Amongst this weekend’s options are a pithy hostess talking to Broadway stars; the reading of a play with a star-studded cast; the world premiere of a new work from one of classical music’s fastest-rising composers; two opera performances and so much more.

So let’s get started. Here are your Culture Best Bets at Home: August 21st – August 23rd:

The Black Clown – Harlem Week – August 21st – 4:00 PM EDT/1:00 PM PDT

Every summer the city of New York celebrates everything Harlem. This year’s Harlem Week is taking place mostly online. A real highlight of this year’s festival is the audio streaming of excerpts from The Black Clown.

Davóne Tines, who originated the role of adult Charles in Terence Blanchard‘s opera Fire Shut Up In My Bones, created this work with Michael Schachter and Zack Winokur. It is based on Langston Hughes’ poem of the same name.

The Black Clown had its world premiere at the 2019 Mostly Mozart Festival. The poem, and this adaptation of it, depicts how one man handles oppression in America. It’s a work that utilizes multiple forms including jazz, opera vaudeville, gospel and spirituals.

The cast of The Black Clown includes Davóne Tines, Sumayya Ali, Darius Barnes, Dawn Bless, Jonathan Christopher, LaVon Fisher-Wilson, Lindsey Hailes, Evan Tyrone Martin, Jhardon DiShon Martin, Brandon Michael Nase, Amber Pickens, Jamar Williams and Hailee Kaleem Wright.

In an interview with Ryan Ebright of the New York Times, Tines said, “With The Black Clown, Hughes was tapping into and providing a blueprint for how social justice has happened in the past, how it needed to happen in his time, and how it needs to happen today.”

Virtual Halston – Cast Party Network YouTube Page – August 21st – 5:00 PM EDT/2:00 PM PDT

If you think of actress Julie Halston (and you should), you probably think of her as both playwright Charles Busch’s muse and one of his most frequent actors. What you may not know is that she’s also one of the pithiest people hosting a theatre-centric online talk show. It’s called Virtual Halston.

Halston’s show is part of Jim Caruso’s Cast Party Network and it involves the same level of of fun. Halston talks directly to the audience, with Caruso and also with special guests.

This week’s guest are actors Mercedes Ruehl and Michael Urie who played mother and son in the 2017 revival of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy (which for this production was renamed Torch Song). The show transferred to Broadway in 2018 for a sadly much shorter run than this amazing production deserved.

Each week’s Virtual Halston is archived. So feel free to peruse the previous episodes with guests Andrew Rannells (The Book of Mormon); Colman Domingo (The Scottsboro Boys); Jessica Vosk (Fiddler on the Roof), Mary Testa (Oklahoma); Marilu Henner and so many more.

One word of warning: if you watch one episode you’ll find yourself hours later having watched several. Oh…and bring a cocktail. This is truly a happy hour.

Broadway for Racial Justice Amplified Concert – August 21st – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

As Black Lives Matters protests became more prevalent across the country, it was inevitable that Broadway would get involved. It was also inevitable that racism in theatre was going to get addressed as well.

One new organization launching on September 1st is the Broadway for Racial Justice Emergency Assistance Fund. To raise money for the organization they are putting on an online concert with both Broadway veterans and new performers who are starting to make a name for themselves.

Tony Award winner Patina Miller (Pippin) and Brandon Michael Nase (Cats) serve as hosts. Scheduled to perform are Hailey Kilgore (Once on This Island), Solea Pfeiffer (Hamilton), Shoshana Bean (Wicked), Tony Award-winner Jessie Mueller (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) and Skylar Astin (Spring Awakening and television’s Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist – which if you haven’t watched, you should).

Joining will be Kalen Allen, Brittany Campbell (Hamilton), Kayla Davion (Tina), Deon’te Goodman (Hamilton), singer/songwriter Sapphire Hart, Morgan James (Motown: The Musical), Andre Malcolm, Arianne Meneses, Joey Rosario, and the band Empty Royalty

Broadway for Racial Justice Amplified streams at 8 PM ET on YouTube. There is no charge to watch the concert, but donations are encouraged.

