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: A Screening of All My Sons by Arthur Miller

Broadcast live from The Old Vic in London, Academy Award-winner Sally Field (Steel Magnolias, Brothers & Sisters) and Bill Pullman (The Sinner, Independence Day) star in Arthur Miller’s blistering drama All My Sons. 

America, 1947. Despite hard choices and even harder knocks, Joe and Kate Keller are a success story. They have built a home, raised two sons and established a thriving business.

But nothing lasts forever and their contented lives, already shadowed by the loss of their eldest boy to war, are about to shatter. With the return of a figure from the past, long buried truths are forced to the surface and the price of their American dream is laid bare.

Jeremy Herrin (NT Live: This House) directs the cast, which also includes Jenna Coleman (Victoria), and Colin Morgan (Merlin) alongside Bessie Carter, Oliver Johnstone, Kayla Meikle and Sule Rimi.

Hamptons Film presents NOW SHOWING: Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

Shortly after receiving the news of a fatal diagnosis in early 2015, world-renowned British neurologist, historian, physician, and author Oliver Sacks sat down for a series of lengthy filmed interviews to discuss the story of his life. Beginning with the difficulties of his childhood relationship with a schizophrenic older brother and growing up as a queer man in 1950s England, Sacks charts his journey towards becoming one of the foremost chroniclers of the human mind. Interweaving these interviews with recollections from his longtime partner, closest friends, family, and colleagues, director Ric Burns creates a moving portrait of one of the 21st century’s greatest minds.

This film won the #HIFF27 Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. Director: Ric Burns.

Running time: 110 minutes

Hamptons Film presents NOW SHOWING: Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

Shortly after receiving the news of a fatal diagnosis in early 2015, world-renowned British neurologist, historian, physician, and author Oliver Sacks sat down for a series of lengthy filmed interviews to discuss the story of his life. Beginning with the difficulties of his childhood relationship with a schizophrenic older brother and growing up as a queer man in 1950s England, Sacks charts his journey towards becoming one of the foremost chroniclers of the human mind. Interweaving these interviews with recollections from his longtime partner, closest friends, family, and colleagues, director Ric Burns creates a moving portrait of one of the 21st century’s greatest minds.

This film won the #HIFF27 Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. Director: Ric Burns.

Running time: 110 minutes

Operatif: Exploring Puccini’s Operatic Style

Puccini’s Turandot is a classic example of the height of the Italian romantic style – through-composed opera with lush orchestral textures, demanding larger voices to declaim highly emotional themes.  Most of Puccini’s operas are truly verismo operas in their conception, like La bohème and Tosca, recounting in ‘real time’ tales of love and sometimes violence rather than the mythological and real kings and queens or counts and countesses of the earlier operas. Turandot breaks the mold and is based on a Persian myth which Puccini sets in China. Here Puccini fits the ancient tale of the Princess Turandot in the operatic sound-world that he helped propel. Join pianist Derrick Goff and tenor Cameron Schutza as we explore how to listen to this changing operatic style. 

Please join us for the Season Opener Breakfast Reception at 11:30am in the Wasserstein Gallery prior to the lecture-recital at 12pm.

JDT Lab: Kingdom of the Spirits by JZ Holden

Directed by Amanda Kate Joshi

KINGDOM OF THE SPIRITS is about a Jewish nightclub owner in Berlin between 1938 and 1945. Her longtime lover Heinz, who is now a powerful Nazi General, comes to her club one evening in 1938 to tell her that she must leave Berlin, that he can no longer protect her, but that he has created a plan for her escape and survival.

She agrees to go along with it only if he will promise to protect her family and guarantee that no harm will come to them. He agrees, and a deal with the devil is struck. The political climate of war and its psychological landscape is the place where Kingdom of the Spirits takes place, misinformation is rife, collaboration and collusion are temptations too difficult to dismiss and death is one poor decision away.

Kingdom of the Spirits is a story about the price we pay for forbidden love, betrayal, political complicity, and ultimately survival.

Operatif Lecture with Victoria Bond

Pre-opera lecture on Massenet’s Manon.

An Enduring Love Story 

The most popular of his operas, Massenet’s “Manon” is regularly performed around the world. Its roles are a dramatic and musical feast and the all-star cast in the upcoming Metropolitan Opera production should make for a thrilling performance. I look forward to sharing with you the story behind the legendary heroine who fascinated not only Massenet, but authors, artists and other composers, including Giacomo Puccini.

