TDF Stages

In-person theatre is back in NYC, both on Broadway and beyond. But there are still wonderful shows to stream at home. Below are performances you can watch online this weekend, Friday, November 12 to Sunday, November 14, for free or at low cost.

Friday, November 12

Bandstand
In honor of Veterans Day, Broadway on Demand is streaming Bandstand, an underrated musical starring Laura Ones and Corey Cott about WWII vets trying to win a music contest while grappling with PTSD. Tickets cost $7 and the recording is viewable until midnight.

Gotham Storytelling Festival: Stories in Heels: Tall Tales of the Glamorous Women Who Changed My Life
On Friday at 7 p.m. ET, FRIGID New York continues its hybrid season of in-person performances at the Kraine Theater that are also live-streamed to at-home audiences. Tonight, as part of the Gotham Storytelling Festival, Jamie Brickhouse performs his award-winning solo show Stories in Heels: Tall Tales of the Glamorous Women Who Changed My Life, a fabulous evening celebrating the ladies who've influenced him, from Joan Crawford to Joan Collins, Helen Gurley Brown to Elizabeth Warren. Tickets are pay-what-you-wish.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater: In the Southern Breeze
On Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET, NYC's acclaimed Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is presenting a hybrid season, with its productions performed in person but also streamed to at-home audiences. The company's current show is Mansa Ra's poetic premiere In the Southern Breeze, about a Black man whose existential crisis magically catapults him back through centuries of racially charged history to reveal the struggles he continues to face today. Christopher D. Betts directs the play, which is billed as "an autobiographical fever dream." Tickets are $35 for both streamed and in-person performances.

Saturday, November 13

Gotham Storytelling Festival: The Pilgrim's Progress
On Saturday at 5 p.m. ET, FRIGID New York continues its hybrid season of in-person performances at the Kraine Theater that are also live-streamed to at-home audiences. Tonight, as part of the Gotham Storytelling Festival, writer, performer and historian Trav S.D. performs his theatrical memoir The Pilgrim's Progress, a no-holds-barred seriocomic chronicle about his family, which he can trace back to the Mayflower. With the 400th anniversary of Thanksgiving upon us, there's never been a better time to parse our nation's bloody past. Tickets are pay-what-you-wish.

Gotham Storytelling Festival: What a Difference a Year Makes
On Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET, FRIGID New York continues its hybrid season of in-person performances at the Kraine Theater that are also live-streamed to at-home audiences. Tonight, as part of the Gotham Storytelling Festival, hilarious Nuyorican writer-performer Michele Carlo explores the challenges we faced during the pandemic and tries to find the upsides. There's got to be at least one, right? Tickets are pay-what-you-wish.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater: In the Southern Breeze
On Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET, NYC's acclaimed Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is presenting a hybrid season, with its productions performed in person but also streamed to at-home audiences. The company's current show is Mansa Ra's poetic premiere In the Southern Breeze, about a Black man whose existential crisis magically catapults him back through centuries of racially charged history to reveal the struggles he continues to face today. Christopher D. Betts directs the play, which is billed as "an autobiographical fever dream." Tickets are $35 for both streamed and in-person performances.

Sunday, November 14

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater: In the Southern Breeze
On Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, NYC's acclaimed Rattlestick Playwrights Theater is presenting a hybrid season, with its productions performed in person but also streamed to at-home audiences. The company's current show is Mansa Ra's poetic premiere In the Southern Breeze, about a Black man whose existential crisis magically catapults him back through centuries of racially charged history to reveal the struggles he continues to face today. Christopher D. Betts directs the play, which is billed as "an autobiographical fever dream." Tickets are $35 for both streamed and in-person performances.

The Seth Concert Series: Kathryn Gallagher
On Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, even though show-tune savant Seth Rudetsky is back doing shows in person, he hasn't completely abandoned the virtual realm. In fact, he's relaunched his weekly live-streamed concert series! Tonight his guest is Kathryn Gallagher, who earned a Tony nomination for her searing performance in Jagged Little Pill. In addition to her stage work, she starred in the first season of Netflix's You and is an up-and-coming singer-songwriter, so expect original tunes as well as numbers from her career, plus stories about her famous dad, Peter, too. Tickets are $25.

All Weekend

Arena Stage: Celia and Fidel
On Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. ET, Washington, DC's acclaimed Arena Stage presents Celia and Fidel, Eduardo Machado's history-inspired drama about the complex relationship between Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his political partner Celia Sánchez. Molly Smith directs the production, which is being performed live on stage and also streamed to at-home audiences. Tickets are $50.

All Arts: 20 Years of Asian American Playwriting
All Arts presents the new documentary 20 Years of Asian American Playwriting featuring interviews with some of the most exciting dramatists working today, including M. Butterfly Tony winner David Henry Hwang, Young Jean Lee, Mike Lew, Lauren Yee and Qui Nguyen. Ralph B. Peña, the artistic director of Ma-Yi Theater Company, created this must-watch chronicle. Watch for free on All Arts' website. Captions and audio description are available.

All Arts: MasterVoices: Myths and Hymns
Earlier this year, MasterVoices premiered a digital reimagining of the four-part theatrical song cycle Myths and Hymns by Light in the Piazza Tony winner Adam Guettel. Inspired by Greek myths and 19th-century Presbyterian hymns, the 1998 work explores the nature of faith and longing in our secular society. All Arts is now streaming all four chapters of this multimedia musical featuring a slew of Broadway stars including Norm Lewis, Kelli O'Hara, Renée Fleming, Joshua Henry, Shoshana Bean, Daniel Breaker and Jennifer Holliday. Watch for free on All Arts' website.

