AN EVENING OF SHORT PLAYS DIRECTED BY BOB BALABAN

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Bob Balaban, photo courtesy of Guild Hall.

Tag: Performing Arts

National Theatre Live at Home: Twelfth Night

Visit the National Theatre’s homepage to view this stream for one week after it premieres

Make a date with Shakespeare’s whirlwind comedy of mistaken identity, featuring Tamsin Greig as a transformed Malvolia.

A ship is wrecked on the rocks: Viola is washed ashore but her twin brother Sebastian is lost. Determined to survive on her own, she steps out to explore a new land.

Where music is the food of love, and nobody is quite what they seem, anything proves possible.

Simon Godwin (Man and Superman, The Beaux’s Stratagem, Hansard) directs this joyous production, captured on-stage by National Theatre Live.

Nightly Met Opera Streams: Borodin’s Prince Igor

Visit the Metropolitan Opera’s homepage to view this stream for 23 hours after it premieres

Dmitri Tcherniakov’s acclaimed new production of Borodin’s Russian epic—the opera’s first Met staging in nearly a century—stars Ildar Abdrazakov in the title role of the tormented prince who leads his army against the Polovtsians. The stellar all-Russian-language cast also includes Oksana Dyka as his wife, Yaroslavna, Anita Rachvelishvili as Konchakova, Sergey Semishkur as Igor’s son, Vladimir, Mikhail Petrenko as Prince Galitzky, and Štefan Kocán as Khan Konchak. Gianandrea Noseda conducts the Met’s vast musical forces in this colorful score, which includes the celebrated Polovtsian Dances.

Nightly Met Opera Streams: Verdi’s Luisa Miller

Visit the Metropolitan Opera’s homepage to view this stream for 23 hours after it premieres

Premiered immediately before the enduring masterpieces Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata, Luisa Miller incorporates the youthful vitality that had made Verdi an international sensation while also looking forward to the dramaturgical discipline and sophistication of those later works. In this Live in HD performance, soprano Sonya Yoncheva takes on the riveting title role, capping off a season in which she starred in three cinema transmissions. As her father, Miller, the legendary Plácido Domingo adds another baritone role to his extensive repertoire. Tenor Piotr Beczała as Rodolfo, Alexander Vinogradov as Count Walter, and Dmitry Belosselskiy as Wurm round out the illustrious cast, and Bertrand de Billy conducts.

Nightly Met Opera Streams: Viewers’ Choice: Verdi’s Aida

Visit the Metropolitan Opera’s homepage to view this stream for 23 hours after it premieres

This was one of the most emotional evenings in Met history—the night Leontyne Price bid farewell to opera. Aida is the role that inspired audiences around the world to acclaim her as the greatest Verdi soprano of her time. And this telecast shows why: the famous soaring phrases that seemed to never end, the shimmering top to her lustrous voice, undimmed by the years. But most of all, there is the ennobling heart and soul Price lavished on every performance—captured here forever. With James Levine conducting the Met orchestra, chorus, and ballet.

 

Nightly Met Opera Streams: Nico Muhly’s Marnie

Visit the Metropolitan Opera’s homepage to view this stream for 23 hours after it premieres

Based on Winston Graham’s gripping 1961 novel of intrigue and deception, Nico Muhly’s new opera had its United States premiere at the Met during the 2018–19 season. In this performance from the Met’s series of Live in HD series of cinema transmissions, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard stars in the elusive title role, a young con woman who employs myriad false identities until she meets her match in the imperious Mark Rutland, sung by baritone Christopher Maltman. Director Michael Mayer’s cinematic production bursts to life in vivid color and features ravishing, 60s-inspired costumes by Oscar-nominated designer and stylist Arianne Phillips. Robert Spano conducts an accomplished cast, which also features soprano Janis Kelly, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, and countertenor Iestyn Davies.

