One reason for this is our Top Pick this week actually happens on Monday. It’s a reunion of the original off-Broadway cast of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s musical Assassins.

There’s literally something for everyone this week with options for jazz, classical music, opera, dance, ballet and two top Broadway stars perform as well.

Here are the Best Bets: March 5th – March 8th:

*TOP PICK* – Assassins Reunion – Studio Tenn Theatre Company – March 8th – 8:00 EST/5:00 PM PST

On Monday, Studio Tenn Theatre in Franklin, Tennesse will be streaming a reunion of eleven of the original cast members of the Playwrights Horizon production of Assassins including: Victor Garber, Greg Germann, Annie Golden, Lyn Greene, Jonathan Hadary, Eddie Korbich, Terrence Mann, Debra Monk, William Parry and Lee Wilkof.

If you’re wondering why a theatre in Tennessee is holding this event, Studio Tenn Theatre’s Artistic Director is Patrick Cassidy who originated the role of The Balladeer in that production. He’s participating, of course.

If you aren’t familiar with the Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman musical Assassins, you should be. The show opened in December of 1990 at Playwrights Horizon in New York. It’s a musical that features successful and would-be presidential assassins as its subject matter. Yes, the likes of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme had their stories musicalized.

Sondheim and Weidman along with director Jerry Zaks, music director Paul Gemignani and orchestrator Michael Starobin will also participate.

The following clip is from Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall and features Patrick Cassidy and Victor Garber.

As Frank Rich explained in his New York Times review, “In Assassins, a daring work even by his lights, Mr. Sondheim and his collaborator, the writer John Weidman, say the unthinkable, though they sometimes do so in a deceptively peppy musical-comedy tone. Without exactly asking that the audience sympathize with some of the nation’s most notorious criminals, this show insists on reclaiming them as products, however defective, of the same values and traditions as the men they tried to murder.”

The timing of Assassins‘ opening wasn’t terrific. With the first Gulf War raging, producers didn’t believe audiences would be so interested in the show – even though the off-Broadway performances sold out.

Many consider the addition of the song, Something Just Broke, as a key to the musical’s emotional core. That song was added by Sondheim for the 1992 Donmar Warehouse Production. In a 1994 production in Toronto the characters of Lee Harvey Oswald and The Balladeer began to be played by the same actor.

Theatergoers did finally embrace the show, as did many critics, when the Roundabout Theatre staged the first Broadway production in 2004. That production would go on to win five Tony Awards including Best Revival of a Musical.

Given recent events in the past year, particularly the riot in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, this musical will be more topical than ever.

There is no charge to watch this reunion, however donations are certainly encouraged.

DANCE: ‘kwirē/ – REDCAT – Now – March 6th

This solo work by dancer/choreographer Jessica Emmanuel finds the dancer seeking details about her past from her ancestors. ‘kwirē/ takes place in a dystopian world. Most information about public and personal history along with ancestral information has long ago been destroyed. Very few human beings are still alive. Through dance and sound, Emmanuel utilizes natural resources to reconnect with her own memories and her DNA.

Emmanuel is Los Angeles-based and has worked with Poor Dog Group, Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre and countless other companies.

There are two performances this weekend available for streaming: Friday at 11:30 PM EST/8:30 PM PST and Saturday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST. Tickets are $15 for general admission; $12 for REDCAT members and students and $8 for CalArts students, faculty and staff.

BALLET: Wooden Dimes World Premiere – San Francisco Ballet – Now – March 24th

As part of their digital programming, San Francisco Ballet is presenting the world premiere of choreographer/director Danielle Rowe’s Wooden Dimes. Joining this work are two archived works: Symphony #9 by Alexei Ratmansky and Swimmer by Yuri Possokhov.

Symphony #9 had its world premiere by American Ballet Theatre in 2012. It is set to composer Dmitri Shostakovich’s 9th Symphony.

