OUR FABULOUS CHRISMUKKAH CAROL: A HOLIDAY REWRITE

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Photo: Michael O’Connor of Classy Camera

Tag: Performing Arts

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.

National Theatre Live: Small Island

Small Island

adapted by Helen Edmundson

based on the novel by Andrea Levy

Andrea Levy’s Orange Prize-winning novel Small Island comes to life in an epic new theatre adaptation. Experience the play in cinemas, filmed live on stage as part of National Theatre Live’s 10th birthday.

Small Island embarks on a journey from Jamaica to Britain, through the Second World War to 1948 – the year the HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury, England. 

The play follows three intricately connected stories. Hortense yearns for a new life away from rural Jamaica, Gilbert dreams of becoming a lawyer, and Queenie longs to escape her Lincolnshire roots. Hope and humanity meet stubborn reality as the play traces the tangled history of Jamaica and the UK.

A company of 40 actors take to the stage of the National Theatre in London in this timely and moving story.

National Theatre Live: The Lehman Trilogy

The Lehman Trilogy

by Stefano Massini, adapted by Ben Power
directed by Sam Mendes

The story of a family and a company that changed the world, told in three parts on a single evening.

Academy Award-winner Sam Mendes (Skyfall, The Ferryman) directs Simon Russell Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles who play the Lehman Brothers, their sons and grandsons.

On a cold September morning in 1844 a young man from Bavaria stands on a New York dockside. Dreaming of a new life in the new world. He is joined by his two brothers and an American epic begins.

163 years later, the firm they establish – Lehman Brothers – spectacularly collapses into bankruptcy, and triggers the largest financial crisis in history.

This critically acclaimed and five-time Olivier Award nominated play features stunning set design from Es Devlin (NT Live: Hamlet) and will be broadcast live from London’s West End as part of National Theatre Live’s 10th Birthday season. 

Hamptons International Film Festival presents NOW SHOWING: Monos

Now Showing brings acclaimed first-run art house, independent, and world cinema films currently in theaters to the East End.

Monos, Alejandro Landes’ awe-inspiring third feature, is a breathtaking survivalist saga set on a remote mountain in Latin America. The film tracks a young group of soldiers and rebels — bearing names like Rambo, Smurf, Bigfoot, Wolf and Boom-Boom — who keep watch over an American hostage, Doctora (Julianne Nicholson).

The teenage commandos perform military training exercises by day and indulge in youthful hedonism by night, an unconventional family bound together under a shadowy force known only as The Organization. After an ambush drives the squadron into the jungle, both the mission and the intricate bonds between the group begin to disintegrate. Order descends into chaos and within MONOS the strong begin to prey on the weak in this vivid, cautionary fever- dream.

With a rapturous score by Mica Levi (only her third, after UNDER THE SKIN and JACKIE), director Alejandro Landes examines the chaos and absurdity of war from the unique perspective of adolescence, recalling LORD OF THE FLIES and BEAU TRAVAIL in a way that feels wholly original. Landes brings together a diverse young cast of both seasoned professionals (including Hannah Montana’s Moisés Arias) and untrained neophytes and thrusts them into an unforgiving, irrational and often surreal environment where anything can happen — even peace.

Art Criticism: The Next Generation

With Tiffany Bradley; Belinda Becker, DJ, dancer, and actor; and Dr. Tyesha Maddox, Assistant Professor, African and African-American Studies at Fordham University.

A new generation of commentators are remaking art criticism in their image. This program will screen four short films and one work-in-progress, showcasing arts experiences from Native American, Afro-Brazilian, African-American, and Caribbean-American communities. A panel discussion will follow with Millennial curators and journalists responding to the changing understanding of cultural heritage. Shorts include Digital Natives: Plains Indians at The Met, Free Blacks: DanceAfrica at BAM, #MovementIsRising: Museum of Impact, Millennial Realness: 2019 Whitney Biennial and Carnival Queens.