That should be a hash-tag since we are trying to foster a meme here, so #EnjoyVirtually. It’s the virtuous way to theater today.
With theater is coming to you these days, you will be as busy and entertained as you choose.
For instance, Jazz at Lincoln Center offers nearly daily concert programs. Delightful.
New York Theater Workshop, like the Keen Company mentioned a couple of times in my blog posts recently, has really stepped up its game. This is from today’s email to me: “HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING IN OUR VIRTUAL THEATRE this week, including ourMONDAYS @3 andWORKSHOP WEDNESDAYS series!” And which goes on to say: “Our programming is free and open to the public, just make sure to register in advance! All artists who contribute to these important online gatherings are compensated.
If you’re in the position to make a gift to support our work, we hope you’ll consider doing so—even $5, $10, $25 makes a big difference.”
Since the connection the theaters are providing us is so invaluable, we all should consider donating if we can. Even for free programming. Like NYTW, Keen is asking for financial assistance with a campaign and a matching funds donor. Other companies, from DTH which is offering dance fitness classes to the above cited JLC, to the New York City Ballet (with a digital Spring Season,) all need support and friendship from us.
In the meantime, they are all contributing what they do best to each of us.
QuaranKeen is keeping us connected. Today they sent us a series of YouTube videos in whcih we can wash our hands (a vital # these days) with Keen Alums.
Join in with all of them above. I will be spending a lot of time emulating their style.
These videos reminded me of an American Songbook event some years back with the talented classically trained coloratura soprano, Kristen Chenoweth in which she presciently gave a hand sanitizing demo. I don’t recall what prompted her to do this before launching into her concert at the Allen Room (Lincoln Center), but it did include her singing “Happy Birthday” while cleaning her hands.
Theater has always been the live in-person contrast to filmed entertainments. There are actors and script writers (or playwrights) as well as costume and scenic designers for both media. But in theater, the action takes place right in front of you.
Covid-19 changes that. I am reviewing, as it were, a LaMaMa production of Pananadem (Remembering) which had its New York premiere on March 12th. The work is highly stylized and a ritualized demonstration of a traditional way of presentation.
Watching it on my laptop screen is at once fulfilling and distracting. Other things keep me equally occupied while I participate with Kinding Sindaw Melayu Heritage broadcast. It is filmed from all angles by HowlRound TV network and is a very lively experience. The costumes are colorful and the dancing a tribute to the indigenous peoples of the southern Phillipines.
Theaters from all over are offering at home viewing (as are museums) so without boarding a plane, train or automobile, I can see a LaJolla Playhouse production of JerseyBoys or Friday’s presentation of Escape to Margaritaville or a dance session.
Closer to home, Urban Stages is offering a variety of programs to entertain your children, “keep the creative juices flowing” while stuck at home and so forth. The Broadway Podcast Network is also here to help; this one links to Bleeding Love, a post apocalyptic musical play with book by Jason Schafer, music by Arthur Lafrentz Bacon and lyrics by Harris Doran.
Keen Company cleverly calls their playlist QuaranKeen videos. There are 61 mostly solo plays to choose from, some posted before we were isolating. The effort is part of the “What can Keen Company do for you?” initiative.
Theater artists, like the rest of us, yearn to be active and engaged.
In a way, these virtual theatrical events fulfill more than just this #stay_home moment. It has been increasingly difficult for me to venture out to see live theater. Here it is coming to me!
Ticket prices are a frequent topic of discussion among theater-goers. Not much wonder when the cost of a seat to see Hello Dolly!or Hamilton for instance can go as high as $1600+. Of course, the savvy buyer will find tickets for these attractions at better prices as well. Even the less hyped Broadway show sells in the range of $99 (discount for the orchestra) and $239 (premium). I get it, it’s expensive to mount a Broadway attraction. When a show closes before its scheduled time, the producers don’t get back their investment.
The fact that the arts are a business in no way detracts from their art. In any given season, despite the iffy-ness of ROI, there are some 35+ (this 2016-17 season, it’s 39) productions put on the Broadway stage.
For the for-profit theater, revivals and transfers of off-Broadway hits seem like the better bet. Musicals always seem to drive the market, although I read a stat that those who go to musicals, generally go to 4 vs those who like a straight play see 5 in the same period. The not-for-profit houses have different mandates: Playwrights Horizons produces new, often commissioned, work, for instance.
On the other hand, The Mint revives plays that have not seen the stage for a long while, with the motto, “Lost Plays Found Here.”
The struggle to get investors to back a project can be complicated. Predicting the public’s taste can be a risky business. For producers, raising money for each production involves looking beyond their own pocket. Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU), for instance, has an annual bootcamp for perspective investors. This past February the workshop was called Raising Money for Theater: Who, How and When to Ask. TRU offers seminars on the business all year round.
Ticket prices at the profit-making theaters are certainly a ticket to recouping the cost of mounting a production. How do the not-for-profit productions–both on and off-Broadway– make ends meet? Concerns over government defunding of the arts makes this year a particularly critical one for the not-for profit theater and its counterparts in dance.
