Kudisch has also spent considerable time in operas and shows that are more operatic in nature. He appeared in David Lang’s Anatomy Theater, Ricky Ian Gordon‘s Sycamore Trees and Michael John LaChiusa‘s See What I Want to See. This week he will return to the role of The Older Man in Emma O’Halloran and Mark O’Halloran‘s one-act opera Trade. LA Opera is presenting Trade along with the O’Halloran’s Mary Motorhead at REDCAT in Los Angeles from April 27th – April 30th.

In Trade, Kudisch’s character spends the opera with The Younger Man (Kyle Bielfield) who is a rent boy. Their intimacy is not physical, but rather emotional. Both characters pursue a naked honesty that has nothing to do with sex.

In early March I spoke with Kudisch about his passion for the kind of stories that are told on opera stages and how that work is different than what he does on Broadway. We also talk about the power of music when words fail and the self-imposed prisons we all put ourselves in…just like his character in Trade. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

You told Stage Buddy in 2017, that as a performer, “I’m not interested in adulation. I’m in it for the conversation. I say yes to projects where I can be there to see how the audience receives it.” What was it about the conversation that Trade offers that made you say yes even before it was completely written?

First of all, I love the music. I just liked what Emma was writing in terms of a sonic environment. From that, I knew that it was going to be an uneasy conversation on the course of the night. Even in the aria. The first thing that we did was we polished and recorded at least the older man’s aria. That happened during the pandemic.

I liked the idea of someone who lacks the skill set of expression. I think that in many ways it is metaphorical for where we are right now. There are a lot of people out there who lack the skill set to truly express themselves. But I think some of us are trying very hard to do so.

This is a man who seems to be stumbling towards honesty by the end of by the end of the piece, which sounds like an intriguing arc for any actor to play.

I like stuff that’s honest, right? Engaging to me is just being honest. Not apologizing. Not trying to put a bow on anything because that’s not on us – not in today’s world. More often than not, when things get musicalized, they get romanticized because obviously music is a heightened state. When words aren’t enough, that’s when music kicks in. But also it’s about the heart, the senses opening up, even in the hardest or most challenging conditions.

For this man, like for me, I just look for hope. I don’t need a happy ending. I don’t want a happy ending. I want hope. That’s the thing that I think is so cathartic about the piece. The older man, frankly the younger man, by opening themselves up, by even just acknowledging their situation and trying to talk about it, there’s hope for an actual conversation to go beyond where they are now. That’s real and that’s moving. Because you can actually believe that other people of that ilk might want to, or after this attempt, communicate beyond where they’ve been. It’s what we’ve got to do. 

I had an opportunity to speak to Mark and Emma prior to the world premiere of Trade at Prototype. Mark said that he believes that at the end of Trade the older man has hit bottom. Mark doesn’t know if he moves up from there or not. What are your thoughts about where he might go after this, or is that even important to you? 

It’s not important to me because I have to play the moment. I play the event and I play the event moment to moment to moment to moment. It is incredibly important to the audience. If we do our job right that will be the conversation over dinner and then over breakfast the next day and then over a cup of coffee three weeks later. My responsibility is not to that. That’s the audience’s responsibility. My responsibility is not to judge.

My last Broadway show before working on this opera [Girl From the North Country], was again with an Irish playwright/director: Conor McPherson. [I was] playing a man that was not dissimilar in terms of where he was in his life and the decisions that he was making. And I loved that. I love in Irish literature that there’s a real exploration of men in intense circumstance. I can only speak from the male point of view, I don’t know where he ends up. I mean, I have my ideas of what possibly happens. But for sure, it’s weird. He hits bottom. But in hitting bottom he is at his best now. 

And he’s found a moment of truth. 

100% He achieved what he set out to do. It may have not have gone the way that he wanted it to, clearly. But he actually achieved what he set out to do. And that to me is a lot. Again, this is a piece that’s maybe not meant to have completion for him, but who knows who’s sitting in the audience. 

It doesn’t even have a completion for Mark. He wrote the play he adapted for the libretto.

It’s a beautiful play and I always stayed focused on the play. What I love about the piece is that when Mark saw the opera, he saw a whole different play that he had never even realized before. Which was really sort of wonderful to see on his face when he saw it for the first time. 

I love the opera of it. We’re talking about modern opera which I am a huge fan of. The same way that when I first discovered musical theater, I feel the same way about modern opera right now. Frankly, it’s far more interesting to me than anything on Broadway, because it’s sort of like when I first got to New York and I was doing theater. That was what we were doing. It feels like opera’s picked up those reins and has taken the reins and is moving forward in that direction.

I’ve seen you in The Wild Party. I saw you in Thoroughly Modern Millie. I saw you in A Little Night Music. I saw you in Assassins. I saw you in 9 to 5. But the show I saw you in that seems to have as much to offer you as an actor in parallel to what you do in Anatomy Theater or in Trade is actually See What I Want to See.

I wish you would have seen Girl From the North Country, which was my last Broadway show by Conor, which is a spectacular piece of theater and truly a play with music as opposed to musical. You would never forget it once you’ve seen it.

