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With in-person theatre out of commission for the foreseeable future, many companies and performers from Broadway and beyond are showcasing their work online. Below are performances you can watch today, Friday, July 10, from the comfort of your couch for free (or at very low cost).
HERE Arts Center: A Series of Landscapes
At 1 p.m. ET, HERE Arts Center presents the world premiere of A Series of Landscapes, an avant-garde opera-theatre piece created for digital consumption by thingNY. Enter into a Zoom call where seven performers sing about the intense mixed emotions of this moment. Tickets start at $5.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
At 2 p.m. ET, the Shows Must Go On! wraps up three and a half months of programming with an encore screening of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that started the series: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This direct-to-video 1999 film version stars Donny Osmond as the title character and Maria Friedman as the belting narrator, with cameos by Richard Attenborough and Joan Collins (and you thought Cats was kitschy!). Watch for free until Sunday at 2 p.m. ET on YouTube.
The Royal Ballet: Romeo and Juliet
At 2 p.m. ET, London's Royal Ballet shares a recording of Kenneth MacMillan's iconic staging of Romeo and Juliet, with Yasmine Naghdi and Matthew Ball as Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers dancing to Sergei Prokofiev's lush score. Watch for free until Wednesday, July 22 on YouTube.
Frank DiLella on Virtual Halston
At 5 p.m. ET, Julie Halston, Broadway funny lady and longtime friend to TDF, welcomes Frank DiLella, the Emmy-winning host of NY1's On Stage to her weekly chatfest. They'll be joined by Broadway vet Anthony Wayne, who appeared with Halston in Tootsie last year. Watch for free on YouTube.
The Metropolitan Opera: Eugene Onegin
At 7:30 p.m. ET, the Metropolitan Opera presents Tchaikovsky's romantic tragedy Eugene Onegin, starring Mariusz Kwiecien as the title character, the object of affection for Anna Netrebko's Tatiana. Fiona Shaw directed this production, which was filmed for the company's Live in HD series in 2013. Watch for free for 23 hours after the start time on the Metropolitan Opera's website. You can still stream the Met's Roméo et Juliette until 5 p.m. ET today.
Bernadette Peters: A Special Concert
At 8 p.m. ET, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids shares a never-before-seen recording of a Bernadette Peters concert. Filmed at the Minskoff Theatre in 2009, the performance features beloved songs from the three-time Tony winner's 60-year career, including numbers by Rodgers and Hammerstein and Stephen Sondheim. There's also a special appearance by the late Mary Tyler Moore, who co-founded the annual pet adoption event Broadway Barks with Peters. Before the screening, Peters will chat with Michael Urie, sharing amusing behind-the-scenes stories about the evening as well as her fabulous life. Watch for free on the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids YouTube channel, or join TDF on Facebook for our watch party.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel
At 8 p.m. ET, Lincoln Center shares a recording of the New York Philharmonic's 2013 concert staging of Carousel, starring Tony winner Kelli O'Hara as Julie Jordan trapped in a dark relationship with Billy Bigelow, played by opera star Nathan Gunn. The supporting cast is just as impressive, with Tony winner Shuler Hensley as the villainous Jigger, Tony winner Jessie Mueller (a future Julie Jordan) as Carrie Pipperidge opposite Jason Danieley's Enoch Snow, Kate Burton as Mrs. Mullin, Tony winner John Cullum (a former Billy Bigelow) as the Starkeeper and Dr. Seldon, and New York City Ballet dancers Robert Fairchild and Tiler Peck in the Act II dream ballet. Watch for free until Tuesday, September 8 on Lincoln Center's YouTube channel.
Freedom Riders: The Civil Rights Musical
At 8 p.m. ET, the four-day Allen & Gray Musical Festival wraps up with a live online reading of Freedom Riders: The Civil Rights Musical, a stirring portrait of the fearless activists who fought the Jim Crow laws in 1961 by riding buses in racially integrated groups through the South. Tickets are available to purchase from the theatre but TDF members get a discount. This performance won't be available after-the-fact.
Four Walls Theater: Rights of Passage
At 8 p.m. ET, the online activist theatre initiative Four Walls Theater presents a live reading of Rights of Passage, Michelle Tyrene Johnson's timely new drama about a white police officer seeking advice after killing an unarmed Black man. The performance stars young actors from across the country who graduated from various university programs this year. Pay-what-you-can tickets are available from the theatre.
Aye Defy: Salt Pepper Ketchup
At 8 p.m. ET, the Aye Defy live reading series presents Josh Wilder's Salt Pepper Ketchup, about class and racial tensions in a gentrifying Philadelphia neighborhood as the owner of a longtime Chinese restaurant digs in his heels against a new food co-op. Tickets start at $5 and proceeds go to the Classical Theatre of Harlem and True Colors Theatre. This performance won't be available after-the-fact.