Ratmansky is a former dancer who went on to be the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet in 2004. He joined ABT in 2009 as Artist in Residence.

Symphony #9 features a cast of 21 dancers with two couples in the lead and a solo male. Can you dance to Shostakovich?

Wooden Dimes by Rowe features the music of composer James M. Stephenson. Not much is officially known about Wooden Dimes except that it takes place in the roaring 20s, is a backstage story and that it title comes from the expression “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

On Stephenson’s website, he says the ballet is about Fanny Brice (the actress brought to life by Barbra Streisand in the stage and film musical Funny Girl).

Swimmer as 1960s pop culture in its sightline. Posskhov, is a former dancer with both the Bolshoi Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet. He’s a very popular choreographer with SF Ballet and this work, which dates to 2015, is immensely popular.

His work is set to music by Shinji Eshima, Kathleen Brennan, Gavin Bryars and Tom Waits.

Tickets are $29 and allow for 72 hours of access.

PLAY: Jericho – New Normal Rep – Now – April 4th

In Jack Canfora’s play, Jericho, a family gathers for Thanksgiving in the aftermath of the September 11th tragedy. While that sounds like heavy material, Canfora infuses the play with generous amounts of humor and compassion. The play had its world premiere at the New Jersey Repertory Theatre in 2011.

Appearing in this reading of Jericho are C. K. Allen, Jill Eikenberry, Eleanor Handley, Jason O’Connel, Michael Satow and Carol Todd. Directing is Marsha Mason.

Anita Gates, in her New York Times review of the play said, “Mr. Canfora has delivered a smart, hard-hitting drama filled with biting wit. One character says: ‘It’s an oxymoron. Like jumbo shrimp or Fox News.’ The best jokes consist of wordplay with expletives that are not printable here. But to give you a sense of the tone, one character, Jessica, complains in Act I that her husband considers her occasional viewing of the celebrity-gossip show Access Hollywood ‘the moral equivalent of sodomizing kittens.’

Tickets are $25 and can be purchased here.

OPERA: The Marriage of Figaro – Royal Opera House – March 5th – April 4th

Conducted by Ivor Bolton; starring Erwin Schrott, Sophie Bevan, Stéphane Degout, Ellie Dehn, Kate Lindsey and Carlo Lepore. This revival of David McVicar’s 2006 production is from the 2015-2016 season.

Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro is based on the 1784 play La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (translated: “The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro”) by Pierre Beaumarchais.

Lorenzo da Ponte wrote the libretto. La Nozze di Figaro had its world premiere in Vienna in 1786.

Figaro and Susanna are getting married. They are in a room made available to them by the Count who plans to seduce the bride-to-be based on an old law that gave permission to lords to have sex with servant girls on their wedding night. When Figaro gets wind of this plan he enlists several people to outwit the Count using disguises, altered identities and more.

Tim Ashley, in his review for The Guardian, said, “At the centre of it all, however, lies a grand confrontation between Erwin Schrott’s Figaro, and Stéphane Degout’s Count. Schrott’s interpretation has also changed somewhat since he last sang the role here. There’s less political anger, more manipulative wit: he sings Se Vuol Ballare with bemused irony rather than scorn, not so much as a manifesto, but as a prelude to a game that turns increasingly dangerous. Degout, a wonderfully patrician singer with a handsome, ringing tone, has an innate charm that can turn to menace in a flash: it’s a superbly accomplished characterisation.

Tickets are £3 which equates to approximately $4.20.

JAZZ/EXPERIMENTAL: Laurie Anderson and Tammy L. Hall – SFJAZZ – March 5th – 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

In 2018 Laurie Anderson served as Resident Artistic Director for SFJAZZ. Over the course of one week in late November she performed and curated a series of concerts. Amongst them was Songs for Women.

Anderson was inspired to create Songs for Women after hearing Tammy L. Hall’s song For Miss Jones.

From there a musical collaboration was born with songs written for and about women by both artists.

