We’re back for our monthly event round up. Here are our top tips for what’s going down in New York in August.

Dragon Boat Festival

London has the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, over in NYC there is the decidedly more colourful and Oriental Dragon Boat Race. An ancient Chinese tradition that occurs on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month (well, or closest weekend), teams from all over the world eat rice dumplings and then race across Meadow Lake on boats shaped like Dragons. There will also be demonstrations of martial arts, arts and crafts and a celebration of all things Chinese, and it sounds like a fun day out for all the family!

Harlem Week

We wrote about Harlem Week last year, and its back and bigger than ever in 2010! A borough-wide celebration that began in 1974 with Harlem Day, there is a whole schedule of events planned, with this year’s all singing all dancing Harlem Day falling on August 15.

Fringe NYC

The largest multi-arts festival comes to New York between 13th – 29th August.  Theatre companies from all over the world will be converging on twenty venues for an incredible 1,200 performances over three weeks. As with any fringe festival, the quality will vary wildly, but there is also the chance to discover a real hidden theatrical gem.

Images by akwebb and dale_harris used under a Creative Commons License

Our ears prick up whenever we hear of a New York/London collaboration, so we’re looking forward immensely to this year’s  Bridge Project – a double bill of Shakespeare plays that are being performed at the Old Vic Theatre in London this summer.

Directed by Academy Award winning director Sam Mendes and featuring a transatlantic cast, the plays are a result of the ongoing three year  partnership between the Old Vic Theatre Company in London and the Brooklyn Academy of Music and  Neal Street Productions in New York.

The Bridge Project opens with the pastoral comedy As You Like It – a story full of wit and mischief, of power hungry siblings, girls playing boys, exiled love and foolery, which pairs hearty laughter with magical moments.

The Tempest, makes up the second part of the double-bill – an enchanting tale of shipwrecks and sorcery, of loves lost and found, this romantic comedy of freedom, friendship, repentance and forgiveness is widely considered to be Shakespeare’s last play.

The plays run between12^th June – 21^st August.

Box office: 0844 871 7628

www.oldvictheatre.com

We two pairs of preview tickets to give away – one pair to The Tempest and one pair to As You Like It! To win, simply email editor@metrotwin.com stating which play you would like to win tickets to, and fastest fingers win!

Please click on the ‘read more’ button to view the terms and conditions…

Read more…

Sharon is Metrotwin’s resident New York theatre buff.  Last October she wrote about the Fall Season on Broadway, and just last month we wrote a joint post on our transatlantic theatre picks. Today Sharon casts her eye over the upcoming Spring Season on Broadway.

The Spring season on Broadway has heated up and the some new shows previewing and recently opened on Broadway are definite contenders for nods when the TONY awards take place in June.

A revival of August Wilson’s ‘Fences’,  now playing at the Cort Theater proved to be a riveting night of drama. Denzel Washington steps once again onto a Broadway stage and along with the always wonderful Viola Davis does a marvellous job in bringing the play, set in 1957, to life. There is a good supporting cast and the audience is definitely involved, judging by the ‘call and response’ to some of the lines. A happy crowd exited the theater the night I attended.

Musicals do not get short shrift this season with ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ at the Nederlander and  ‘American Idiot’ at the St James rocking the house. In MDQ one hears the music of the famous Sun Studios and on one night we visit Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash as they sing some of their well-known songs and reminisce with Sam Phillips on the importance of t

his recording studio to them all. There is an outstanding performance by Levi Kreis who portrays Jerry Lee Lewis, this is one performer definitely to keep an eye on – those piano keys were smoking! On the other end of the spectrum is the band Green Day’s offering of ‘American Idiot’, a punk rock opera that dazzled. High, high energy, innovative staging and a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are familiar with the music, you’ll be carried along throughout the performance.