Asking for money becomes an art of its own. Inventive ways of getting donations crop up all the time. A gala is, often, called for, and will attract a reasonable amount of money. Galas usually include dinner and a chance to mingle with the talent after a performance. Some galas have themes, like for instance the Ballet Hispanico’s 2017 Carnival Gala Celebrating Trailbrazing Latina Leaderswhich honors Rita Moreno and Nina Vaca. The black-tie event is on May 15th at the Plaza Hotel.
The honored guest is a standard approach. Keen Company, a subscription house with a long history off-Broadway, for instance, holds its 2017 Benefit Gala on May 22nd with guests Molly Ringwald and Amy Spanger. The Pearl Theatre Company and Playwrights Horizons are under similar constraints to raise funds beyond the monies brought in by subscribers by throwing parties for patrons and offering opportunities to support them. The latter brings Patti Lupone, Christine Ebersole and Kelli O’Hare to the Playwrights Horizon gala on May 8th. The Pearl offers classes through its Conservatory.
Most of the dance troupes hold Galas at season kickoff; for New York City Ballet this corresponds with the Fall and the Spring openings. Paul Taylor American Modern Dance generally has theirs on the second night of performance each spring at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. (The theater is in itself an example of major fund-raising efforts, with Koch having paid for a renovation of the house which is home to @NYCballet and visiting dance cos.)
Youth America Grand Prix galas are a little like a serues of awards ceremonies. (We’ve talked of past YAGP galas on several occasions at VP.com.) The American Ballet Theater, although they have a gala as well, takes a slightly different approach to year round fundraising. It has patrons supporting dancers, an individual member of the troupe can be billed as being sponsored by a donor.
Subscription tickets are supplemented by sales of regularly priced tickets but that is far from enough to cover the costs of running a theater. Roundabout Theatre Company and MTC hold benefit evenings, inviting their subscribers and other patrons to dine with theater luminaries. Second Stage are holding their “Spot On” gala with honorary chair Bette Midler on May 1st. They also hold an annual bowling with the artists event; you can’t spell fundraising without fun.
(L-R) Debargo Sanyal, Joey Parsons, Kate Hamill, Ryan Quinn, Tom O’Keefe. Photo by Russ Rowland in The Pearl’s production of Vanity Fair.
Subscription houses depend on membership support (see the Pearl’s program of offers) to be able to offer their programming; subscribers are asked to give a little more. Seat-naming is another popular–and fairly democratic– way to bring cash into the house; the average donor can generally afford to put a plaque on a seat. On a grander scale, we have patrons who fund an auditorium or a theater (see David H. Koch above) or a patron’s lounge. Sometimes the sponsor is corporate like American Airlines for whom Roundabout’s 42nd Street house is named. With sponsorship come other perks, of course, like good seats, and access to staff.
Theater is a demanding artform. Give a little, get a lot.
Peace is elusive. Not the concept of peace. Everyone buys into that. The actual absence of war or threats of war is difficult to find. In part, it’s hard to come by because war and peace are so much about posturing: “How dare they!” “We have to defend our values.”
Paul Niebanck as John Honeywell and Kathleen Chalfant as Irina Botvinnick in “A Walk in the Woods” by Lee Blessing. At the Keen in a production directed by Jonathan Silverman. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
In Lee Blessing’s vision in “A Walk in the Woods,” at the Keen through October 18th, arms negotiations are a game leading to “Nyet” on one side, and “No” on the other.
Paul Niebanck as John Honeywell and Kathleen Chalfant as Irina Botvinnick in “A Walk in the Woods” by Lee Blessing. At the Keen in a production directed by Jonathan Silverman. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
Irina Botvinnick (Kathleen Chalfant) understands this. John Honeyman (Paul Niebanck), her naive counterpart from the USA, expects to save the world from itself.
Detente is an old-fashioned word. It melted with the ice of the Cold War. Blessing’s play, ably directed by Keen’s Artistic Director, Jonathon Silverstein, is about people–specifically about two people whose business is politics and whose mission is useless. The two are negotiators for the great and well-armed superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States of America.
Chalfant’s Irina is charming as she eggs Honeyman into trivial conversations as they walk and talk in a Geneva park. The play, which was nominated for both a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, echoes he futility and frustration of arms-race peace talks. It also drags to a point where it loses focus and our interest.
Is “A Walk in the Woods” dated in the post-Cold War era? Much of what it has to say about the unwillingness to scale down and give up weapons rings true. The opponents have changed shape and geography, perhaps. Despite its real-politik plot, however, the play lags. The leads are never anything but compelling to watch, but the outcome is evident and protracted.
The costumes by Amanda Jenks and Jennifer Paar are lively, and provide a nice rhythm to the seasons of the plot.
For more information on “A Walk in the Woods,” and the Keen Company, please visit http://www.keencompany.org/.
make a gift to support our work, we hope you’ll consider doing so—even $5, $10, $25 makes a big difference.” 
Most of the dance troupes hold Galas at season kickoff; for 
Subscription tickets are supplemented by sales of regularly priced tickets but that is far from enough to cover the costs of running a theater. 
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