Red Bull Theater, Mauricio Martínez, and Lynn Nottage streaming this week from NYC

Streaming this week are three top picks from NYC that offer a variety of events to suit every taste, from a staged reading of a re-envisioned classic to a contemporary cabaret concert by a Broadway star to a conversation with an award-winning playwright.

A Tempest – Part of Red Bull Theater’s OBIE Award-winning Revelation Readings series of rarely produced classic plays, the staged reading of poet and activist Aimé Césaire’s 1960s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Jacobean drama, translated from the French by Philip Crispin, is presented online this week by the acclaimed Off-Broadway company in collaboration with the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) and The Drama League.

Directed by Lanise Antoine Shelley, and featuring the fine cast of Isabel Ellison, Carson Elrod, Kimberly Exum, Manoel Felciano, Enid Graham, Isaiah Johnson, Anthony Michael Martinez, Paul Niebanck, Jay O. Sanders, Anthony Venturini, and C.J. Wilson, the Bard’s familiar story is seen through a post-colonial lens, with the shipwreck conjured by Prospero set on an island in the Caribbean and the characters Caliban and Ariel reimagined as his Black slaves. Through their opposing voices, echoing those of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., the work confronts momentous socio-political issues at the intersection of race, power, and anti-imperialism.

The in-person and livestreamed reading of A Tempest premiered on Monday, February 28, 2022, at 7:30 pm, at FIAF Florence Gould Hall. The on-demand video is available now through Sunday, March 6, 11:59 pm. For tickets, priced at $25, go online.

Mauricio Martínez, featuring Eden Espinosa & Jaime Lozano – Broadway’s iconic supper club welcomes the return of Mexican-born NYC-based On Your Feet! star Mau Martínez on Thursday, March 3, for a live concert with an in-house audience and a real-time livestream in its new virtual series Live from Feinstein’s/54 Below, designed to make more shows accessible to audiences from across the country and around the world.

The one-night-only event, beginning at 7 pm, will take fans on a musical journey through the International Emmy-winning artist’s multifaceted career in theater, music, and television, his love life, and more. Directed by Robbie Rozelle, the show will feature special guest appearances by Eden Espinosa (Wicked) and long-time collaborator Jaime Lozano (Songs by an Immigrant).

Presented through Broadway World Events, Mauricio Martínez, featuring Eden Espinosa & Jaime Lozano will be streamed only on Thursday, March 3, at 7 pm; it will not be available on demand. For tickets, priced at $25 plus a $3.50 service charge, go online. The in-person concert plays at Feinstein’s/54 Below, 254 West 54th Street, NYC, cellar. For tickets (priced at $45-90, with an additional $25 per person food and beverage minimum), call (646) 476-3551, or click here.

Kearstin Piper Brown and Justin Austin in Intimate Apparel. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

Complex Issues: ‘Intimate Apparel’ – Playwright, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and Columbia University Associate Professor Lynn Nottage and composer and musician Ricky Ian Gordon will discuss their transformation of Nottage’s 2003 play Intimate Apparel into an opera (playing now through Sunday, March 6, at Lincoln Center Theater), along with other recent collaborations. Introduced and moderated by dramaturg and Professor of Professional Practice Christian Parker, the virtual conversation is the latest installment in the series of Complex Issues presented by Columbia and exploring difference, visibility, and representation through recent work by faculty of the University and its School of the Arts in particular.

Set in 1905 NYC, Intimate Apparel tells the story of Esther – a single and lonely African American woman who makes her living as a seamstress of ladies’ undergarments – seeking love, romance, and a lasting relationship, but learning that relying on her own self-worth is the only way to get through life’s challenges. The upcoming conversation will invite questions of racial, ethnic, gender, economic, sexual, religious, and cultural complexity, and how they are articulated across disciplines and genres today.

The discussion of Complex Issues: ‘Intimate Apparel’ streams from Columbia University School of the Arts on Friday, March 4, 6:30-8:00 pm. The event is free and open to the public; to register, go online.

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