| Streaming April 25 at 8 pm: Metropolitan VIRTUAL Playhouse's OLD LOVE LETTERS | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 09:53 pm EDT 04/22/20 | |
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| Online Readings, Week Five OLD LOVE LETTERS a Comedy by Bronson Howard The pivotal playwright's curtainraiser that outshone the main event April 25, 2020 at 8 PM Obie Award winner Metropolitan Playhouse will present a "screened" reading of Bronson Howard's 1878 one-act, OLD LOVE LETTERS, via live stream video on Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 8 PM, EST. Running Time: 30 minutes Talkback to follow Available via Zoom and YouTube: www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse In OLD LOVE LETTERS, a young widow looks over missives from past flames, which she consigns to the actual flames of her fireplace. Among them she stumbles across tender notes from the first love of her life, with whom she had a falling out thirteen years before. Serendipitously, he arrives at her door. A respected diplomat, now, and a widower himself, he has come to return newly discovered letters of his own: those she had sent him. In the course of their meeting, old complaints as well as old sympathies rise, like butterflies in a spring field to wage a playful battle for their lonely hearts. Written as a curtain raiser for his full length comedy, Hurricanes, OLD LOVE LETTERS and its stars, Agnes Booth and Joseph E. Whiting, received far the more favorable review. OLD LOVE LETTERS includes Howard's signature wit and sentimentality, as well as astute and ironic social commentary on women's and men's respective opportunities, and the changing American character in the 1870's--as amusing as it is still illuminating today. HEARTS is directed by the theater's artistic director, ALEX ROE. Bronson Howard (1842-1908), born in Detroit, made his first foray in to drama with an adaptation of an episode from Les Miserables called Fantine, but it was only after moving to New York and working for some years as a journalist that he finally found recognition for his promise, and that from impressario Augustin Daly. Daly produced Howard's Saratoga, and there began the career of a hugely popular and verstile dramatist. Writing as the conventions of the day moved from elevated platforms in uniformly lit halls to more intimate "picture-frame" stages under electric lights, he incorporated both conventions of the past--such as direct "asides" to the audience--into the sensibilities of the present, and while his work bore the clear marks of an earlier period's melodramatic tone, he also found space for more introspective and reflective observations of life as we live it. Among his most successful plays were the Civil War romance Shenandoah, the dramas of marital turmoil Young Mrs. Winthrop and The Banker's Daughter, the satire of America's high society ARTISTS' RELIEF Metropolitan presents these readings as a way of keeping the theater's pilot lit. They also serve to help us compensate performing artists, so particularly affected, during this long "pause." Information about the theater's ARTISTS RELIEF FUND may be found at www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/covidaid The VIRTUAL PLAYHOUSE began on March 28, 2020, with Alice Gerstenberg's "He Said and She Said," and continued the following week with Eugene O'Neill's "The Rope," with five times the attendance. Beginning with Gerstenberg's "Hearts," the program is simultaneously broadcast on New York's Pacifica Radio Station WBAI, 99.5 FM. For this period of social distancing, with Metropolitan Playhouse's facility closed, actors read parts to the camera from their homes, using the Zoom platform, which enables all characters in a scene to be onscreen simultaneously. Weekly readings are in progress, with mid-week programing in develpment, all drawn from the rich trove of lost American theater. The playhouse is honored and fortunate to be able to continue its mission of exploring America's diverse theatrical history during these trying times. The presentation of the forgotten one-act plays is an ideal way to pursue the theater's mission and extend its current season, devoted to plays and themes of DISSENT. ALICE GERSTENBERG (1885 - 1972) was an actress and playwright from Chicago, best known for her ground breaking, feminist dramas, and her promotions of the Little Theater movement. Best known for OVERTONES (1913) and THE POT BOILER (1923)--both of which are planned for later online readings by Metropolitan--her comedic plays skewer social norms and gender types, while they include meta-theatrical staging experiments and sly critiques of theater and artistic practice. Ms. Gerstenberg was also a champion of regional theater, non-commercial theater, and new writing for local audiences. METROPOLITAN PLAYHOUSE, in its 28th season, explores America’s diverse theatrical heritage through lost plays of the past and new plays of American historical and cultural moment. The theater received a 2011 OBIE Grant from The Village Voice for its ongoing productions that illuminate who we are by revealing where we have come from. Called "invaluable" by the Voice and Backstage, Metropolitan has earned further accolades from The New York Times and The New Yorker. Other awards include a Victorian Society of New York Outstanding Performing Arts Group, 3 Aggie Awards from Gay City News, 21 nominations for NYIT Awards (3 winners), and 6 AUDELCO Viv Award nominations. |
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| Link | http://www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse |
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