will be a talkback for online viewers.
Tickets are $35 per household.
Beth Leavel with Seth Rudetsky – October 11th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
Tony Award-winner Beth Leavel joins Seth Rudetsky for this weekend’s show of conversation and music. Leavel won her Tony Award for her performance as the title character in The Drowsy Chaperone. (A truly wonderful performance!)
She’s also received Tony nominations for Baby It’s You and The Prom. (You know that role is good when the upcoming film version by Ryan Murphy has Meryl Streep in that role. In another role reversal, Leavel will be taking on Streep’s role of Miranda Priestly in the Elton John musical of The Devil Wears Prada.)
All this adds up to what should be a terrific show on Sunday. If that showtime doesn’t work for you, there is an encore presentation of the show on Monday, October 12th at 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT. Tickets for either time are $25.
Before we conclude Best Bets at Home: October 9th – October 11th, a few reminders:
This week’s new episode of Sound/Stage from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is called Power to the People! from their series that was forced to end early due to the pandemic. The program includes performances of Jessie Montgomery’s Banner; William Grant Still’s Sorrow from his Symphony No. 1, “Afro-American” and Andra Day performing Rise Up from her 2015 album Cheers to the Fall. Gustavo Dudamel conducts.
Here are reminder’s from this week’s Jazz Stream:
October 9th: Abraham Burton Quartet performs from Smalls; SFJazz’s Fridays at Five this week is a Thelonious Monk Celebration; Theo Croker performs from Blue Note in New York; the Cyrus Chestnut Trio performs from Smoke Jazz and Supper Club
October 10th: Cyrus Chestnut Trio (second concert from Smoke); Chick Corea in a solo performance from his studio
October 11th: Melissa Aldana from Smalls
This weekend’s Table Top Shakespeare: At Home offerings are Henry IV, Part 1 on Friday, Henry IV, Part 2 on Saturday and Henry V on Sunday.
Here are the last three operas by Richard Wagner as part of the Metropolitan Opera’s Wagner Week: Siegfried on Friday; Götterdämmerung on Saturday and Parsifal on Sunday.
Wagner fans probably already know that Siegfried and Götterdämmerung are the final two operas in the four-opera Ring Cycle. So your interest in watching these two productions this weekend may be predicated on whether or not you’ve been watching this cycle earlier this week or whether or not you want to revisit the last two operas themselves.
There you have multiple options to keep yourself entertained with Best Bets at Home: October 9th – October 11th. Enjoy yourselves. Enjoy the shows!
Photo: Julio Macias, Elia Saldana, Olivia Delgado Young, Xavi Moreno and Esperanza America in A Mexican Trilogy (Photo by Grettel Cortes Photography-Courtesy Latino Theater Company)