I loved See What I Want To See. First of all, I have such a long relationship with Michael John LaChiusa. Also I did an incredible piece for him down in Washington and never got to New York called The Highest Yellow, which was about Vincent van Gough, which was also spectacular. Michael John writes music theater aria. I don’t know why he hasn’t written more opera. He should. I keep poking at him to do it. That’s my longest relationship in terms of working relationship. His writing is incredible.

See What I Want to See is incredible. There’s an aria that I sing called Central Park and it is an aria. It’s one of my favorite things that I’ve ever created. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. It was a real collaboration with Michael John and I and it took a while to find it. But once we found it, there’s nothing else like it.

Do projects like Anatomy Theater and Trade challenge you vocally in different ways than other shows that you’ve done?

Yeah. I’m more interested in the intent. The truth is given where they both vocally sit, for me they’re not vocally taxing. It’s the intention that is the joy and the fun. I am classically a cavalier baritone. That is genuinely what I am. But for whatever the reason is, in most of the modern opera work that I do, I’m a bass baritone. That’s because, I guess, of the character or the intention of the character. So I’ve practiced my voice in that space. In some ways it becomes challenging because you almost have to re-register yourself. It’s hard to describe.

Because I work in so many different mediums and vernaculars of music, I have to keep my voice flexible. If I’m singing a pop score I place it in one place. If I’m singing a Broadway score, because it’s eight shows a week now, you cannot sing operatically eight shows a week. I don’t care who you are. So it has to be placed that way. If I’m singing something like Anatomy Theater or I’m singing something like Trade, then I have to place it here. I just have to constantly think because I have to keep flexible. 

In Anatomy Theatre there are moments where I wanted it to be nasal and shrill and harsh to play with the audience, to mess with them.

In an opera that’s already messing with the audience anyway.

I love it so much because it is a dangerous piece. I want us to do it again. I think we’ve gone through this period of time where it was just too sensitive. But I think we’re back at a period of time where I find it to be very necessary. But yeah, it’s subversive. Especially my character just beats you. Beats you with your own judgment.

In Trade it’s the opposite. We don’t come to you. You come to us. Trade is very much, even though it is an opera, it is very much a play, which I think is what is fascinating about the piece. It’s what I really love about the piece. It is not presentational. It is them reaching out, trying to communicate to the other. It thrashes at times and it’s super quiet at times. And again there are moments where I don’t want to sound pretty. It’s hard for this guy to say what he’s saying. If it was open and confident and beautiful the whole time that would be dishonest.

There are these brief phrases that each of these characters have. Then, particularly with the with the older man, all of a sudden he just spews his guts out. What Mark told me was that there’s a point where he these characters run out of words to say until it builds up and then suddenly everything comes to them. That’s got to be tremendous for you.

Oh, it is tremendous because it’s real. Look, acting is overrated. It just is. When I hear an actor say, “Oh, I pretend for a living,” it bothers me because I want to say, “Then you’re not a very good actor.” I don’t. I tell the truth. It’s not hard to tell the truth when what’s written on the page is truthful. And it’s also truthful, not just in its content, but in how the character sounds very much like that character. No one else should sound like that person. That’s when you know you’ve got something specific.

Sondheim said it all the time, and I think he stole it from Oscar Wilde, “The more specific you are, the more universal it becomes.” It’s a very specific play and because of that acting is not necessary. I just have to be with the character. Being a man of a certain age now, and having the amount of experience that I have in my life now, I don’t have to look far to relate to what the older man is going through. I just have to be in the play. With not only the play, but with the audience moment to moment to moment. That’s all we have to worry about. That’s all I have to think about.

Emma described the two pieces, Trade and Mary Motorhead, as being about people imprisoned in their own worlds. Characters like these prove endlessly fascinating for us as an audience. As somebody who gets to bring these stories and to characters to life, what is it about “people imprisoned in their own worlds” that is such a rich opportunity for you as an actor and compelling for you as a human being?

Because we are all people that are imprisoned. We are all people that are imprisoned in this novel of fiction that we write in our heads every day of our lives. There is not a soul walking the planet that has not formed some form of a cell or a box or a linear limitation of what the world is for them that they can, or allow themselves, to live in. Sometimes the cell is more literal than other times. That is why Mary Motorhead is so beautiful with ours.

Mary Motorhead is far more direct than our piece. You know, it’s a mono drama. Naomi just thrashes through that thing. It’s so fantastic. But interestingly, that is a character who is in prison and far freer human being than my character. [He’s] in his own prison, his own device of a prison. It’s a fascinating dichotomy. The two pieces could not be more polar opposite and yet more deeply connected. 

I say it all the time: technology constantly changes, constantly advances. The human condition remains the same. Will always remain the same. Always. We will never change as human beings. We will never evolve in my opinion. So the best thing we can do to connect is to merely acknowledge that is who and what we are. Acknowledge our flaws. Acknowledge our foibles. Acknowledge our limitations. Acknowledge the cells we create for each other. Only then is there a conversation about opening the door and letting ourselves out.