Andrew Owens Living Room Recital – LA Opera – August 21st – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Tenor Andrew Owens has performed numerous roles in opera all over the world. Amongst the operas in which he’s appeared are Lucia di Lammermoor, Il barbiere di Siviglia, L’incoronazione di Poppea, Fidelio, I due Foscari and Die Zauberflöte.

There was a time when every tenor wanted to have a career like Mario Lanza’s. He was a tenor who rose to fame both as a singer and as an actor. He was, at the time of his death in 1959, considered the world’s most famous tenor.

Owens will celebrate Lanza in this Living Room Recital on LA Opera’s website (and their Facebook page). Joining him for the recital will be pianist Chris Reynolds and flautist Jessica Warren.

LA Opera archives these recitals, so if you can’t watch Andrew Owens as it happens, or want to see other recitals, they are available for viewing.

Judgment Day – Barrington Stage Company – August 22nd – 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT

Berkshire County’s Barrington Stage Company has sent multiple productions from their stage to Broadway. Most famously they held the world premiere of the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. A 2013 revival of On the Town also made its way to Manhattan.

This weekend they will have a reading of Rob Ulin’s comedy Judgment Day. Ulin is the co-executive producer of Ramy and has written one episode of the show. He’s also produced and written for The Kids Are Alright, Young Sheldon and The Carmichael Show.

Judgment Day depicts the story of a sleazy lawyer who, after a near-death experience with an angel who threatens to condemn him to hell for all eternity, attempts to redeem himself and his soul.

The reading features an all-star cast: Jason Alexander plays Sammy Campo, the lawyer. Patti LuPone plays the Angel. Santino Fontana plays a priest struggling with his faith. Michael McKean plays the monsignor who oversees Fontana’s character.

Loretta Devine (Dreamgirls), Josh Johnston, Bianca Laverne Jones, Julian Emile Lerner, Justina Machado (One Day at a Time), Carol Mansell, Michael Mastro and Elizabeth Stanley (Jagged Little Pill) are also part of the cast. Matthew Penn directs.

You can watch the performance live on Saturday or you can watch it through August 25th. There is a donation of $35 required to view Judgment Day. Once you have made the donation you will receive a link to the reading.

The Fairy Queen – Glyndebourne – August 23rd – August 30th

Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen had its world premiere in London in 1692. Rather curiously it has an anonymous libretto which was inspired by William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream.

Historians consider The Fairy Queen to have followed in the 16th century tradition of “masques.” A masque was a piece of entertainment meant to serve as both an allegory and to cater to the ego of their patrons. Music, dancing, acting, singing, costumes and stage design were of heightened importance.

This 2009 production at Glyndebourne features a new edition of the score by Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock and was directed by Jonathan Kent.

Starring are Lucy Crowe, Carolyn Sampson and Ed Lyon. William Christie leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Kate Kellaway, writing for The Guardian, said of this production:

“The first thing to say about Jonathan Kent’s magnificently inventive, entertaining and saucy production is that it is, emphatically, not for purists or for nervous baroque enthusiasts. Anyone hoping for a Fairy Queen of gilded fountains and peaceful forests should steer clear. But for everyone else, this production is a gas, and although more London Palladium than East Sussex pastoral, it is hard to imagine a more brilliantly creative approach to the work.”

Spiva & Hollywood’s Golden Age – Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra – August 22nd – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

LA Chamber Orchestra continues their Summerfest series of safely performed chamber music concerts from the stage of Zipper Hall at the Colburn School. There are two things that make this concert the most interesting one so far from LACO.

The first is the instrumentation. For this concert there are two bassoons (Kenneth Munday and Damian Montano) and two celli (Armen Kasjikian and Giovanna Moraga Clayton).

