Nothing can stop BroadwayWorld’s Richard Ridge from bringing you interviews with your favorite Broadway stars Tune in right here today, July 14 12pm ET, as he chats with Broadway legend Bernadette Peters
London’s Donmar Warehouse will temporarily reopen August 3–22 with a socially distanced sound installation, Blindness, based on the novel by Nobel-prize winning José Saramago.
Adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Walter Meierjohann, the hour-long ticketed piece will run four times a day, with seating arranged two meters apart.
Juliet Stevenson voices the Storyteller/Doctor’s wife; attendees will listen on headphones. The production features an immersive sound design by Ben and Max Ringham, and the theatre has been re-imagined by designer Lizzie Clachan, with lighting by Jessica Hung Han Yun. Professor Hannah Thompson serves as the production consultant.
In Blindness, a European city turns to chaos after an epidemic causes citizens to suddenly and inexplicably go blind. In response, the government tries to quarantine the contagion by herding the newly blind people into an empty asylum.
All attendees will be required to wear a face covering throughout their visit (medical exemptions permitted) as will all Donmar staff. The bar areas will be closed, and there will be a one-way system around the building. There will be sanitizing points throughout the building, and the headphones, seats, restrooms, and public areas will be thoroughly cleaned between each installation.
“Reading Simon’s version of Saramago’s extraordinary allegory about a government’s and society’s response to a pandemic, I knew this was a story we had to tell immediately,” Artistic Director Michael Longhurst says. “With indoor live performance not yet permitted, and social distancing measures reducing capacity, I am proud that the Donmar has risen to the challenge of producing work at this time. This immersive sound installation makes a virtue of these restrictions inspiring our artists to find the apposite form for this story.”
On this day, we celebrate the birthday of legend of stage and screen, Sir Patrick Stewart
1940 Patrick Stewart is born in England. A Shakespearean-trained actor, Stewart’s Broadway appearances include a solo adaptation of A Christmas Carol, William Shakespeare‘s The Tempest and Macbeth, Arthur Miller‘s The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, and Samuel Beckett‘s Waiting for Godot. Stewart is known to television and film audiences around the world as Captain Picard from the popular 1990s television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and several Star Trek films.
1977 A massive power failure blacks out New York City around 9:30 PM, halting the second acts of many Broadway shows. Power is restored the following morning, neighborhood by neighborhood, but that is not be enough to save the July 14 evening attendance numbers from decreasing so sharply that many brokers sell tickets for that night at face value.
1999 Scottish playwright Sharman Macdonald’s The Brave begins performances at Off-Broadway’s Atlantic Theater. The play is about a Scottish housewife who, on a trip to North Africa to reunite with her estranged sister, kills a Muslim man who attempted to rape her. The production is helmed by Dave Mowers.
2000 Cousins Robbie and Steve Fox premiere their new musical The Gift at the Tiffany Theatre in Hollywood. The show, about five thirty-something guys who face their own mortality when an exotic dancer at a bachelor party brings an unexpected gift, is directed by Andy Fickman. The cast features Alicia Witt, Robert Torti, James Barbour, and Burke Moses.
2003 London rockers The Heather Brothers bring Off-Broadway back to the 1960s in their new musical Café a Go Go, directed by John Hadden with choreography by Susan Dibble.
2004 Emmy winners Jimmy Smits and Kristen Johnston star in the Shakespeare in the Park summer production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte Theatre.
2010 Jeff Goldblum and Mercedes Ruehl open in a West End production of Neil Simon‘s The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Vaudeville Theatre. Directed by Terry Johnson, the black comedy depicts a New York couple enduring the trials and tribulations of city life.
2010 Two grand dames of the stage, Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch, take over as Desirée Armfeldt and her worldly-wise mother Madame Armfeldt, respectively, in the 2009 revival of A Little Night Music at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
2011 The hippies from the national tour of Hair turn their psychedelic bus around for a special engagement on Broadway at the St. James Theatre. The 10-week run is a summer stop on the musical’s U.S. tour, which launched in the fall of 2010.
2012 Henry V opens July 13 at Stratford Festival in Canada, directed by Tony winner Des McAnuff in his final production as the artistic director of the summer theatre series. The Bard’s war play stars Aaron Krohn in the title role.