Vineyard Theatre: On the Beauty of Loss
On Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 5 p.m. ET, during the shutdown, the Vineyard Theatre commissioned five artists to create new boundary-breaking theatre. The resulting works will debut throughout the fall and this weekend you can catch the world premiere of On the Beauty of Loss, a multimedia meditation on mortality by acclaimed virtual theatre-maker Jared Mezzocchi. Performed live on Zoom, Mezzocchi explores how technology has changed the way we connect, make memories and share grief as he contemplates the loss of two loved ones: a father, who passed before the advent of smartphones, and a grandfather, who's dying during the pandemic. Tickets start at $18.50.

New York Theatre Workshop: Sanctuary City
On Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7 p.m. ET, if you weren't able to see this eye-opening drama by Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok (Cost of Living, queens, Ironbound) during its critically acclaimed Off-Broadway run, you can now stream Sanctuary City at home. Like many of Majok's previous plays, Sanctuary City focuses on the struggles of undocumented immigrants as two teenage friends try to figure out how to forge a future in an unforgiving country. Olivier Award winner Rebecca Frecknall directs Jasai Chase-Owens, Sharlene Cruz and Austin Smith in this piercing piece, which unfolds in an unexpected, nonlinear way. Tickets start at $30.

Donmar Warehouse: Constellations
London's acclaimed Donmar Warehouse presents Nick Payne's Constellations, a time-bending two-hander that explores the notion of the multiverse by replaying key moments in one couple's romance. Michael Longhurst, who helmed the play on Broadway, directed this production, which was filmed on stage with four different casts alternating in this trippy tale. The pairings are Sheila Atim and Ivanno Jeremiah; Peter Capaldi and Zoë Wanamaker; Omari Douglas and Russell Tovey; and Anna Maxwell Martin and Chris O'Dowd. Tickets are £15 for each cast, approximately $21. Or you can watch all four for £40, approximately $55. The recording is viewable until Monday, November 29, and captions and audio description are available. You must create a Donmar Warehouse account to watch.

The Shed: November
Claudia Rankine's buzzy play Help had just started previews at The Shed when the shutdown hit. So during the pandemic, she transformed the piece into a short film titled November. Real-life exchanges Rankine had with white men in public spaces are reenacted by five Black women, Zora Howard, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, Crystal Dickinson, April Matthis and Melanie Nicholls-King, examining how privilege impacts the way one navigates the world. A fusion of stage and cinema, November was filmed at The Shed, with Taibi Magar directing the actors on stage and Phillip Youmans behind the camera. It's a great primer for Help, which will finally get a full run at The Shed next spring. Register to receive the free viewing link; the recording is viewable until Sunday.

HERE Arts Center: 9000 Paper Balloons
HERE Arts Center presents 9000 Paper Balloons, a stunning new multimedia piece inspired by the hard-to-believe secret weapons used by Japan against the US during World War II. Created by Japanese artist Maiko Kikuchi and American puppeteer Spencer Lott, the surreal performance weaves puppetry, animation and masks into a historical tale that also encompasses their own family stories. Tickets start at $10 and the recording is viewable until Friday, December 31.

Theater Three Collaborative: Blue Valiant
After a successful Zoom reading during the pandemic, Theater Three Collaborative decided to stage Karen Malpede's moving drama Blue Valiant at Pennsylvania's outdoor Farm Arts Collective starring the invaluable Kathleen Chalfant. Filmed live on that alfresco stage, this story of trauma and healing centers on a lonely woman, a wild horse and a refugee child thrown together by circumstance and the unexpected bonds they forge. Watch for free until Sunday, November 28 on Theater Three Collaborative's YouTube channel though donations are encouraged.

Center Theatre Group: Chavez Ravine: In 9 Innings
Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group presents Chavez Ravine: In 9 Innings, a virtual reimagining of a 2003 play about the small, tight-knit LA neighborhood that was razed so Dodger Stadium could rise. Devised by the collective Culture Clash, this digital production features scenes from the original script filmed at LA's Kirk Douglas Theatre and on location around the city, incorporating music, archival videos and photos, and new interviews. Tickets are $20 and the recording is viewable until Monday, December 6.

Lantern Theater Company: The Plague
Philadelphia's Lantern Theater Company presents The Plague, Neil Bartlett's adaptation of Albert Camus' existentialist classic La Peste about a disease upending a city. Talk about timely! Charles McMahon directs this production, which was filmed live on stage this past summer. Tickets are $20 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, November 21.

Lantern Theater Company: Me and the Devil
Renaissance man Steve H. Broadnax III, who's currently making his Broadway debut as the director of Thoughts of a Colored Man, cowrote, costars and helms Me and the Devil, a new play with music about blues great Robert Johnson. According to legend, the guitarist, singer and songwriter made a deal with the Devil for his talents. Broadnax plays Lucifer and Lawrence Stallings is his mark in this show, which finds Johnson trying to extract himself from the contract to save his soul. Tickets are $20 and the recording is viewable until Sunday, November 21.

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Raven Snook is the Editor of TDF Stages. Follow her at @RavenSnook. Follow TDF at @TDFNYC.

Top image: Kathryn Gallagher from Broadway's Jagged Little Pill, who's performing a live-streamed concert on Sunday evening. Photo by Matthew Murphy.