Black Lives Black Words International Project's Plays for the People: Ride Share
At 8 p.m. ET, Black Lives Black Words International Project, an activist theatre initiative that commissions and produces shows by Black playwrights, kicks off its virtual Plays for the People reading series with Ride Share. Written by the org's co-founder Reginald Edmund, the play chronicles the journey of a young African-American Uber driver as he navigates racism and grapples with his "dark passenger." Tickets are available to purchase from the theatre but TDF members get a discount.
Dixon Place: HOT! Festival
Downtown staple Dixon Place brings its 29th annual queer culture fest online with four weeks of theatre, dance, music, readings and comedy. Tonight you can stream:
Available to Watch All Day
National Theatre: The Deep Blue Sea
London's National Theatre presents its 2016 production of The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Rattigan's devastating portrait of a woman unraveling in 1952 London. Olivier nominee Helen McCrory, known for playing Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies, stars as Hester Collyer, whose passionate love affair ruins her marriage and her will to live. Watch for free until Thursday, July 16 at 2 p.m. ET on the National Theatre's YouTube channel.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater: Juba
The invaluable Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater presents Juba by current artistic director Robert Battle. Inspired by Rite of Spring, it's a thrilling work fusing ritual and folk traditions, set to original percussive music by John Mackey. Watch for free until Thursday, July 16 at 6:30 p.m. ET on Alvin Ailey's YouTube channel.
Stratford Festival: Romeo and Juliet
Ontario's venerable Stratford Festival continues its Shakespeare on Film series with the tragic tale of star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet, directed by 25-year fest veteran Scott Wentworth. Watch for free until Thursday, July 30 on the fest's YouTube channel.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival: A Midsummer Night's Dream
The acclaimed Oregon Shakespeare Festival has gone online with Joseph Haj's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which had its run cut short earlier this year due to the pandemic. Recorded in the theatre, the video is available through Wednesday, July 22; tickets are $15.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival: The Copper Children
Another offering from the beloved Oregon Shakes: Karen Zacarías' world-premiere play The Copper Children, inspired by the true history of the Orphan Train movement during which hundreds of thousands of immigrant kids in Eastern cities were sent to foster homes in the West. This production also had its run cut short by the pandemic, but a recording is available through Wednesday, July 15. Tickets are $15.
Scott Siegel's Great American Songbook Concert: Volume 6
Scott Siegel has been producing starry cabaret concerts at Town Hall and other storied venues for years. Now he brings his talent for assembling crackerjack crooners to YouTube. Today's lineup includes Tony winner Debbie Gravitte, two-time Tony nominee Christine Andreas, Danny Gardner (Dames at Sea) and Allison Semmes (Motown: The Musical). Watch for free on YouTube.
The Public Theater: The Line
The Public Theater presents the world premiere of The Line, Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's ripped-from-the-front-lines docudrama based on interviews with New York City healthcare workers about their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The married playwrights are masters of the form: their previous plays include The Exonerated, about wrongly convicted inmates on Death Row, and Coal Country, about the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine explosion in West Virginia. The latter had its run cut short at The Public Theater due to the pandemic, and Blank and Jensen almost immediately turned their attention to our city's first responders to craft this one-act for digital consumption. Under Blank's direction, an impressive cast, including Tony winner Santino Fontana, Tony nominee Alison Pill, Jamey Sheridan and Lorraine Toussaint, give voice to these harrowing real-life stories. Watch for free until Tuesday, August 4 on The Public's YouTube channel.
The Old Vic: Mood Music
London's Old Vic shares Mood Music, Joe Penhall's examination of the toxic pop industry, with a veteran producer (Ben Chaplin), a young songwriter (Seána Kerslake) and their lawyers and psychotherapists fighting over who owns a hit tune. Recorded at the venue in 2018, the production was helmed by Roger Michell, who directed the smash movie Notting Hill. Watch for free until Tuesday, July 14 at 2 p.m. ET on the Old Vic's YouTube channel.
The Mint Theater's Summer Stock Streaming Festival
Off Broadway's esteemed Mint Theater Company, which has been resurrecting forgotten plays since 1992, presents a virtual festival featuring professional recordings of three full-length productions from its archives: George Kelly's domestic dramedy The Fatal Weakness, Harold Chapin's comedy of mores The New Morality and Hazel Ellis's suspenseful comedy Women Without Men. Email streaming@minttheater.org to receive the password to watch the shows for free on The Mint's website. The videos will remain up through Sunday, July 19. Donations are encouraged.
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Raven Snook is the Editor of TDF Stages. Follow her at @RavenSnook. Follow TDF at @TDFNYC.
Top image: Bernadette Peters. Photo by Peter James Zielinski.
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