#tfana

[shakespearenews]

Maggie Siff and Andy Grotelueschen in “The Taming of the Shrew,’”

[frontmezzjunkies]

TFANA + Rattlestick Theater's "We Are Your Robots" Entertains Sweetly with a Shrug

#frontmezzjunkies reviews: #TFANA + #RattlestickTheater's #WeAreYourRobots dir: #LeighSilverman w/ #EthanLipton #EbenLevy #IanRiggs #VitoDieterle at #TheatreForANewAudience #Brooklyn

Vito Dieterle, Ian Riggs, Ethan Lipton, and Eben Levy in TFANA+Rattlestick Theater’s We Are Your Robots. Photo by Hollis King. The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: We Are Your Robots By Ross “What do you want from your machines?” we are asked at the beginning of the very sweet-natured new musical, We Are Your Robots, a co-production between Theatre for a New Audience + Rattlestick Theater, and as…

[playbillionaire]

Down in the Cheap Seats

How to get more affordable theatre tickets in New York City. Here’s the same post on my Substack!

I’m not a professional, but I have been lucky enough to be attending theatre in the tri-state area my whole life, so here’s everything I know to help anyone who wants to get into seeing theatre without spending too much.

The trick of seeing great theatre without skipping a meal is to look beyond Broadway. Theatre tends to be more fluid than its marketing- almost all of the winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in the 21st century have premiered in smaller (more accessible) venues. Staying informed and being willingly to go outside of the usual Broadway houses is the best way to see theatre at affordable prices, and possibly catch new shows before they head to Broadway.

Here’s a couple of link that are good to know:

Playbill Weekly Schedule of Broadway Shows- A current schedule of the showtimes of every show currently running on Broadway. Shows are typically dark on Monday, but since the pandemic, schedules have changed and matinees have been added during the weekends, so it’s good to check which matinees are 2pm and which are 3pm, in case you want to try multiple lottos each day.

Playbill Broadway Rush, Lottery, and Standing Room Only Policies- Alphabetical list of all the discount ticket options for Broadway shows

Playbill Off-Broadway Rush and Inexpensive Ticket Policies- Alphabetical list of all the discount ticket options for off-Broadway shows.

Lotteries

When it comes to theatre, I feel that scheduling flexibility saves money. If you can go any time or day, you can snag cheaper tickets. I recommend entering as many lotteries as possible, as frequently as possible. When I was working at my desk job, I tried to make a habit of entering the lotteries every morning after checking my emails. Here’s all of the links to the digital lotteries- they usually email winners around 2, and give them an hour to purchase the tickets, so keep an eye on your email! (I’m not exactly sure why these shows are split up across these lotteries, rather than in one place, but it’s best to just go through all 3). As much as I love in-person rush, anyone with a full time job and commute is probably going to have a tough time getting to the box office when it opens at 10 or hanging around the theatre district hoping to snag a cheap ticket.

Broadway Direct Lottery

Telecharge Lottery and Rush- This requires signing into a social media account (very annoying), but also let’s you submit a lottery for more than one performance at a time

Lucky Seat- This one offers lotteries in several different cities, so make sure you are submitting for the New York performances

Today Tix- Need the app to get tickets, but some really great lotteries if you submit every day, especially for hot ticket Off-Broadway shows.

Discount Ticket Programs

A lot are mentioned in the Playbill article, but to keep everything together, below are my favorite ones that I’ve personally used. When a recent show I had tickets to was cancelled, I was able to check with these programs to get a last minute cheap ticket, so making/maintaining an account ahead of time is a good idea.

LincTix- Lincoln Center Theatre’s program for discount tickets for people between the ages of 21 and 35. With fees, tickets are $35.50 for any show at the 3 Broadway theatres at Lincoln Center. You can also purchase tickets for anyone else with a LincTix account in the same order. Don’t delete the email with your account number in it, you will need it to sign in every time you purchase tickets. Also, seats purchased with LincTix are always great, these are not partial view seats.

Playwrights Horizons Young Membership Discount Tickets- $20 tickets for any show for anyone under 35. You can also purchase $35 tickets for a guest to accompany you. There is also a $10 alternative for full-time students, at the same link. To sign up, you need to create an account and “purchase” a free membership, which will allow you to purchase the discounted tickets from your account. Remember to renew this every season, as it does expire.

2nd Stage Theater 30 Under 30 Discount Tickets- $30 tickets for any show for anyone under 30. When looking at performance dates, enter “30UNDER30” in the promo code window, and eligible seats will show up on the seating chart.

Manhattan Theatre Club 30 Under 35 Discount Tickets- $30 tickets for any show. Registering online allows anyone under 35 to buy 2 tickets per show. The best part is that you can bring a guest of any age- just make sure whoever purchased the ticket picks up the ticket at the box office.

Roundabout Theatre Company HipTix Program- $30 tickets for any show for anyone between the ages of 18 and 40. This program also allows you to purchase 2 tickets for any show, and your guest can be of any age. You’ll receive a promo code in an email that will let you purchase the tickets, and whoever purchased the tickets must pick them up at the box office.