Most exciting is the concert will serve as the world premiere of Derrick Spiva Jr.‘s Hum. Spiva, who was recently named Artistic Advisor to LACO, is one of our most interesting young composers. He is a prolific composer with commissions from multiple orchestra and performance ensembles.

In addition to Hum, the programs scheduled to include Franz Christoph Neubauer’s Cello Duet No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 10, I. Allegro; Michel Corrette’s Le Phénix; Johann Sebastian’s Bach’s Komm, süsser Tod, BWV 478; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Three Canons; George Gershwin’s Summertime from Porgy and Bess; David Raksin’s Theme from Laura; Charles Gounod’s Marche funèbre d’une marionnette and the Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher song The Rainbow Connection.

The concert is scheduled to run 40 minutes. It will be archived on LACO’s website for later viewing.

Rachel Bay Jones and Seth Rudetsky – August 23rd – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

Rachel Bay Jones may not be the best-known Broadway star, but for anyone who saw her originate the role of Heidi Hansen in Dear Evan Hansen, you know exactly why she received a Tony Award for her performance.

She is Seth Rudetsky’s guest this week in his series of conversations and performance with Broadway luminaries.

Amongst her other Broadway shows are Pippin, Hair, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Off-Broadway she appeared in First Daughter Suite at the Public Theatre and, of course, the sold-out pre-Broadway run of Dear Evan Hansen.

As with all Seth Rudetsky concerts, there will be an encore streaming on Monday, August 24th at 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT. Tickets for either time are $25.

That’s this week’s Best Bets: August 21st – August 23rd. You know I have some reminders for you, too:

For those in the Los Angeles area, PBS SoCal will air In Concert at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday, August 21st at 8:00 PM PDT. This first episode is Hecho en Mexico.

Fridays at Five from SFJazz features a concert by Grammy Award-winning singer Dianne Reeves.

The operas available from the Metropolitan Opera this weekend are Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra on Friday, Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia on Saturday and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel on Sunday.

Legendary drummer Andrew Cyrille performs from the stage at the Village Vanguard on Friday and Saturday.

That’s it for Best Bets: August 21st – August 23rd. Enjoy your weekend.

Photo: Jotham Annan in The Fairy Queen (©Glyndebourne Productions Ltd/Photo by Richard Hubert Smith)

The post Culture Best Bets at Home: August 21st – August 23rd appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Our list this weekend also includes something for everyone: a deeply moving play, a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical in concert, a virtual reading of a bittersweet comedy from the 1970s, the longest-running one-woman show in Broadway history and concerts by two of Broadway’s finest leading ladies.

So here are your Best Bets at Home: July 10th – July 12th:

The Deep Blue Sea – National Theatre Live – Now – July 16th

Terence Rattigan’s 1952 play, The Deep Blue Sea, has proven itself time and time again as great drama and also a great opportunity for an actress.

Peggy Ashcroft originated the part of Hester Collyer, a woman whose failed marriage and crumbling relationship with an RAF pilot leads to a suicide attempt. When Hester is discovered in her apartment after failing to take her own life, the residents of the tenement house in which she lives try to encourage her to choose life over death. One neighbor, Dr. Miller, (Nick Fletcher) proves to be particularly influential.

In this 2016 National Theatre production Helen McCrory took on the role of Hester. (Other actresses who have tackled the part include Vivien Leigh, Blythe Danner, Gretta Schacchi and Rachel Weisz.) Carrie Cracknell directed.

Michael Billington, writing for The Guardian, said of McCrory’s performance, “I’ve seen many fine Hesters but few who have conveyed so clearly what Shakespeare called ‘the very wrath of love.'” 

National Youth Orchestras of the United States Highlights (2014-2019) – Medici.tv – July 10th – July 12th

This week’s offering from Carnegie Hall and Medici.tv features highlights from six years of performances by National Youth Orchestras from America. Joining the various orchestras are violinist Gil Shaham, singer Dianne Reeves and conductors Marin Alsop, Sir Antonio Pappano, David Robertson and more.

