Top 5 Stage Performances to Stream This Weekend August 14-16
Even though in-person theatre and dance are back in full swing, in the name of accessibility we’re continuing to round up performances to watch online from the comfort of home. Our curated list spotlights the five best options to stream this weekend, Friday, August 14 to Sunday, August 16, for free or at low cost.
Since the UK-based National Theatre at Home has been adding so many incredible shows to its roster, we decided to highlight its catalogue this week. In addition to one-off rentals, monthly and annual subscriptions are available, and you can try out the platform with a seven-day free trial. Captions are available for all offerings and select titles also offer audio description.
National Theatre at Home: The Authenticator
Streaming for $10.
New to the platform: The Authenticator, Winsome Pinnock’s potent and surprisingly humorous play about a pair of Black academics tasked with verifying the diaries of a brutal 18th-century enslaver. Miranda Cromwell directs this powerful exploration of racism, colonialism and the legacy of slavery.
—
National Theatre at Home: Our Town
Streaming for $10.
New to the platform: Michael Sheen stars as the stage manager in this Welsh take on Thornton Wilder’s American masterpiece Our Town. Francesca Goodridge directs this mounting of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the everyday citizens of Grover’s Corners who learn too late that we must “realize life while we live it… every, every minute.”
—
National Theatre at Home: Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches and Part Two: Perestroika
Streaming for $10.
Before Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield won 2018 Tony Awards for their searing performances in the Broadway revival of Tony Kushner’s two-part magnum opus Angels in America, they did the plays in London. Stream that landmark London mounting of this “Gay Fantasia on National Themes” for a reminder that, even during troubled times, “the world only spins forward.”
—
National Theatre at Home: A View from the Bridge
Streaming for $10.
A starry revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge is set to run downtown this fall. If it’s a bit too pricey for your budget, console yourself with a recording of Ivo van Hove’s visceral revival, which was recorded in London before transferring to Broadway and winning two Tony Awards. Mark Strong stars as a Brooklyn man whose repressed desires threaten to tear his family apart.
—
National Theatre at Home: All My Sons
Streaming for $10.
Another incredible Arthur Miller play, the Bryan Cranston-led London revival is set to premiere on National Theatre at Home in the fall. In the meantime, you can stream this acclaimed mounting of All My Sons starring Bill Pullman and Sally Field as the heads of an American family grappling with a dark secret post-World War II.
—