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Bandstand on Broadway Click here for tickets US Click here for tickets UK Memorial Day, when Americans hold parades to thank their military veterans, is a big deal (and a public holiday) in the US. In celebration of Memorial Day, Broadway On Demand (US) and Stream Theatre (UK) will stream the filmed version of the Broadway musical Bandstand. Set in the smoke-filled, swing-fueled night clubs of 1945, Bandstand finds singer-songwriter Private Donny Novitski as he attempts to rebuild his life after returning home from the battlefield. When he hears about a national music competition, Donny joins forces with a motley gang of fellow musician-veterans, and together they form a unique group. Written by Richard Oberacker and Robert Taylor, Bandstand stars Corey Cott, Laura Osnes, and Beth Leavel, and is directed and choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler. For some reason I don't understand, the US viewing period starts this week, the UK not until a week later which is why there are different ticketing links. US - May 28-31 $6.99, with a 24-hour viewing period. UK June 8-13 £10 + £3 Shaw Shorts - Orange Tree Theatre Click here for tickets The Orange Tree Theatre is reopening live with these two short Shaw plays but if you can’t get to Richmond, in South West London, they will be streamed online for two performances. How He Lied to Her Husband and Overruled – a double bill of Bernard Shaw’s short plays directed by Artistic Director Paul Miller. In How He Lied to Her Husband, Aurora is concerned about what has happened to the poems written for her by her admirer, the impetuous Henry, and fears they may get into the hands of husband Teddy. Henry suggests they confess the truth and go to the theatre as planned… to see Bernard Shaw’s Candida Then Henry arrives home. Overruled sees two strangers fall in love at sea. Both married, they decide they must part, but then are surprised to find their spouses at a hotel together. They’ve fallen for each other too. Do they stay together or swap? June 3-4 livestream online £15 Three Divas - Metropolitan Opera Click here for tickets Throughout the pandemic the Met has kept itself in the audiences’ minds and hearts through several routes. The Nightly Opera Streams, where you can watch one opera free each day has been a great gift for opera lovers who can’t pay the ticket prices at Lincoln Center or who live too far away to see them live or who have missed the legendary performances. The Met has opened its archive and made its treasures available to those of us who could merely dream of seeing Pavarotti’s Rigoletto or Shirley Verrett’s Tosca in performance. The Met has also been staging special events for which it has been charging the paltry fee of $20 to see some of their biggest current stars singing arias, songs, duets, and other lollypops for our pleasure. Last Saturday, for instance, sopranos Ailyn Pérez and Nadine Sierra and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, accompanied by pianist Vlad Iftinca and guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas, sang their hearts out, separately and collectively, live via satellite from the cavernous Royal Opera in the Palace of Versailles. The link will give you the full repertoire. To buy tickets just click on Add to Cart. The concert also included a selection of Spanish and Portuguese songs and is available on demand through June 4. $20 Wagnerians in Concert Click here for tickets And for Wagner lovers, the Met has extended the availability of their recent Wagnerians in Concert performance, starring Christine Goerke, Elza van den Heever, Andreas Schager, and Michael Volle with pianist Craig Terry. This is Wagner and Strauss from the grand Hessisches Staatstheater in Wiesbaden, Germany. The concert includes excerpts from Tannhäuser, Parsifal, Die Walküre, Die Frau ohne Schatten, and more, as well as Wagner’s complete Wesendonck Lieder. The link will give you the full repertoire. To buy tickets just click on Add to Cart. Through June 4 $20 Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas Click here to watch This comes from the National Theatre as a sort of trailer for their forthcoming live production of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. It is simply one great actor reciting a poem in the lobby of the National Theatre but when that actor is Michael Sheen and the poem is Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, sparks fly and language takes wing. Bulrusher - McCarter Theater Click here to register This is a new play by Eisa Davis from the McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, N.J. about a teenage clairvoyant in 1950s California. In 1955, in the redwood country north of San Francisco, a multiracial girl grows up in a predominantly white town. Bulrusher is an orphan with a gift for clairvoyance that makes her feel like a stranger even amongst the strange: the taciturn schoolteacher who adopted her, the madam who runs her brothel with a fierce discipline, the logger with a zest for horses and women, and the guitar-slinging boy who is after Bulrusher's heart. Kara Young stars with André Holland and Corey Stoll. Free but must register. June 3-9 at 8 ET, then available online until June 9 at midnight. The Show Must Go On! - Palace Theatre Click here to watch This is a live celebration of the reopening of the theatres in the West End, a concert with excerpts from all the big West End shows including TINA – THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL, Dear Evan Hansen, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, SIX, Hamilton, The Book of Mormon, WICKED, Royal Shakespeare Company’s Matilda The Musical, & Juliet, Les Misérables, Disney’s The Lion King, The Prince of Egypt, Come From Away, The Phantom Of The Opera, Mary Poppins, MAMMA MIA!, Back to the Future The Musical and Pretty Woman under the auspices of The Shows Must Go On! and National Theatre Live. It is free to watch but donations for the Theatre Support Fund+ are welcomed. 6th June at 7pm BST! (2pm ET / 11am PT) A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream shakespearesglobe.com This Midsummer’s Night’s Dream is a riot – complete with piñatas, streamers, glitter and a cacophony of brass. It may not be your idea of Shakespeare but it is fun. In case you’ve forgotten what he actually wrote, this is about four love-drunk teens, escaped from the confines of an oppressive regime, caught in a dispute of increasingly magical proportions. A posse of wannabe actors, determined to put on a play against the odds. The Fairy Queen and King at war, and one wild spirit hell-bent on causing as much havoc as possible. What could possibly go wrong? This event takes place online and is live streamed at 7pm from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre so don't be late. June 5 at 7 BST £10 Ohio State Murders - Spotlight on Plays Click here for tickets Playwright Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders is an unusual look at the destructiveness of racism in the U.S. When Suzanne Alexander, a fictional African American writer, returns to Ohio State University to talk about the violence in her writing, a dark mystery unravels. This reading has an outstanding cast - Audra McDonald, Warner Miller, Lizan Mitchell, Ben Rappaport – and is part of the excellent series Spotlight on Plays which has fielded some first-rate actors in revivals of important plays. It is directed by Kenny Leon, sadly, no relation, and proceeds benefit The Actors Fund. June 3rd at 8:00PM ET $15 Toulouse Orchestra trailer Click here to watch My friend and colleague Norman Lebrecht writes on his classical music website Slippedisc.com that this is the best season trailer of the year so far. He’s right. It is. It is a joyous 11-minute invitation to us from L’Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse to re-enter a world of music without masks or separation, of musicians making music together again, a reminder of what we have been missing and what we are poised to regain. It’s even, if you watch carefully as well as listen, a tiny travelogue introduction to the beautiful city of Toulouse. Thank you, Norman.
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AuthorRuth Leon is a writer and critic specialising in music and theatre. Archives
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