To see the full interview with Marc Kudisch, please go here.

Photo: Mark Kudisch (Courtesy LA Opera)

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Prima Facie – Golden Theatre – New York, NY

Jodie Comer stars in this play by Suzie Miller that is now playing on Broadway. Miller and Comer won Olivier Awards for Best New Play and Best Actress at this year’s Olivier Awards. Could Tony Awards all come their way?

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Good Night, Oscar – Belasco Theatre – New York, NY Sean Hayes stars in this play about Oscar Levant written by Doug Wright and directed by Lisa Peterson. The show originated in Chicago and received rave reviews for both the play and for Hayes.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

TRADE/Mary Motorhead – LA Opera at REDCAT – Los Angeles, CA – April 27^th – April 30^th

These two one-act operas by composer Emma O’Halloran and her librettist uncle, Mark O’Halloran, debuted at the Prototype Festival in New York earlier this year. Now they are in Los Angeles with original cast members Kyle Bielfield, Mark Kudisch and Naomi Louisa O’Connell in tow.

For tickets and more information, please go here.

Dee Dee Bridgewater & Bill Charlap – SFJAZZ – San Francisco April 27^th – April 30^th

Rarely have two artists so perfectly melded their talents the way jazz singer Bridgewater and pianist Charlap do in concert. I’ve seen them twice and would go again and again given the opportunity. You have the opportunity to hear how great this duo is even if you don’t live in San Francisco. Their performance on April 28^th will be streaming live at 7:30 PM PT (with an encore showing on April 29^th at 11 AM PT).  

For in-person tickets and more information, please go here. For streaming tickets and information, please go here.

Champion – Met Opera Live in HD – Cinemas Worldwide – April 29^th – 12:55 PM ET/9:55 AM PT

This Saturday the Metropolitan Opera will present Terence Blanchard’s first opera, Champion, in a live transmission from the Met in New York City. Ryan Speedo Green, Eric Owens, Latonia Moore, Stephanie Blythe, Paul Groves and Eric Greene star in this opera based on the true story of boxer Emile Griffith. The production is directed by James Robinson with choreography by Camille A. Brown (both of whom were involved in the world premiere of Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones.) Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.

To find a theater near you, please go here.

Photo: Ryan Speedo Green in Champion (Photo by Ken Howard/Courtesy Met Opera)

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Mark is best known as a screenwriter and playwright. His plays serve as the source material for these two operas. Mary Motorhead, which was first performed in 2001, depicts a woman (Naomi Louisa O’Connell) in prison who stabbed her husband in the head. While there she ponders what led her to this grisly act of violence.

Trade, first performed in 2011, tells the story of a married man (Marc Kudisch) and his relationship with a young hustler (Kyle Bielfield). It is revealed that both men feel trapped in their very different lives.

Emma, who has written works for large and small ensembles, never thought she would write an opera. But as I learned in my interview with her and uncle Mark, life is full of surprises and revelations. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

Does the adage write what you know fit either of you? If so, how is that reflected in these two very interesting pieces?

Mark: As a literary person, I don’t believe in writing just what you know. I believe in writing from what you know so that your own perspective is brought into anything. You can also write about anything you want. So the two works, from my point of view, originated because they were works of imagination really. They weren’t something that I’d been through.

When these were conceived as operas did both of you conceive them as works that would coexist together?

Emma: I don’t think so. I hadn’t ever really imagined that I would write an opera. I had entered this competition that Beth Morrison Projects was running around 2018. I had progressed through and I got a small commission to write a 30-minute minor drama or chamber opera. It was more a case of, Oh God, I need to find a subject matter that I can work with. And I remember seeing Mary Motorhead as a play. This will be what an amazing character study.

My impression of opera up until that point was that the women are like hysterical two-dimensional characters who are inevitably murdered. And Mark’s character, Mary Motorhead, is just the total opposite. She’s all of these messy and complicated things. And it felt really exciting to dive in there. I think Mark’s language is just musical. There is an economy there where something can be conveyed through a look or a gesture. So there’s loads of room for music to come around. I just loved working with Mark, so it was let’s try another one together. 

Mark, do you find writing a libretto as having different requirements and a learning curve for you that is different than writing a play or screenplay? 

Mark: I think certainly it’s different from a play. I think the first question I asked Emma was does it have to rhyme? I was very happy to find out that it didn’t. But I find that music is unique in that it can do two, three different things at the same time. Whereas language really is only doing one thing for you. So you were able to just peel back and peel back and peel back. A lot of the plays or the screenplays that I write, as people would say, are kind of full of silences. But actually there were a lot more words than we needed. I haven’t seen it live yet, but I’ve heard it sung and it’s just beautiful listening to that. It has been an interesting learning curve to see how language fits in with music.

How much does music play a role from your perspective in making these stories more approachable from the audience’s point-of-view? We’re not dealing with necessarily the nicest characters.

Emma: I definitely don’t think either myself or Mark want to tell somebody how to feel. But what’s exciting for me is this is really character-driven and you really get to know and like the characters. So even if they do unlikable things, we’re all complicated, messy human beings. I think that people are kind of mirrors for each other. Especially in Trade when there’s two people sort of interrogating each other. They’re triggered by things that they see in the other character that they might not like within themselves.