American audiences are now lucky enough to see two new British imports as well. ‘Red’ st the St John Golden Theater and ‘Enron’ at the Broadhurst offer up thoughtful looks on the artist Mark Rothko and the financial shennanigans that brought a once solid multi-national corporation crashing down. I found ‘Enron’ fascinating, with pop-culture icons interspersed with fine performances telling the tale of the rise and subsequent ruin of the now infamous energy company. As for ‘Red’, as an artist myself, I especially enjoyed this play. The opening scene of the artist sitting quietly in an armchair contemplating his painting truly captures what it is to be a painter, with all that goes along with the job description. There are  fine performances too, by Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne.

All in all, it’s not a bad season at all on the Great White Way – now off to see several Off-Broadway productions next week!

Photos by feastoffools and kamikazecactus used under a Creative Commons License

You might remember that way back in October last year, Metrotwinner Sharon Florin wrote a guest blog post on her picks of the Fall Broadway season. Here, she writes about two upcoming New York plays she particularly recommends, followed by my own picks of London’s theatrical offerings.

There are some terrific new shows playing in town these days. The Roundabout Theater Company has mounted a wonderful production of ‘Sondheim on Sondheim‘ in the old Studio 54 space. As Mr. Sondheim has just turned the ripe young age of 80, many tributes are pouring in, and this show is  among them. A delightful piece of theater, with a cast featuring the marvellous Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams, Tom Wopat and several younger and very talented vocalists. The set design by Beowulf Boritt was unique and wonderfully imaginative. Among the song selections from Mr. Sondheim’s many musicals were observations by the man himself, projected on several screens of the set, lending a backstory to his life and to the many shows he helped to create. I absolutely loved it!

Currently in previews is a revival of ‘Lend Me A Tenor’ at the Music Box Theater. Farce at its finest.  Expect lots of slamming doors, belly laughs throughout and a wonderful and high-energy cast featuring Tony Shaloub, Anthony LaPaglia and Jan Maxwell and other talented thespians. It’s been many years since this play hit the boards and this production was well worth waiting for.

There are currently several fantastic plays on in London too. I went for a team lunch recently and my colleague could not not stop raving about one play, which the critics have equally lauded – the mighty ‘Jerusalem’ at the Apollo Shaftsbury Theatre. A tragi-comic tale set in the English countryside on St Geroge’s Day, lead actor Mark Rylance has won just about every award going for his turn as Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, an eccentric, morally ambivalent caravan dweller.

One play I have been dying to see since it first premiered at the Royal Court Theatre late last year, is ‘Enron’ by Lucy Prebble. Ostensibly the tale of the infamous downfall of the  American energy company, this surreal, philosophical production has been compared to King Lear for its examination of the human condition, specifically male hubris and moral corruption. It’s meant to be fantastic, and it’s opening in New York on April 8th.

And finally, another hot tip for New Yorkers – there was a big surprise at the prestigious Olivier Awards this year as relatively unknown playwright Katori Hall won the Best New Play awards for ‘The Mountaintop’. The play, which follows the imagined last night of Martin Luther King before his 1968 assassination, opened in a tiny pub theatre before being discovered and transferred to the West End last year. It has already finished its run by the time it won the top prize at the Oliviers last week, but the Guardian now reports that it is to transfer to New York.

Photo by digiart2001 and aroberts used under a Creative Commons License

As I type this 24 performers are creating human sculpture based on the lives of 24 new yorkers living downtown.  Meanwhile, a man is backstage reviewing his lines before he takes stage at The Public Theater to deliver a one-man show that recounts the Apollo 11 moon landing.  Later in the evening, the stage will transform into an ode to the American Dance Legand, Martha Graham, with a multi-media tribute, using materials from her actual choreography, past documentaries and actual notes from her personal journals.

Quite the cultural buffet to say the least.  In its 6th year, the Under The Radar Festival has returned and transformed the citie’s theaters into a hotbed of new-found theater from around the world.  Going on through January 17th, see the festival’s sites for scheduling, performance synopsis and location information.  While its cold outside, why not undergo some cultural stimulus?

photo courtesy of Creative Commons License