Laurie Anderson is known for her innovative films and recordings including Big Science, Strange Angels and Home of the Brave.

SFJAZZ will stream this concert as part of their Fridays at Five series. You must have either monthly digital membership ($5) or an annual digital membership ($60) to stream this and all other Fridays at Five concerts.

BROADWAY/VOCALS: Leslie Odom Jr. in Concert – PBS – March 5th (Check local listings)

Tony Award winner Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton) performs Live From Lincoln Center in this concert which originally aired in 2018. But don’t expect to hear all of his songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s juggernaut of a musical. This performance showcases Odom’s jazz and soul chops.

As with all PBS programming, best to check your local listings. For instance, in Los Angeles this show is not scheduled to run until March 11th and 12th.

OPERA: Das Rheingold – San Francisco Opera – March 6th – March 7th

San Francisco Opera streams their 2018 production of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle with each of the four operas available in successive weeks. The first opera is, of course, Das Rheingold.

Conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles; starring Greer Grimsley, Jamie Barton, Falk Struckmann, Ronnita Miller and Stefan Margita.

This revival of Francesca Zambello’s 2011 production is from the 2017-2018 season.

This is the first in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (also known as The Ring Cycle). As with all four of these operas, Wagner wrote the music and the libretto. Das Rheingold had its world premiere in 1869 in Munich. It was premiered as a stand-alone opera. The first performance of the entire cycle was at Bayreuth in 1876.

Alberich is a dwarf who renounces love in his successful effort to take gold from the Rhinemaidens and have possession of a ring bestowing power to the wearer. With this one action, he sets in motion the storyline that runs through all four operas in the Ring Cycle. Fafner and Fasolt are the giants who built Valhalla. The long-suffering Wotan is introduced here as are the challenges the gods face in repaying the architects of Valhalla. When the ring is stolen from Alberich he puts a curse on it and on anyone who takes possession of it.

Zambello sets this production in the American west beginning with the Gold Rush and ending with the tech age.

All four operas in the Ring Cycle will be presented in order on consecutive weekends. There is also a Ring Festival with additional programs. You can find details about that here.

DANCE/CLASSICAL MUSIC: Sasha Waltz & Guests in C – Bang on a Can Website – March 6th – 2:00 PM EST/11:00 AM PST

If you thought dancing to Shostakovich was intriguing, how about dancing to Terry Riley’s In C? It’s a work that has an undefined length. Riley wrote 53 different musical phrases. They are all numbered. It is up to the musicians performing the work to figure out exactly how long they want to play each phrase, in what order and when they start.

Choreographer Sasha Waltz, Co-Director of the Staatsballett Berlin with Johannes Öhman for the 2019-2020 season, is using a recording of In C by Bang on a Can for this live-streaming performance from Berlin. Here’s how she explains what this project is:

“The score of In C consists of fifty-three musical phrases and reads like stage directions for musicians. The thought of translating these detailed instructions into dance through a choreographic exploration of the music appealed to me. The result is an experimental system of fifty-three movement phrases for a structured improvisation with clear rules and laws. The length of the piece remains variable, as does the number of musicians and dancers.”

There is no charge to watch the performance, but donations are encouraged.

DANCE: Israel Galván/Maestro de Barra, Servir el Baile – CapUCLA – March 6th – 10:00 PM EST/7:00 PM PST

To get a sense of flamenco dancer/choreographer Israel Galván, let’s turn to an interview he gave Dance Magazine in 2019 where he told them:

“I know it sounds odd, but I think I dance because I don’t like to dance. It’s not logical, but there is something freeing in accepting that. I literally cannot remember a time in my life when I didn’t dance. I’ve danced since I’ve had consciousness. It’s simply in my DNA. And you can’t escape what you are.

“I was always going to be a dancer, but my saving grace as an adult is that I don’t feel any pressure. I feel total freedom when it comes to how I choose to dance. As long as people continue asking me to perform, I will, but it has to be on my terms.”