In terms of the music, to try and find a way into it, I’ll try and build worlds these characters can exist in. So before I even write a melody line I’m going to be creating like a Pinterest moodboard of sounds. So I want it to feel as real as possible for them to feel like fully-fledged people; they’re human. Maybe that’s the way for people to get to know someone that they may never encountered themselves in their lives. 

Mark, there’s a line in the libretto for Mary Motorhead that really resonated with me and stood out as maybe this is where the story pivots. She says “And slowly we stopped laughing so much.” As soon as I read that line I thought that’s the moment where it turns for me as an audience. Is that an accurate perception and does that line carry as much significance as it seems to on on the printed page? 

Mark: Funny enough, that monologue, as it was in the theater, formed part of a series of monologues. There was a monologue from her husband’s perspective – he who gets the knife in the head. There was some of their friends. There was also a monologue for her. I think what I was interested in doing was writing a series of disappointed lives. I mean they’re kind of extreme versions of it. But people who, when they were kids, are all full of like, oh fuck that. Then they realize that this fronting up or this kind of put-on thing ultimately undoes them. They get to a certain point where they can’t get away from it anymore and they’ve wrecked everything. I think that moment is probably what it is, but what it pivots around is we stop laughing and after we stop laughing what is there left. There’s nothing really for them to save themselves in a way.

Reading the libretto for Trade, and I want both of you to comment on this, there are these very short lines through most of it and then suddenly they spill their guts out. Mark, what did you want to show about who these characters are when they finally opened up? And Emma, how does that allow you an opportunity with the music to more fully open up?

Mark: They get to a certain point where their language runs out. They don’t have the language to describe themselves anymore or the predicament anymore. Then when they do find it, it comes out in a flood. Usually when you write in that kind of a way, writing the dialogue becomes revelation within the moment. I’m not even sure why I’m telling you this, but bang, there you go. It has a dramatic impact, I think. So that lent a lot of ease to the idea of writing an aria or something like that. You can take those moments and really deepen them, I think. 

Emma: Mark’s kind of written the pacing into the opera, which makes my life so much easier – when you have someone that’s only responding with a yeah or a voice and then there’s a lot of silence in between. I extended those silences to really have this incredible tension so that the release of someone actually singing about I dreamt about you last night or whatever is really powerful.

The two actors/singers in rehearsal, putting it together section by section, may have had some questions about this silence feeling like a really long time. But then when it actually was all put together and we did a run, those silences were so necessary. The tension at the very start makes the ending so much more powerful. I don’t think I would be able to do anything like that without Mark’s words.

What do you think that these two pieces have in common?

Mark: They’re not traditional fodder for making of opera stories. But they are love stories, actually, at the heart of each of them. Really broke and screwed-up love stories. So maybe that’s good. There’s a bit of attempted murder. At one point in one of them there’s a bit of violence. I think they work as operas. They both are stories of of shattered people. And I think that’s really interesting to find music to lift them up. 

Emma: One person is in a prison, but they’re all sort of imprisoned in their own worlds. I realized with both Mary Motorhead and with Trade, because the sets are small confined spaces, it’s exciting for me because I can get the music to be the thing that creates the expansive world. I think that connects them.

With these two operas your lives both carried off into directions you weren’t anticipating. What have you learned about yourselves in the creation of these two pieces and how do you think that will influence what you do moving forward?

Mark: I have learned absolutely nothing about myself. Only that sometimes stories are malleable. They can move from one form to the next, but you have to put work in to get them there. The idea I’m suddenly the author of a libretto of an opera seems very posh to me and and I’m very delighted. Trade was produced by the Dublin International Theater Festival here in Dublin. It was done as a site-specific work. We took over the bedroom of a small B&B hotel and put a small little riser in there so that we could fit 30 people in there. It’s just a small room. I like the idea that this small room has now gone to New York. In some way that it’s traveled.

Emma: I definitely never imagined writing an opera. But funnily enough, I think it’s the one thing that I feel like I can do really well. Where with all other music I’m generally like, “Oh Jesus, this is horrible. Like, who would ever listen to this thing? I don’t know what I’m doing.” When it comes to actually words and then music coming together, I just feel like I have an instinct for it and it’s really exciting.

I only realized that when I got into the room for Mary Motorhead and saw Naomi acting and the music interacting with her and then lights. All of these elements coming together to tell a story. How powerful is that and how powerful is it that you can tell a story? That’s where the music is, the driving force. It definitely sort of awoke something inside of me. I want to keep doing more of this. So I don’t know whether it will mean I just only do to opera, but I will think more theatrically about other things, too.

Mary Motorhead and Trade will also be presented by LA Opera Off-Grand at REDCAT from April 27th – April 30. For tickets and more information, please go here.

To watch the full interview with Emma O’Halloran and Mark O’Halloran, please go here.