Theatre For a New Audience New Deal Tickets- $20 tickets for any show for anyone under 30, or any full-time student. Enter the promo code NEWDEAL when purchasing tickets and the discount will be applied. Ticket must be picked up at the box office, so bring proof of ID.

Ultimately, it is possible to see theatre in New York City for less than a nice dinner! Having a flexible schedule, entering lotteries, and looking outside Broadway is the best way to do it (also, be under 30 I guess??). Good luck!

[if-only-angels-could-prevail]

anyway i want to see g slur on broadway, henry iv at tfana, swan lake at nyc ballet, and moby dick at the met. and YES i am aspiring to be a curmudgeonly old professor.

[fotoflingscotland]

John Douglas Thomson as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice by FotoFling Scotland Via Flickr: The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh presents the Theatre for a New Audience production of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, featuring John Douglas Thompson as Shylock, directed by Arin Arbus. Shakespeare’s perennially contested play about corrosive bigotry and blinding vengeance is poised at the radioactive intersection of race, class and religion in Arin Arbus’s production. As Arbus observes, “The Merchant of Venice depicts a divided society saturated with hate and inequity. The world boils with anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, classism, and homophobia. This production is set in an American city in the near future.” The show’s uniquely diverse company evoke the deeply stratified Venice of Shakespeare's play. Its connections to our own grievously fractured world are vivid, stark and startling. The Shakespeare Exchange The Shakespeare Exchange is the exchange of two productions between Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, and Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA), New York. In the spring of 2024, The Lyceum’s Macbeth (an undoing), written and directed by Zinnie Harris, after William Shakespeare, played at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, TFANA’s home. In winter 2025, TFANA’s The Merchant of Venice will play at The Lyceum. John Douglas Thompson as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, directed by Arin Arbus. "In Arin Arbus' provocative production... John Douglas Thompson as Shylock [is] perhaps the greatest Shakespeare interpreter in contemporary America" The New York Times [Info: Lyceum Website]

[dasboligrafo]

Short-ish Takes

Dark Noon (sometime in summer 2024?) at St. Ann's Warehouse -- ughhhh...the play that finally, definitively dispensed with my tolerance for S.A.W.? Has St Anns ever staged anything not apparently calculated to earn my loathing? A play celebrated for its "South African" take on American racism and violence (lol like seriously? what a glass house to aim a stone from), and sure the actors were all black South Africans, but the playwright is...Danish. Not surprisingly the play exploited them. Unpleasant, at times grotesque, entirely devoid of even a moment of original aesthetic beauty, the only tolerable parts being samples of (American) music. I even hated the sets, which I guess were supposed to look like South African shanty towns (way to subversively showcase the beauty of South Africa I guess). Incoherent underdeveloped message about the exportation of violent culture via American popular media, a clear example of "when a good idea lands in the hands of someone too literal, simple and self-satisfied to develop it."

We Are Your Robots (Theatre for a New Audience 11/12/2024) -- also underdeveloped (arguably), but this was merely mediocre and corny, maybe a little disappointing because it's an interesting and timely idea: a musical about robots gaining sentience. The music was...clever, I guess, but only ever that. This is the kind of content that tickles your whimsy until you feel dead inside. There was a woman/twee monster next to me (on a date?) who (literally) snorted with laughter, so loudly and frequently, that she may have shaded my interpretation of this performance. A true artifact of painfully white culture (there were other non-white people in the audience though, something I genuinely love about TFANA).

Gatz -- by Elevator Repair Service (Nov 3, 2024 at the Public Theatre.) This is the play where they read The Great Gatsby, in its entirety, on stage. This was very good, though my impression is surely shaded by admiration for the feat that is this work: an EIGHT hour long play (there are intermissions, including a dinner break) that actually works as a play. Gatsby is legitimately great, a rightfully hallowed American literary classic, a book that yields new meanings every time I pick it up, decades apart, a book about the promise and impossibility of the American dream (specifically for Black people, queer people, women and those who don't inherit wealth. Not to sound woo, but I knew Tr*** would win after I saw it, mere days before the election.) Can you feel us dancing at the edge of the roaring 20s, car driving up the darkened driveway because nobody told us [the free media is dead]/only finding out when we get to the darkened mansion, that the party is over, and we are being borne back ceaselessly against the past etc. So like maybe this play would be more impressive with a book that wasn't this great and timely, though faulting it for picking a great source material feels miserly.

[maxwellsmaart]

By my soul I swear There is no power in the tongue of man To alter me. I stay here on my bond. #merchantofvenice #tfana #tarryalittle #shakespeare #blackhistorymonth #blacktheatrematters #blackboysdotheatre #smlife (at Theatre for a New Audience) https://www.instagram.com/p/CaJH984t9IC/?utm_medium=tumblr

[cithaerons]

anyways @ new yorkers - apparently the production of merchant of venice being shown in the city right now is horrifically anti-semitic. do not recommend. 