His terms will be on full display on Saturday when CAP UCLA offers up Maestro de Barra Servir el Baile which roughly translated means Master of the Bar, Serving the Dance. This is Galván’s way of keeping dance alive during the pandemic. He utilizes the concept of music and dance as played out in cafes and bars around the world for this work.

There is no charge to stream this performance, however donations are encouraged.

BROADWAY/VOCALS: Eva Noblezada – Seth Concert Series – March 7th – 3:00 PM EST/12:00 PM PST with an encore at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST $25

If you were lucky enough to see Hadestown on Broadway before theatres closed in New York, you got to experience the wonderfully talented Eva Noblezada. She received her second Tony Award nomination for her performance as Eurydice in the musical.

Her first nomination came for her performance as Kim in the 2017 revival of Miss Saigon.

Noblezada is Seth Rudetsky’s guest for this weekend’s conversation and performance program.

Tickets are $25. Note that the schedule has changed a little for these performances (at least through the month of March.) The live show is in the afternoon on Sunday and the encore stream of the performance is Sunday evening.

JAZZ: Alan Broadbent Trio – Smalls Live – March 7th – 5:00 PM EST/2:00 PM PST and 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

For nearly 50 years, pianist Alan Broadbent has been making great music. He’s worked as a bandleader and has collaborated with some of the biggest names in multiple genres of music. That list would include David Byrne, Kristin Chenoweth, Natalie Cole, Charlie Haden, Shirley Horn, Diana Krall, Linda Ronstadt and Barbra Streisand.

If you haven’t heard his solo recording, Heart to Heart from 2013, I suggest you do so. It’s beautiful.

For these two sets at New York’s Smalls Broadbent will be joined by Billy Mintz on drums and Harvie S on bass.

You can make reservations for either streaming show (which includes a donation), or you can wait for the show to just go live at the link above.

That does it for Best Bets: March 5th – March 8th. But I want to remind you of a few other options I’ve already covered this week:

The Los Angeles Philharmonic begins the second season of Sound/Stage on Friday, March 5th with a performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Carnival of the Animals. Yuja Wang and David Fung join Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for this performance filmed on the stage at the Hollywood Bowl.

CaltechLive! has begun streaming Herbert Sigüenza’s A Weekend with Pablo Picasso. You can read our full preview here and my interview with Sigüenza here.

The 25th anniversary celebration of Rent will remain available through 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST on Saturday, March 6th.

This weekend’s offerings from the Metropolitan Opera where they are celebrating Women’s History Month are Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes from the 2007-2008 season on Friday; Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka from the 2013-2014 season on Saturday and Giuseppe Verdi’s La Forza del Destino from the 1983-1984 season on Sunday.

With our new line-up extending to Monday, here’s a preview of next week at the Metropolitan Opera: Monday’s production is Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut from the 1979-1980 season and kicks off Week 52 at the Met with the theme Verismo Passions.

I hope you enjoy your weekend and enjoy whichever of my Best Bets: March 5th – March 8th interest you the most! Have fun!

Main photo: The cast of the Playwright’s Horizon production of Assassins (Photo courtesy Studio Tenn Theatre Company)

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We spoke on December 15th as 2020 was nearing its end; the Covid crisis was escalating instead of diminishing; a new president had been elected and three weeks before the turmoil that shocked the world on January 6th.

Last week we got an update on CAP UCLA’s remaining events in their 2020-2021 season when it was announced on January 15th that all previously scheduled live events for this season had been cancelled. Not a surprise after what Edmunds told me.

What follows are excerpts from that conversation which have been edited for length and clarity.

When we spoke in March you said that it was important on an emotional and structural level to have a future time you can work towards. How have you managed the constantly shifting realities of the pandemic and how that impacts your ability to put a schedule together?