2016 The Off-Broadway return of Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds, directed by Rachel Chavkin, officially opens at the Signature Theatre. The new play, about a group of urbanites struggling to find quiet and peace of mind, was originally produced by Ars Nova the year prior and played a sold-out, twice-extended run.
2017 Oscar Isaac stars as Hamlet in The Public’s modern-dress production of Shakespeare’s beloved drama. Sam Gold directs with a cast featuring Keegan-Michael Key, Gayle Rankin, Charlayne Woodard, and Anatol Yusef.
2019 Broadway goes dark when a blackout interrupts a wide swath of the New York City’s theatre district. As fans waited to find out if Saturday evening performances would go on, the casts of Hadestown, Come From Away, and more provided impromptu performances outside the theatres. While the curtain rises for a few shows, that night many return the following day for Sunday matinees.
More of Today’s Birthdays: William J. Hurlbut (1883–1957). Despo (1916–2004). David Storey (1933–2017). Didi Conn (b. 1951). Jason Danieley (b. 1971). Deborah Cox (b. 1974).
Watch Elaine Stritch sing “Liaisons” from A Little Night Music.
Today we flashback to 2011, when the second Broadway revival of Follies arrived at the Marquis Theatre, where it played for 152 performances.
Though the Metropolitan Opera has canceled all performances on its stage until at least December 31, the New York City institution will instead present ticketed, live streamed concerts from around the world.
A handful of opera stars and Met favorites will take part in the 12-concert series, which kicks off July 18 with Jonas Kaufmann; the tenor will perform live from Bavaria’s Polling Abbey. Later performances include Renée Fleming from D.C.’s Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Sondra Radvanovsky and Piotr Beczała from Barcelona, Anna Netrebko from Liechtenstein Palace in Vienna, Sonya Yoncheva from Berlin, and Angel Blue from New York City.
Unlike the Met’s earlier “At-Home Gala,” the concerts will be professionally filmed in spaces other than the singers’ homes. The streams, hosted by soprano Christine Goerke, will also highlight the art and architecture of the global locations, plus previously recorded documentary segments. Gary Halvorson, who’s headed the Met’s Live in HD broadcasts—many of which have been streamed throughout the pandemic in the Nightly Met Streams series—will direct.
Also unlike the gala—access to the streams will cost $20 (and will be available for 12 days following the event). They will also air on PBS at a later time.
Check out the full concert lineup below. All performances stream live at 1 PM ET.
July 18: Jonas Kaufmann, from the Polling Abbey in Polling, Bavaria
August 1: Renée Fleming, from the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, D.C.
August 16: Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak, from the Château de la Chèvre d’Or in Èze, France
August 29: Lise Davidsen, from the Oscarshall Palace in Oslo, Norway
September 12: Joyce DiDonato, from the Fundació Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona, Spain
September 26: Sondra Radvanovsky and Piotr Beczała, from Barcelona
October 10: Anna Netrebko, from Liechtenstein Palace in Vienna, Austria
October 24: Diana Damrau and Joseph Calleja, from Malta (castle location TBD)
Nov 7: Pretty Yende and Javier Camarena, from Zurich, Switzerland (location TBD)
Nov 21: Sonya Yoncheva, from Berlin, Germany (location TBD)
December 12: Bryn Terfel, from Wales (church location TBD)
December 19: Angel Blue, from New York City (location TBD)
The UK government has added a performing arts section to its document on working safely during coronavirus COVID-19.
A new platform, Creating in Color, has launched with the mission of serving BIOPIC music artists in the theatre community.
The database invites Black, Indigenous, and other people of color in musical positions—including music directors, arrangers, pit musicians, engineers, composers, rehearsal pianists, and more—to sign up, giving them a space to network and be seen by employers. The goal is to develop additional programming, including mentorships and career development initiatives, in the future.
The project hails from John Bronston, whose credits include music director of Hair on tour and associate musical director of the tours of Ain’t Misbehavin’, Smokey Joe’s Cafe, and Five Guys Named Moe.
“Music teams on Broadway, regionally, educationally, and around the world remain overwhelmingly white,” Bronston writes. “Here is where we begin to make the world of the people who create and maintain the musical lifeblood of our work more closely resemble the world outside of the theatre’s doors.”
For more information and to register, visit CreatinginColorMusic.com.