The program is split into three sections.

The first features John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid Suite.

Part two features works by Sergei Prokofiev. Shaham joins for the composer’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major and then the orchestra plays the second movement from Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major.

The final segment features a jazz orchestra. Their program begins with the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story written by Leonard Bernstein. That is followed by works by John Coltrane and Miguel Zenon before Reeves comes out to sing a couple songs. The program ends with music by Dizzy Gillespie and Thad Jones.

Golda’s Balcony – The Wallis – Now – July 13th

William Gibson is a playwright best known for The Miracle Worker. He also wrote Two for the Seesaw and Golden Boy. One of his later works was a one-woman show about Golda Meir, the fourth Prime Minister of Israel (1969-1974). That show is called Golda’s Balcony.

Tovah Feldshuh, who recently appeared at The Wallis in Sisters in Law, has made Golda’s Balcony her own.

The play opened at New York’s Helen Hayes Theatre in 2003 and ran for nearly 500 performances making it the longest running one-woman show in Broadway history. Feldshuh received a Tony Award nomination for her performance.

This was not, by the way, Gibson’s first play about Meir. Anne Bancroft played her in a less-successful play called Golda in 1977. It only ran for 93 performances.

The Wallis has teamed up with the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival to make Scott Schwartz’s film of Golda’s Balcony available for free viewing through July 13th. On the final day there will also be a Q&A with Feldshuh at 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT.

Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel: Live from Lincoln Center – Lincoln Center – July 10th -September 8th

In 2013, the New York Philharmonic staged a concert version of the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein musical Carousel. Starring in the production were Kelli O’Hara (Kiss Me, Kate) and baritone Nathan Gunn.

That concert will be available from Lincoln Center through September 8th.

The cast of Carousel also included Jessie Mueller (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), Jason Danieley (Pretty Woman: The Musical), opera singer Stephanie Blythe, Shuler Hensley (The Ferryman), Kate Burton (Present Laughter) and John Cullum (Waitress).

Amongst the songs you will know from Carousel are “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” “If I Loved You,” “Soliloquy” and “June Is Busting Out All Over.”

Bernadette Peters: A Special Concert – Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS – July 10th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

I published a separate preview of this concert earlier this week. So for details you can go here. This will be amazing and I just wanted to make sure it was on your radar.

Eric Reed Quartet Live at the Village Vanguard – July 10th and July 11th – 9:00 PM EDT/6:00 PM PDT

If you’ve ever been to New York’s Village Vanguard you know how the venue is steeped in music history that permeates your experience of being in the room.

Live concerts won’t be happening anytime soon for you to experience in person, but that doesn’t mean the music has stopped playing.

Pianist Eric Reed leads his quartet in two live performances this weekend. There won’t be an audience in person, but you can join online for one of both of the sets.

Reed’s quartet includes Stacy Dillard on saxophone, Dezron Douglas on bass and McClenty Hunter on drums.

J.D. Considine, writing for DownBeat Magazine said of Reed, “(he) is one of those tremendously gifted players who has chops galore, but seldom uses them to show off, instead letting his obvious command of dynamics add color to the melodies he plays.”

You need to purchase tickets to watch either of these sets. Tickets are $10.

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Summerfest – July 11th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra launches the first of five Summerfest concerts from Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School of Music this weekend.

Ensembles are small and practice social distancing during performance. Each performance is filmed in advance for streaming.

The series launches with principal cellist Andrew Shulman, concertmaster and violinist Margaret Batjer and pianist Andrew von Oeyen performing.

The program begins with Florence Price’s The Deserted Garden. Price was the first black female composer to be recognized as a symphonic composer. Her Symphony No. 1 had its world premiere in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The centerpiece of the program is a performance of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in D Minor. The composer wrote this four-movement trio in 1839. It is considered amongst his best compositions.