[willeno]

GNIT -- some thoughts (updated)

I promise that after GNIT closes forever next Sunday (It’s now closed), I will stop posting about how you should go see it. Over the past 13 or 14 years of working on this adaptation of PEER GYNT,  a grinding but real affection has grown in me for complicated Ibsen and his complicated play. So nothing has pleased me more than to hear that people who really love and know the original play feel that-- with 3 hours and 25 actors removed-- something moving, funny, clear, and actionable has finally been revealed, re-interpreted, or created, in my adaptation. I have only read the first sentence of one review, which described Gnit as "inward-looking," which is really discouraging,  as I spent so many serious years rethinking, reworking, and changing the original-- which is famously and endlessly (maybe even hopelessly) inward-looking-- in an effort to make something that is raucously, honestly, and yearningly OUTWARD LOOKING. The all-caps means I really believe I have done this. I know for sure the beautiful production and cast is OUTWARD LOOKING. The all-caps means I love the cast and production. And I feel the play is looking out for you and I hope you will go see it and I will almost promise that, after next Sunday, I will not mention it again, except in occasional and everlasting thanks to the people and souls who helped it happen and are presently performing it, at www.tfana.org. (Here I am doing that. Thank you! I would not change a second of these last months.) This last week of posts might seem braggadocios, and maybe it has been, but I am also writing this in the most ragged and plain humility. A play that many wonderful people have put and are putting so much time and heart into, and that I think is a kind of a culmination in my thinking about theatre and life, is currently playing to very small houses in a small beautiful theater and will close in one week. Kind of a sad ending to this long post. Please don't go see GNIT in pity. Please go see it in all of your finest and most outgoing curiosity, your Sunday-best vulnerability, and your irrepressible and New Yorky fun-loving-ness. Also, I know we are still in the middle of strange and difficult times and that while everything is probably more meaningful, it is also more logistically difficult. So you might not make it. That's of course okay. Thank you for reading this. Please share it, if you like. I would appreciate that. (November 24, 2021. Thank you for reading. I know it’s not coal-mining, and I am very grateful for my life, but it’s hard to write a play, which by definition, by real definition, is something painstakingly conceived and created and realized that sometimes results in something magical and fleeting that occurs in real time, one time (over and over), in a room filled with the very specific and real people who were there that night, and whose totality is all the words and feelings and thoughts that are in the air and light, and that very specific transaction that occurs between the play and the cast and those real people’s feelings and thoughts and understanding and futures. And then a reviewer comes along and throws some words at all that. It has meant the world to me to hear from people who really know and have engaged with Ibsen’s play over the years and who have said they finally understand it and are grateful for Gnit’s outward-looking and loving stance. Or that, having seen many Peer Gynts, with real hope and desire and interest, they no longer need to see another, or, are excited to see another, with their new sympathy and understanding. It is so exciting to write a play. To try to engage with your heart and your mind across decades and centuries with this scraggly, super-spreader art form that is so punished and punishing. To try to get the timelessness of things into something that happens from 8-10 PM. And to try to see and feel and reflect the world you live in right this second. I am so grateful to the perfect cast of living humans and to Oliver and TFANA and to all the people who came to see the play. Thank you for reading all this way. I hope you are having a good day. Eat your greens and get some sun and exercise.  Will)

https://twitter.com/6_second.../status/1458927082621313032

https://twitter.com/BenjBrantley/status/1460995402296086530

[theaterpizzazzstuff]

Review by JK Clarke. Doing a Julius Caesar production set in contemporary times is risky nd inevitably results in audiences drawing comparisons.

[theatreforanewaudience]

Check out our production photos from MEASURE FOR MEASURE now live on Flickr! 

[shakespearenews]

As I watched the play I was struck anew by the frozen statue of Hermione…Why would a woman get frozen for over a decade, and somehow unfreeze? This question, of course, felt personal to me, as I was still grappling with these questions: When should one simply accept a diagnosis, rather than trying to get better? What is the difference between acceptance and resignation? Is acceptance saying, I take my life, my body as they are? Where, how, does grace enter in? And I wondered, as I watched The Winter’s Tale: is Hermione meant to be a real woman or just a metaphor for art? Is it significant that the daughter gazes upon “the statue of her mother”? It is not the husband who wakes the wife, but the woman’s friend, Paulina...

Sarah Ruhl on watching The Winter’s Tale at TFANA. From Smile: the Story of a Face, p. 177. 

[frontmezzjunkies]

#TimonTFANA #frontmezzjunkies reviews: #Shakespeare's #TimonOfAthens coauthored with #ThomasMiddleton edited by #EmilyBurns & director #SimonGodwin with #KathrynHunter #brooklyntheatre #TFANA @theatreforanewa @TheRSC @ShakespeareinDC http://frontmezzjunkies.com/2020/01/21/tfana-timon-of-athens/ (at Brooklyn, New York) https://www.instagram.com/p/B7rXVLDhyqv/?igshid=maadgnrw8nlj

[fyeahbroadway]

The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder at Theatre for a New Auduence. Photos by Gerry Goodstein and Henry Grossman.

[simperingshopgirls]

Has anyone watched the TFANA* Mad Forest?

[etoilesbian]

amelia workman and helen cespedes in FEFU AND HER FRIENDS by maría irene fornés, dir. lileana blain-cruz, 2019