Photo: Librettist Mark O’Halloran and composer Emma O’Halloran (Courtesy Prototype Festival)

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Assassins looks at both successful and would-be presidential assassins. It’s a thoroughly engaging and thoughtful musical that suggests the fame these folks are seeking is not radically different than the attention the presidents and politicians receive.

John Doyle, Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company and a Tony Award winner for Best Director of the 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd, will be joined by Sondheim and Weidman for the event.

Participating from the original off-Broadway production at Playwrights Horizons in 1990 are:

Patrick Cassidy – (Balladeer); Victor Garber (John Wilkes Booth); Greg Germann (John Hinckley, Jr.); Annie Golden (Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme); Lyn Greene (Bystander/Emma Goldman); Jonathan Hadary (Charles Guiteau); Eddie Korbich (Guiseppe Zangara); Terrence Mann (Leon Czolgosz); Debra Monk (Sara Jane Moore); William Parry (understudy for Leon Czolgosz/Samuel Byck); Lee Wilkof (Samuel Byck) and Jerry Zaks (director).

Joining from the Roundabout Theatre Company 2004 Tony Award-winning revival are:

Becky Ann Baker (Sara Jane Moore); Mario Cantone (Samuel Byck); Michael Cerveris (John Wilkes Booth; Tony Award); Mary Catherine Garrison (Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme); Alexander Gemignani (John Hinckley, Jr.); Ken Krugman (Swing); Marc Kudisch (The Proprietor); Joe Mantello (Director); Anne L. Nathan (Emma Goldman); Denis O’Hare (Charles Guiteau); Chris Peluso (Understudy/Swing) and Sally Wilfert (Swing).

Joining from the upcoming Classic Stage Company production are:

Adam Chanler-Berat (John Hinckley, Jr.); Eddie Cooper (The Proprietor); Tavi Gevinson (Lynette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme); Andy Grotelueschen (Samuel Byck); Judy Kuhn (Sara Jane Moore); Steven Pasquale* (John Wilkes Booth); Ethan Slater (The Balladeer/Lee Harvey Oswald); Will Swenson (Charles Guiteau); Wesley Taylor (Guiseppe Zangara) and Brandon Uranowitz (Leon Czolgosz).

There are also special guests:

Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Marys Seacole); André De Shields (Hadestown – Tony Award); Raúl Esparza (2006 revival of Company directed by Doyle); Brad Giovanine (Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812); Ann Harada (2017 production of Pacific Overtures at CSC); Bianca Horn (2017 revival of The Color Purple directed by Doyle); Greg Jarrett (Music Director of CSC’s Pacific Overtures); Whit K. Lee (Junie B. Jones); Audra McDonald (you know who she is); Rob Morrison (Frankenstein at CSC); Mary Beth Peil (2008 revival of Sunday in the Park with George and 2011 revival of Follies); George Takei (CSC’s Pacific Overtures); Katrina Yaukey (2006 revival of Company); Tony Yazbeck (2008 revival of Gypsy) and Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Though the event is free, registration is required. Tell the Story will be available for streaming through April 19th only.

*Pasquale played the same part in the 2017 Encores! Off-Center production.

Photo: John Weidman and Will Swenson (Photo by Ahron R. Foster/Courtesy Classic Stage Company)

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Topping this week’s list is AMPLIFY a gala fundraiser event by and for Maestra, an organization that supports and helps develop women composers, writers and musicians working in musical theatre. This is a great organization and they have an excellent event planned.

So here are my Four Days of Best Bets: March 26th – March 29th:

*TOP PICK* BROADWAY VOCALS: Amplify 2021 – Maestra – March 29th – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Maestra is an organization founded by songwriter/composer Georgia Stitt. On Monday night they are having a gala featuring Ashley Park, Nikki M. James, Brandon Victor Dixon, Tanya Birl, Kenita Miller, Shelley Thomas, Eva Noblezada and Reeve Carney, along with appearances from Anaïs Mitchell (Tony Award-winning creator of Hadestown), Kirsten Childs (OBIE Award-winning creator of Bubbly Black Girl), Helen Park (Lortel Award-winning creator of KPOP), Rona Siddiqui (Larson Award-winning creator of Salaam Medina: Tales of a Halfghan), Britt Bonney, Kristy Norter, Dionne McClain-Freeney, Meg Zervoulis, Kat Sherrell, Nicole Rebolledo, Stitt, and a special appearance by Bernadette Peters. Shoshana Bean will sing an original song with music, lyrics and orchestrations by Maestra member Lynne Shankel (Allegiance) for the finale of the event.

The event will be hosted by Brooks Ashmanskas (The Prom) and Andrea Burns (In the Heights). The event is produced and directed by Kate Baldwin (Hello, Dolly!). Baldwin appears on Stitt’s 2020 album A Quiet Revolution. You should check out her song, The Water Is Wide, and the entire album.