National Theatre Live: Hansard

Hansard
by Simon Wood

Hansard; noun
The official report of all parliamentary debates.

See two-time Olivier Award winners, Lindsay Duncan (Birdman, About Time) and Alex Jennings (The Lady in the Van, The Queen), in this brand-new play by Simon Wood, broadcast live from the National Theatre in London.

It’s a summer’s morning in 1988 and Tory politician Robin Hesketh has returned home to the idyllic Cotswold house he shares with his wife of 30 years, Diana. But all is not as blissful as it seems. Diana has a stinking hangover, a fox is destroying the garden, and secrets are being dug up all over the place. As the day draws on, what starts as gentle ribbing and the familiar rhythms of marital scrapping quickly turns to blood-sport.

Don’t miss this witty and devastating portrait of the governing class, directed by Simon Godwin (NT Live: Antony & Cleopatra, Twelfth Night) and part of National Theatre Live’s 10th birthday season.

National Theatre Live: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare

‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’

A feuding fairy King and Queen of the forest cross paths with four runaway lovers and a troupe of actors trying to rehearse a play. As their dispute grows, the magical royal couple meddle with mortal lives leading to love triangles, mistaken identities and transformations… with hilarious, but dark consequences. 

Shakespeare’s most famous romantic comedy will be captured live from the Bridge Theatre in London. Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), Oliver Chris (Green Wing, NT Live: Young Marx), David Moorst (NT Live: Allelujah!) and Hammed Animashaun (The Barber Shop Chronicles) lead the cast as Titania, Oberon, Puck and Bottom. 

Directed by Nicholas Hytner, this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will build on the success of his immersive staging of Julius Caesar (NT Live 2018). The Bridge Theatre will become a forest – a dream world of flying fairies, contagious fogs and moonlight revels, surrounded by a roving audience following the action on foot.

National Theatre Live: Fleabag

Fleabag
Written and performed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Directed by Vicky Jones

★★★★★
‘Witty, filthy and supreme.’ Guardian

See the hilarious, award-winning, one-woman show that inspired the BBC’s hit TV series Fleabag, broadcast live to cinemas from London’s West End. 

Written and performed by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Killing Eve) and directed by Vicky Jones, Fleabag is a rip-roaring look at some sort of woman living her sort of life. 

Fleabag may seem oversexed, emotionally unfiltered and self-obsessed, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. With family and friendships under strain and a guinea pig café struggling to keep afloat, Fleabag suddenly finds herself with nothing to lose.

Playing to sold-out audiences in New York and London, don’t miss your chance to see this ‘legitimately hilarious show’ (New Yorker), broadcast live to a cinema near you. 

Presented by DryWrite, Soho Theatre and Annapurna Theatre

Show image by Jason Hetherington 

The East Hampton Star is proud to announce its new Experiential division, dedicated to providing both our readers and our partners with innovative and unexpected experiences designed to surprise, delight and create long-lasting community connections.

Join The East Hampton Star for a private three-course dinner at the Maidstone Hotel.

National Theatre Live: All About Eve

All About Eve

By Joseph L Mankiewicz

Adapted and directed for the stage by Ivo van Hove

Gillian Anderson (X-Files, NT Live: A Streetcar Named Desire) and Lily James (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again) lead in All About Eve, broadcast live to cinemas from the West End in London.

All About Eve tells the story of Margo Channing. Legend. True star of the theatre. The spotlight is hers, always has been. But now there’s Eve. Her biggest fan. Young, beautiful Eve. The golden girl, the girl next door. But you know all about Eve…don’t you…?

Lifting the curtain on a world of jealousy and ambition, this new production, from one of the world’s most innovative theatre directors, Ivo van Hove (NT Live: A View from the Bridge), asks why our fascination with celebrity, youth and identity never seems to get old.

All About Eve is adapted by Ivo van Hove from the 1950 Twentieth Century Fox film by Joseph L Mankiewicz and the play “The Wisdom of Eve” by Mary Orr. Ivo van Hove directs this new stage version with set and lighting design from Jan Versweyveld, costume design by An D’Huys and music from double Mercury Prize-winner PJ Harvey, alongside Tom Gibbons’ sound design. Casting is by Julia Horan CDG. 

Photographs: Gillian Anderson by Pari Dukovic and Lily James by Perou. Design: Bob King Creative.