Nightly Met Opera Streams: Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux

Visit the Metropolitan Opera’s homepage to view this stream for 23 hours after it premieres

Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky completes her season-long exploration of Donizetti’s three Tudor queen operas, starring as Elizabeth I in this final installment. David McVicar’s atmospheric Met premiere production frames the dramatic and heart-rending love story of the queen and the Earl of Essex as a play within a play unfolding before the members of the royal court. Radvanovsky’s portrayal of the aging monarch is a tour de force, laying bare the conflict between her public duties as ruler of England and her private feelings as a woman. Matthew Polenzani is the Earl of Essex, Roberto Devereux, the object of her affections who is torn between two women. Elīna Garanča as Sarah and Mariusz Kwiecien as her husband, the Duke of Nottingham, complete the quartet of principals. Maurizio Benini conducts.

Nightly Met Opera Streams: Donizetti’s Anna Bolena

Visit the Metropolitan Opera’s homepage to view this stream for 23 hours after it premieres

David McVicar’s atmospheric and brooding production captures the drama of this riveting piece of British history, retold as only Donizetti could. International superstar Anna Netrebko is Queen Anne Boleyn, trapped in an unhappy marriage to King Henry VIII (Ildar Abdrazakov) whose roving eye has settled on another woman—Jane Seymour (Ekaterina Gubanova), Anna’s friend, but now her unwitting rival. Add in Anna’s early love, Percy (Stephen Costello), just returned to the court from exile, and the result is a haunting, explosive account of Queen Anna’s tragic final days, before she goes to her execution in one of the most moving and dazzling final scenes in all of opera.

Virtual KidFEST: The Amazing Max

Max Darwin (aka The Amazing Max) is based in NYC and performs his family magic show Off Broadway and on tour. Since Amazing Max is not currently performing in the theater, he has offered Guild Hall a virtual magic lesson that can be enjoyed from your sofa! In one hour Max will teach your kids 3 magic tricks using objects available right in your home. All you need is 1 pencil, 2 paper clips, a dollar bill, and a deck of cards. Magic experience not required! Following the lesson there will be time for a Q&A.

The session will be a private group on Zoom, so everyone will need to register in advance to participate.  A link will be sent to ticket holders 24 hours in advance of the performance.

Recommended for ages 6 & up.  For younger kids who would like to participate, an adult presence is recommended to help them with the tricks.  

Jeff Cohen’s The Soap Myth starring Ed Asner and Tovah Feldshuh

Did the Nazis make soap from the corpses of murdered Jews?  
Fifty years after the end of World War II, impassioned Holocaust survivor Milton Saltzman battles Holocaust historians to include the atrocity of “soap” in their Holocaust memorials and museums. THE SOAP MYTH wrestles with the conflict between survivor memory and historical proof, as well as with the scourge of anti-Semitism masquerading as Holocaust denial. The play poses such provocative questions as: Who has the right to write history? Who determines the truth? How does a survivor survive surviving?  

We invite you to watch PBS’s recording of Jeff Cohen’s gut-wrenching play, starring Ed Asner and Tovah Feldshuh, on your own and then to join us for a virtual discussion on essential questions about the shaping of history and the convenient hatred of anti-Semitism, with: 
Ed Asner & Tovah Feldshuh, The play’s stars
Jeff Cohen, Playwright
Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust scholar
Ira N. Forman, President Obama’s Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism

All who register will receive an email the night prior to the event with links both for the April 20th webinar as well as a link to watch the play. 

This program is proudly presented by the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, the National Jewish Theater Foundation and the=Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center

Special introductions by Rabbi Joshua M. Davidson and Arnold Mittelman.  

Questions will be taken via chat room and moderated by Rick Salomon,Vice President and Member of the Executive Committee of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center 
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The New York Times calls THE SOAP MYTH – “A pointed investigation of the politics of history… Forceful… Genuinely moving… A revelation!”
 
Williamstown Theatre Festival Artistic Director Mandy Greenfield said: “Our audience was reached, moved and transformed.  The performance felt epic, historic, important and meaningful beyond words – an evening this Festival will not soon forget.” 
 
William Shulman, President of The Association of Holocaust Organizations, wrote: “THE SOAP MYTH is a powerful confrontation between survivor memory and historical memory as well as a scathing depiction of the insidiousness of sophisticated Holocaust denial.  It is a remarkably effective teaching tool.”