Tickets range from free to $500. Those who are able to pay for the higher-priced tickets will have access to post-show events with Gavin Creel & Celia Keenan-Bolger; “Chers” Stephanie J. Block, Teal Wicks & Micaela Diamond; Chaplin co-stars Jenn Colella & Rob McClure; Book of Mormon original stars Nikki M. James & Michael James Scott; Mean Girls Ashley Park & Erika Henningsen; and The Prom stars Caitlin Kinnunen & Isabelle McCalla. If you are interested in purchasing one of those tickets, you must do so by 5:00 PM EDT/2:00 PM PDT on Sunday, March 28th.

MUSICAL: BKLYN – The Musical – Stream.theatre – Now – April 4th

Mark Schoenfeld and Barri McPherson collaborated on this musical based on his own experiences as a street musician. From personal experience to Broadway where Brooklyn opened in the fall of 2004.

The musical depicts a group of homeless musicians performing a show about a girl from Paris searching for her father. She gets discovered when performing with the group under the Brooklyn Bridge and becomes a big star, but one still trying to find her dad. It’s actually structured as a play-within-a-play.

Sejal Keshwala, Emma Kingston, Newton Matthews, Jamie Muscato and Marisha Wallace staged in this filmed production from Ugly Duck, London Bridge in England.

You’ll have a choice of either a specific showtime or an on-demand purchase to watch the musical. Tickets are £18 which includes service charges. That’s approximately $25.

VOCALS: Giles Terera in Black Matter – Now – March 31st

Just as Leslie Odom Jr. won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance as Aaron Burr in Hamilton, Giles Terera won the British equivalent, The Olivier, for his performance in the same role in London.

During the pandemic, Terera took to expressing his feelings and experiences during the pandemic and with all the social upheaval by writing songs. He performs that song cycle, Black Matter, in a concert filmed at Crazy Coqs in the Soho area of London.

Terera received rave reviews for Black Matter. Tickets are £13 (which includes service charges) which equals approximately $18.

PLAY: The Thanksgiving Play – Spotlight on Plays on Broadway’s Best Shows – Now – March 29th

Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse received a MacArthur “Genius” Grant in 2020 and it was largely due to her well-received and often performed The Thanksgiving Play. As part of their Spotlight on Plays series, Broadway’s Best shows is streaming a reading of the play with Bobby Cannavale, Keanu Reeves, Heidi Schreck and Alia Shawkat.

The premise finds four white people trying to put together a culturally-sensitive Thanksgiving play to be performed in schools.

Jesse Green, in his New York Times review, said of FastHorse’s play:

“Just because a target’s too easy doesn’t mean it won’t make a satisfying meal. Take turkeys, or the holiday they stand for. In Larissa FastHorse’s The Thanksgiving Play, which opened on Monday at Playwrights Horizons, the familiar, whitewashed story of Pilgrims and Native Americans chowing down together gets a delicious roasting from expert farceurs.”

Tickets are $15. This play will only be available through Monday at 6:00 PM EDT.

MUSICAL/DANCE: Tango the Musical – Center Theatre Group – Now – March 28th

The music of Astor Piazzolla serves as the foundation for this show from Argentina. Eleven dancers perform Argentina’s most famous dance while accompanied by a 10-piece live orchestra. Tango the Musical is set during Argentina’s Guerra sucia (“Dirty War”).

This was a period of enormous conflict from 1976-1984 that found crackdowns on anyone considered or rumored to be a socialist or dissident. As many as 30,000 people went missing during this time.

Tango the Musical is directed by Sergei Tumas and choreographed by Argentinians Iván Leonardo Romero and Silvana Nuñez.

I’m not sure that anyone truly sings, so I’m not sure how much this show is a musical or a dance, but if you love this music, this should be quite entertaining.

There are performances available Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT and 11:00 PM EDT/8:00 PM PDT and on Sunday at 4:00 PM EDT/1:00 PM PDT and 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT. Tickets are $10.

JAZZ: Voices of Freedom – Jazz at Lincoln Center Virtual Season – March 26th – March 31st

Singers Betty Carter, Billie Holiday, Abbey Lincoln and Nina Simone will be celebrated in this concert by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra under the baton of Chris Crenshaw.

Joining them as guest vocalists are Melanie Charles, Shenel Johns, and Ashley Pezzotti who will perform songs the women wrote and made famous.

All four women were powerhouse singers who left everything they had on the stage. I was lucky enough to see Carter, Lincoln and Simone in concert. These are four women well worth celebrating.

Tickets are $20.

CONVERSATION: Virtual Halston with Lucie Arnaz – March 26th – 5:00 PM EST/2:00 PM PST

Lucie Arnaz joins Julie Halston for this Friday’s Virtual Halston on the Cast Party Network. Arnaz has been in the news recently with the start of production on Being the Ricardos, a feature film about the relationship between her parents, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem are playing the two television icons.

When fans got upset about the casting, Arnaz, who is an Executive Producer on the movie, took to Facebook and said, in part, “Stop arguing about who should play it – ‘she doesn’t look like her, her nose isn’t the same she isn’t as funny’…Just trust us. It’s going to be a nice film and p.s. the voting is over.”

Now that should make for some great conversation!