You know what I did at the beginning, I think you fall forward towards your biggest values. It clarifies things, at least for me. I had to pull my mind towards what is it we can do. What is my top priority? I decided early on to start initiating commissions, as in micro-commissions, commission with a small “c,” to as many different artists as we could to manifest different kinds of work.

What are you seeing as the cultural response, particularly in the creation of new material, to this past year?

There’s a lot of pretty deep soul searching. What is the work that feels the most necessary? Not necessarily my next idea, but what do I have to offer into this dialogue now where this economy is profoundly altered. I think many of them – and it depends on the art form – what are the stories that need to be told that help the public find a way back together. They are composing and making and thinking. You watch artists really authentically try to invent how they can contribute their artistry in a different way, which is revealing their humanity in a different way. There’s been a lot of really remarkable results.

Our biggest concern is how we put our bodies back together and try to hold a stage in a meaningful way. An audience is going to be ready to see us at top speed. It will take us a while to get there.

Over the past four years we’ve had an administration in place that essentially actively tried to defund the arts. With the Biden administration how do you expect the dialogue between government and the performing arts to change?

I think we’ll have some ears on that this time around. One of the biggest pieces that will fall forward in this is how do we now work on creating a national cultural policy. How do we look at the roll government does – and can – play in how artists are at the table for social and cultural belonging? We play a pretty substantial role in the grief of a nation coming back together in a much more compassionate way. That cultural policy and how we are valued for what we generate into a national and global community matters.

Our activity accrues benefits to society adjacent to us. Meaning, we seek money to sustain our practices. What we spend it on, and what our activities generate, benefits businesses peripherally and interdependent on us. The more we are put back into activation with a baseline support for that activation, it helps a recovery where adjacent interlocking things benefit along with us.

Can and will the arts fully recover from the pandemic? If so, what will it take?

In the health department updates I get, it will likely be unevenly distributed based on what part of the country we live in. It’s pretty clear that most of us, larger venues or anything with 200 or more people, are being strongly encouraged to look at early 2022 as to when we’ll probably have some more mobility of gathering to some scale. That’s a long time. Ticket revenues make up 50-75% of most organizations’ annual budget. That is eviscerated and will continue to be. The economic fallout will be much larger and longer. It’s probably an additional three years before you see something rebound.

When you look back on 2020, what were the best things to come out of the pandemic?

One of the best things was the way in which colleagues and organizations across the spectrum – from small tiny community cultural spaces up to the grand halls – we started sharing ideas, problem-solving, working on contract language, connections. You’re always reasonably pivoted within your profession and your eco-system to collaborate in service to one another in the big picture. How can we keep a cultural framework functioning? How can we keep each other persisting? How can we help each other overcome denial? How can we share strategies? A lot of those things were a really remarkable piece of it.

You told KCET during the Tune-In Festival that one thing that was important about the festival was to “ignite the public to stay strong and feel inspired.” How have you ignited yourself to do the same thing?

For me it’s about continuing to be in lockstep with what artists are doing. I can have a conversation with an artist, who is as profoundly distraught as I might be, but in that conversation we are able to reignite one another, to keep trying, to find a form, to change what that might be and keep trying.

I was talking to a dancer and she said live performance isn’t happening right now, but the dance is still alive. Artists are going “How do we keep collaborating and work with each other?” Artists are finding these places where somehow the glue in the cracks is a kind of kindness and compassion and a willingness to manifest some form of connection. That is ultimately what is going to be what the tail end of this is. We’ve been able to stand in solidarity with people and say we are here as part of what this is. We are able stand in front of a country that doesn’t understand our practice, but did find out that they actually missed us.

CAP UCLA’s upcoming streaming programs includes an already-running concert with saxophone legend Charles Lloyd (available through January 31st); Douglas J. Cuomo’s Seven Limbs featuring Nels Cline and the Aizuri Quartet (available February 12th) and Israel Galván Maestro de Barra on March 6th.

Photo of Kristy Edmunds by Lovis Ostenrick/Courtesy CAP UCLA

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