This is a free concert. If you cannot watch it live as it happens, the concert will be archived here for later viewing.

Additional concerts are scheduled to take place every other Saturday this summer. We will keep you notified of those performances.

Same Time, Next Year – Guild Hall – July 12th – 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PDT

Eastern Long Island’s Guild Hall is holding a virtual stage reading of Bernard Slade’s 1975 play Same Time, Next Year.

The play revolves around Doris and George who are married to other people, yet meet once a year in Northern California to continue their annual affair. Same Time, Next Year depicts the couple’s getaways from 1951 to 1975.

Starring in this virtual reading will be Julianne Moore (Still Alice) and Alec Baldwin (30 Rock).

When the play opened on Broadway the leads were Ellen Burstyn and Charles Grodin. Burstyn won the Tony Award for her performance. A film version was released in 1978 with Alan Alda joining Burstyn.

This is a fundraiser and tickets are priced at $100 per household. You can purchase tickets here. Once you have purchased tickets you will get details how and where to see the reading.

Audra McDonald with Seth Rudetsky – July 12th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

Six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald is Seth Rudetsky’s guest for his weekly concert series. Each concert features a live performance with a second opportunity to see the concert later.

McDonald has won Tony Awards in all four possible categories for an actor or actress: Best Actress in a Musical (The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess); Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Carousel, Ragtime); Best Actress in a Play (Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill) and Best Featured Actress in a Play (Master Class, A Raisin in the Sun).

She and Rudetsky have known each other for years. They have regularly appeared together including this performance of “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady.

Tickets for either the live stream or the second viewing are $25 each. The rerun of Sunday’s concert will be streamed at 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT on Monday, July 13th.

Billy Budd – Glyndebourne – July 12th – July 19th

Herman Melville’s short novel, Billy Budd, left unfinished by the author and published in 1924 (33 years after Melville’s death), serves as the inspiration for Benjamin Britten’s opera.

Billy Budd, the opera, had its world premiere in London in 1951. Novelist E.M. Forster (A Passage to India) and Eric Crozier wrote the libretto. Billy Budd is a rare opera in that it features no female roles. Even the chorus is all-male.

The opera tells the story of a young sailor (Jacques Imbrailo) who is newly recruited to join the HMS Indomitable. He possess great beauty and charm. The Master-at-Arms, Claggart (Phillip Ens), finds himself inexplicably drawn to the young man. Uneasy with the feelings Budd instills him, Claggart seeks to do everything he can to destroy the young man.

This 2010 production from Glyndebourne was directed by Michael Grandage. This was the first opera Grandage directed. He is best known for his work in theatre including the plays Red and Frost/Nixon. Mark Elder conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Andrew Clements, writing for The Guardian said of this production, “Jacques Imbrailo’s Billy is a total joy – slight, lithe and wonderfully guileless, singing his farewell to life with immense dignity and pathos. …The remorseless inhumanity of the story is certainly vivid, both on stage and in Mark Elder’s account of the score, by turns luminous and scaldingly intense. Elder does not neglect a single detail of what is perhaps Britten’s greatest orchestral accomplishment, and both the playing of the London Philharmonic and the singing of the Glyndebourne chorus have marvellous presence.”

That’s it for your Best Bets at Home: July 10th – July 12th. As always, a few reminders:

The Metropolitan Opera productions available this weekend are Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin on Friday; Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on Saturday and my personal favorite opera, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde on Sunday.

Fridays at Five from SFJazz this weekend features John Scofield and Lettuce in a concert from 2019.

Stratford Festival continues its Shakespeare films with their 2017 production of Romeo and Juliet. Also available are The Adventures of Perciles and Antony and Cleopatra.

Now we’re officially done with the Best Bets at Home: July 10th – July 12th. Enjoy your weekend and stay safe and healthy.

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