JAZZ: Jane Monheit – SFJAZZ – March 26th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

While we’re celebrating great women of jazz with the Voices of Freedom concert listed above, let’s also acknowledge The First Lady of Song Ella Fitzgerald. That’s precisely what singer Jane Monheit does in this concert that is part of SFJAZZ’s Fridays at Five series.

Monheit’s 2016 album, The Songbook Sessions: Ella Fitzgerald features her performing such songs as Somebody Loves Me, Ill Wind and This Time the Dream’s on Me. Will Mack the Knife be part of this concert? I don’t know, but as good as Monheit is, nobody could swing that song (or screw it up) quite like Fitzgerald.

Seriously Monheit is terrific. It would be impossible not to enjoy this show. Joining Monheit for this concert are Andy Langham on piano; Rick Montalbano on drums; Dave Robaire on bass and Jamey Tate on percussion.

Tickets are $5 for a one-month digital membership or $60 for an annual digital membership.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Gil Shaham Plays Boulogne – Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra – Debuts March 26th – 9:30 PM EDT/6:30 PM PDT

Violinist Gil Shaham joins the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for their Close Quarters series. In this film he will perform Arvo Pärt’s Fratres and Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ Violin Concerto No. 9.

If you are accustomed to seeing classical music performances with the camera on the periphery of the orchestra, this will be different. According to Shaham the cameramen were working their way in and around all the musicians during the performance. It’s certain to give a more up-close look at performance than we usually get to see.

Margaret Batjer leads the LACO in an approximately 33 minute film. There’s no charge and the film will be available for viewing at any time.

DANCE DOCUMENTARY: Twyla Moves – American Masters on PBS – March 26th (check local listings)

Whether you love or hate what choreographer Twyla Tharp does (and I know people in both camps), she is arguably one of the most independent and intriguing figures in modern dance. Which probably is what interested filmmaker Steven Cantor to create this documentary on Tharp.

Her work has been performed on stages around the world and includes ballet, modern dance and Broadway musicals. She’s also choreographed for feature films including Hair, Ragtime and Amadeus.

The documentary includes interviews and never-before-seen footage of Tharp at work and in performance. As with all PBS programming, check your local listings for exact airdate and time.

WORLD MUSIC: Zakir Hussain and Masters of Percussion – CAP UCLA – March 26th – 10:00 PM EDT/7:00 PM PDT

Zakir Hussain is a master table musician. Tabla is a pair of hand drums indigenous to India and Pakistan. He has performed with a diverse range of artists that includes George Harrison, Charles Lloyd, Yo-Yo Ma, Van Morrison and Pharoah Sanders.

For this filmed concert he will be joined by Pezhham Akhavass on tombak and Iranian percussion; Marcus Gilmore on drums and Abbos Kosimov on doyra and Uzbek percussion with special guests.

Zakir Hussain and Masters of Percussion was immensely popular when this program was performed at UCLA during the 2018-2019 season. There’s no charge to watch this concert.

OPERA: Götterdämmerung – San Francisco Opera – March 27th – March 28th

Conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles; starring Daniel Brenna, Iréne Theorin, Greer Grimsley, Andrea Silvestrelli, Melissa Citro, Brian Mulligan and Falk Struckmann. This revival of Francesca Zambello’s 2011 production is from the 2017-2018 season.

The final opera in Der Ring des Nibelungen had its world premiere in 1876 in Bayreuth as part of the first-ever performance of The Ring Cycle.

Alberich’s curse placed on the ring and its owners comes to haunt the characters in this final opera in the Ring Cycle. Siegfried, having fallen in love with Brunnhilde, is convinced to consume a potion that renders him without memory. That lack of remembering finds him proposing to another woman, Gutrune. Her brother consents as long as Siegfried will allow him to marry Brunnhilde. The ring changes hands and with Alberich’s son, Hagen, manipulating the action, ruin comes to all, including the gods whose glory has come to an end leaving Valhalla in flames.

For this production, Zambello has set the story in the American West. The cycle began during the gold rush and ends with Götterdämmerung in present-day America.

Lisa Hirsch, writing for Classical Voice San Francisco, raved about the orchestra’s performance under the baton of Runnicles:

“No Ring production can succeed without a fine orchestra and strong leadership, and as long-time operagoers know, Donald Runnicles and the San Francisco Opera Orchestra make a splendid team. Runnicles, a great conductor of long and complex works, led a performance of breadth, subtlety, and beauty, full of telling detail. The orchestra played tirelessly and beautifully, with a warmly blended and layered sound, over the many hours of the cycle. The brass sections were especially impressive, given the demands Wagner makes on them, playing with unforced power.”

JAZZ: Delfeayo Marsalis Quintet – Snug Harbor Jazz Revival – March 28th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

If you can have a show with one Marsalis brother this week, why not have two? Trombonist/composer/producer Delfeayo Marsalis is performing from Snug Harbor in New Orleans in this concert on Sunday.

In addition to performing with his brothers, his late father, Ellis, and countless other musicians, Delfeayo Marsalis has produced recordings by such artist as Terence Blanchard, Harry Connick, Jr., the Preservation Jazz Hall Band and has worked with filmmaker Spike Lee.

Tickets to watch his concert are $15.

