TDF Stages

In-person theatre is back in NYC, both on Broadway and beyond. But there are still wonderful shows to stream at home. Below are performances you can watch online this weekend, Friday, November 19 to Sunday, November 21, for free or at low cost.

Saturday, November 20

Third Rail Projects: Return the Moon
On Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, endlessly inventive immersive theatre company Third Rail Projects (Then She Fell, The Grand Paradise) presents Return the Moon, a live, interactive, created-for-Zoom theatrical experience that uses a fairy tale about the moon as a way to conjure art and community. Conceived and directed by Zach Morris, the 75-minute piece is performed for a small audience who participate in the evening's outcome and even receive a post-performance gift in the mail. Log on ready to share. Tickets start at $15.

Live from Feinstein's/54 Below: 54 Sings Broadway's Greatest Hits
On Saturday at 9:45 p.m. ET, even though Feinstein's/54 Below has reopened for in-person performances, the swanky cabaret club is continuing to stream select shows live from its stage. Tonight, catch a fresh installment of 54 Sings Broadway's Greatest Hits, cabaret impresario Scott Siegel's popular series featuring stage vets crooning beloved show tunes. The lineup includes Broadway regulars Farah Alvin, John Easterlin, Willy Falk and Emily Larger. Tickets are $25. If you prefer to attend in person, click here for info.

Sunday, November 21

St. Ann's Warehouse: Medicine
On Sunday at 5 p.m. ET, Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse is currently presenting the in-person NYC premiere of Medicine, but tonight's performance will also be live-streamed to at-home audiences. Written and directed by Tony winner Enda Walsh (Once), this absurdly comic tale centers on a man desperately trying to make sense of his childhood memories through drama therapy—but those assigned to help him seem more interested in putting on a show. This critically acclaimed UK transfer stars Domhnall Gleeson (Star Wars, Ex Machina) as the pitiful patient, with Clare Barrett and Aoife Duffin as his kooky therapists. Tickets are $31.

The Seth Concert Series: Andréa Burns
On Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, even though show-tune savant Seth Rudetsky is back doing shows in person, he hasn't completely abandoned the virtual realm. In fact, he's relaunched his weekly live-streamed concert series! Tonight his guest is Andréa Burns, known for her Broadway performances in On Your Feet! and In the Heights, as well as being a frequent guest host of Rudetsky's online chat show Stars in the House. Expect numbers from her career as well as personal favorites that lean into her bicultural heritage as a Jewish Latina. Tickets are $25.

All Weekend

Netflix: tick, tick... BOOM!
Before Jonathan Larson created Rent, he was writing a musical called tick, tick... BOOM! about the challenges of writing a musical... although that musical was Superbia, not his future Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Rent. If you're confused, The New York Times has a primer, but if you're a musical lover, chances are you already know about tick, tick... BOOM!. Perhaps you even saw the original production Off Broadway with Raúl Esparza or the City Center Encores! revival with Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda is actually making his movie directorial debut with this iteration of tick, tick... BOOM!, featuring a new screenplay by Dear Evan Hansen Tony winner Steven Levenson which opens up the action. Tony winner Andrew Garfield plays Larson, and a slew of Broadway favorites pop up throughout the film, including Joshua Henry, Robin De Jesus, Judith Light, Laura Benanti, Danny Burstein and Bradley Whitford as Stephen Sondheim. It's currently playing in cinemas but if you're a homebody and Netflix subscriber, you can stream it for free.

New Victory Theater: Generation Rise
NYC's premier theatre for young audiences, the New Victory, reopened its doors earlier this month with Generation Rise, a play for teens by teens about what it was like graduating high school during the pandemic. A half dozen NYC adolescents share their real-life stories of surviving 2020, although due to vaccination mandates, a few are played by actors. I saw this in person on stage last weekend with my teen, and it's a powerful and relatable debrief on what high schoolers went through, from remote learning to calls for racial justice to tremendous personal loss. Tickets are $25 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, November 28.

Estella Scrooge: A Christmas Carol with a Twist
Recorded in 2020 during the shutdown, this musical modern-day take on the old Christmas chestnut comes from John Caird and Paul Gordon, the team behind Broadway's Jane Eyre, and incorporates popular characters and plot lines from multiple Charles Dickens' novels. Betsy Wolfe (Waitress) is the title character, a ruthless real estate mogul, who heads to her hometown for the holidays to foreclose on a hotel for the homeless run by her childhood sweetheart, Philip "Pip" Nickleby (Clifton Duncan). But soon three spirits arrive to scare her sweet. Jagged Little Pill Tony winner Lauren Patten, Moulin Rouge! Tony winner Danny Burstein and Hadestown's Patrick Page costar. Tickets start at $15 and the recording is viewable until Monday, January 31, 2022.

New York Theatre Workshop: Sanctuary City
Ends this weekend! On Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m. ET, if you weren't able to see this eye-opening drama by Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok (Cost of Living, queens, Ironbound) during its critically acclaimed Off-Broadway run, you can now stream Sanctuary City at home. Like many of Majok's previous plays, Sanctuary City focuses on the struggles of undocumented immigrants as two teenage friends try to figure out how to forge a future in an unforgiving country. Olivier Award winner Rebecca Frecknall directs Jasai Chase-Owens, Sharlene Cruz and Austin Smith in this piercing piece, which unfolds in an unexpected, nonlinear way. Tickets start at $30.

Arena Stage: Celia and Fidel
Ends this weekend! On Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. ET, Washington, DC's acclaimed Arena Stage presents Celia and Fidel, Eduardo Machado's history-inspired drama about the complex relationship between Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his political partner Celia Sánchez. Molly Smith directs the production, which is being performed live on stage and also streamed to at-home audiences. Tickets are $50.

Vineyard Theatre: On the Beauty of Loss
Ends this weekend! On Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 5 p.m. ET, during the shutdown, the Vineyard Theatre commissioned five artists to create new boundary-breaking theatre. The resulting works will debut throughout the fall and this weekend you can catch On the Beauty of Loss, a multimedia meditation on mortality by acclaimed virtual theatre-maker Jared Mezzocchi. Performed live on Zoom, Mezzocchi explores how technology has changed the way we connect, make memories and share grief as he contemplates the loss of two loved ones: a father, who passed before the advent of smartphones, and a grandfather, who's dying during the pandemic. Tickets start at $18.50 but if you're a TDF member, log in to your account to purchase them at a discount.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater: In the Southern Breeze
On Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, NYC's acclaimed Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is presenting a hybrid season, with its productions performed in person but also streamed to at-home audiences. The company's current show is Mansa Ra's poetic premiere In the Southern Breeze, about a Black man whose existential crisis magically catapults him back through centuries of racially charged history to reveal the struggles he continues to face today. Christopher D. Betts directs the play, which is billed as "an autobiographical fever dream." Tickets are $40 for both streamed and in-person performances.

Lantern Theater Company: The Plague
Ends this weekend! Philadelphia's Lantern Theater Company presents The Plague, Neil Bartlett's adaptation of Albert Camus' existentialist classic La Peste about a disease upending a city. Talk about timely! Charles McMahon directs this production, which was filmed live on stage this past summer. Tickets are $20 and the recording is viewable until Sunday.

All Arts: MasterVoices: Myths and Hymns
Earlier this year, MasterVoices premiered a digital reimagining of the four-part theatrical song cycle Myths and Hymns by Light in the Piazza Tony winner Adam Guettel. Inspired by Greek myths and 19th-century Presbyterian hymns, the 1998 work explores the nature of faith and longing in our secular society. All Arts is now streaming all four chapters of this multimedia musical featuring a slew of Broadway stars including Norm Lewis, Kelli O'Hara, Renée Fleming, Joshua Henry, Shoshana Bean, Daniel Breaker and Jennifer Holliday. Watch for free on All Arts' website.

Donmar Warehouse: Constellations
London's acclaimed Donmar Warehouse presents Nick Payne's Constellations, a time-bending two-hander that explores the notion of the multiverse by replaying key moments in one couple's romance. Michael Longhurst, who helmed the play on Broadway, directed this production, which was filmed on stage with four different casts alternating in this trippy tale. The pairings are Sheila Atim and Ivanno Jeremiah; Peter Capaldi and Zoë Wanamaker; Omari Douglas and Russell Tovey; and Anna Maxwell Martin and Chris O'Dowd. Tickets are £15 for each cast, approximately $21. Or you can watch all four for £40, approximately $55. The recording is viewable until Monday, November 29, and captions and audio description are available. You must create a Donmar Warehouse account to watch.

HERE Arts Center: 9000 Paper Balloons
HERE Arts Center presents 9000 Paper Balloons, a stunning new multimedia piece inspired by the hard-to-believe secret weapons used by Japan against the US during World War II. Created by Japanese artist Maiko Kikuchi and American puppeteer Spencer Lott, the surreal performance weaves puppetry, animation and masks into a historical tale that also encompasses their own family stories. Tickets start at $10 and the recording is viewable until Friday, December 31.

All Arts: 20 Years of Asian American Playwriting
All Arts presents the new documentary 20 Years of Asian American Playwriting featuring interviews with some of the most exciting dramatists working today, including M. Butterfly Tony winner David Henry Hwang, Young Jean Lee, Mike Lew, Lauren Yee and Qui Nguyen. Ralph B. Peña, the artistic director of Ma-Yi Theater Company, created this must-watch chronicle. Watch for free on All Arts' website. Captions and audio description are available.

Theater Three Collaborative: Blue Valiant
After a successful Zoom reading during the pandemic, Theater Three Collaborative decided to stage Karen Malpede's moving drama Blue Valiant at Pennsylvania's outdoor Farm Arts Collective starring the invaluable Kathleen Chalfant. Filmed live on that alfresco stage, this story of trauma and healing centers on a lonely woman, a wild horse and a refugee child thrown together by circumstance and the unexpected bonds they forge. Watch for free until Sunday, November 28 on Theater Three Collaborative's YouTube channel though donations are encouraged.

Center Theatre Group: Chavez Ravine: In 9 Innings
Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group presents Chavez Ravine: In 9 Innings, a virtual reimagining of a 2003 play about the small, tight-knit LA neighborhood that was razed so Dodger Stadium could rise. Devised by the collective Culture Clash, this digital production features scenes from the original script filmed at LA's Kirk Douglas Theatre and on location around the city, incorporating music, archival videos and photos, and new interviews. Tickets are $20 and the recording is viewable until Monday, December 6.

Lantern Theater Company: Me and the Devil
Renaissance man Steve H. Broadnax III, who's currently making his Broadway debut as the director of Thoughts of a Colored Man, cowrote, costars and helms Me and the Devil, a new play with music about blues great Robert Johnson. According to legend, the guitarist, singer and songwriter made a deal with the Devil for his talents. Broadnax plays Lucifer and Lawrence Stallings is his mark in this show, which finds Johnson trying to extract himself from the contract to save his soul. Tickets are $20 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, February 27, 2022.

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Raven Snook is the Editor of TDF Stages. Follow her at @RavenSnook. Follow TDF at @TDFNYC.

Top image: Domhnall Gleeson in Medicine, which is live-streaming from Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse on Sunday. Photo by Jess Shurte.