PLAY READING: SQUEAKY – Guild Hall – March 28th – 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT

Jessica Hecht, Marc Kudisch, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Ben Shenkman and Harris Yulin are lined-up for this reading of SQUEAKY by playwright Jeff Cohen.

The play is an autobiographical comedy that stars Kudish and Shenkman having a hard time agreeing on the best course of action for their father (Yulin) who is nearing the end of his life.

Throw in a caretaker (Jackson) and Squeaky’s estranged wife (Hecht) and you’ve got the makings for plenty of familial conflict and loads of opportunities for humor.

Bob Balaban directs. Tickets are free, but donations are encouraged.

PLAY: Pedro Páramo – Goodman Theatre – March 29th – April 11th

Juan Rulfo’s 1955 novel of the same name is the inspiration for this play by Raquel Carrió that was part of the Goodman Theatre’s Latino Theatre Festival in 2013. Pedro Páramo is performed by Cuba’s Teatro Buendía and directed by Flora Lauten.

As in the book, Juan Preciado returns home to honor his dying mother’s wishes of settling old scores with his father, Pedro. What Juan soon realizes is everyone in the town he has returned to is a ghost. It is through this realization that the full story of Pedro Páramo (both the character and the play) becomes fully revealed.

Tony Adler, in his review for the Chicago Reader, said of the play:

“Rulfo’s story is like Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol without the redemption, and like Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology—a collection of poems written from the points of view of people buried in a small Illinois cemetery—without the nice distinction between life and afterlife. Rulfo’s reality allows for a free conflation of bodies and souls, places and times. It isn’t magic, but a simple apprehension of the resonances that wait in all things.”

Tickets are free, but registration is required.

CABARET/CONVERSATION: Pajama Cast Party One Year Anniversary Show – March 29th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

Two weeks ago I highlighted Jim Caruso’s 50th Pajama Cast Party show. But this week is the real anniversary: one year of doing online shows. Caruso is pulling out all the stops for this celebration. But I don’t know who or what that will be.

All I know is the VIP guest list is being kept very hush hush. But between his stellar guests for both the live version at Birdland and this full year of shows, this is going to be one swellegant party.

Those are my official Four Days of Best Bets: March 26th – March 29th. A couple reminders before I close out this weekend’s listings.

OPERA: The Metropolitan Opera is streaming two productions this weekend for the first time. On Friday they are streaming Mozart’s Idomeneo from the 1982-1983 season. That production stars Hildegard Behrens, Frederica von Stade and Luciano Pavarotti. This was the first-ever production of that opera at the Met. On Saturday Mozart’s Don Giovanni from their 2000-2001 season with Bryn Terfel and Renée Fleming is being streamed. On Sunday they are showing their 2019-2020 season production of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer.

And here’s a preview of next week’s streaming operas: love triangles is the theme and the week opens with the 2017-2018 season production of Bellini’s Norma with Sondra Radvanovsky and Joyce DiDonato. Check back on Monday for our preview of the full week of programming.

Finally, it’s always a good idea to check back at the last two or three weeks of Best Bets as some of the programming I write about is available for longer than just the weekend. If you don’t find something you like here, perhaps the most recent two or three weekend lists will have something you’ll like.

That does it for my Best Bets: March 26th – March 29th. Have a great weekend and enjoy whatever you watch!

Photo: Georgia Stitt and Kate Baldwin (Photo by Kristin Pulido/Courtesy Maestra)

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All the Way depicted Johnson up to and immediately after President Kennedy’s assassination. The Great Society will follow Johnson as he begins his administration, navigates turmoil at home and the growing war in Vietnam. The play follows Johnson up to his decision not to run for re-election.

Schenkkan, who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Kentucky Cycle in 1992, has spent a lot of time working and re-working The Great Society. There have been at least six productions of the play prior to its New York opening. Bill Rauch, who also directed All the Way, helmsThe Great Society.

Starring as Johnson is Brian Cox (currently seen in HBO’s Succession). Richard Thomas (The Americans) plays Hubert Humphrey. Grantham Colman, who appeared in Choir Boy at the Geffen Playhouse, plays Martin Luther King, Jr. Marc Kudisch (Assassins) plays Richard J. Daley. Bryce Pinkham (A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder) plays Robert Kennedy. Frank Wood, most recently seen in Network on Broadway, plays Everett Dirksen. The rest of the sizable cast includes Gordon Clapp, Marchánt Davis, Brian Dykstra, Barbara Garrick, David Garrison, Ty Jones, Christopher Livingston, Angela Pierce, Matthew Rauch, Nikkole Salter, Tramell Tillman, Ted Deasy and Robyn Kerr.

In a New York Times story about the play coming to Broadway, Schenkkan is quoted as saying about the difference between his two plays, “All the Way is a drama and The Great Society is a tragedy.”

With these two plays and Robert Caro’s detailed study of Lyndon Johnson, the 36th President is getting more than his share of attention these days.

The official opening night for The Great Society is October 1st. The play will run through November 30th.

For tickets go here.

This post will be updated once production photos have been released.

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