St. Louis theatre calendar a/o May 19, 2020

Now including on-line events along with live events (if any) during the pandemic. To get your event listed here, send an email to calendar [at] stageleft.org.

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MUTE: A Play for Zoom

St. Louis playwright Nancy Bell's MUTE: A Play for Zoom, which was performed live via Facebook on April 5, 2020, is available as a live stream at https://vimeo.com/405178212. "In a world much like ours, there exists a video conference call. And in this call, there are academics, confusion, fire and...one hamster. An experimental theatre piece that steals rabidly from Ionesco, Beckett, real life and Chekhov. The play was for performance on Zoom by Nancy Bell and directed by Lucy Cashion."

Moscow! at the 2015 STL Fringe

ERA Theatre presents an online live video stream version of Moscow!, it's drinking game version of Chekov's The Three Sisters, Thursdays and Fridays from 8-9 pm and Saturdays from 1-2 pm, May 21-30. "Olga, Irina, and Masha are sisters living in an insignificant town in Russia. They spend a lot of time talking about how all they really want to do is go back to Moscow, where everything is better. The town's people come and go through the sisters' house, which they own with their brother, Andrey. Everyone is so emotionally erratic - is it because they're Russian? Perhaps it's because they're drunk. Three Sisters examines the frivolity of privileged life; Moscow! intensifies it with live music, dancing, and vodka. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ERA will live-stream its performances of Moscow! and all artists will perform from the safety of their respective isolated locations." Admission is free but you must sign up in advance. For more information: www.eratheatre.org.

On Sunday, May 31, at 7 pm Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL), in collaboration with 14 other arts organizations and the Regional Arts Commission (RAC), presents Arts United STL, a free virtual benefit in support of RAC's Artist Relief Fund, which provides critical aid to St. Louis working artists whose livelihoods have been critically interrupted by the pandemic. The even includes performances from local arts organizations, including The Big Muddy Dance Company, The Black Rep, Circus Flora, COCA, Jazz St. Louis, The Muny, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, St. Louis Ballet, St. Louis Children's Choirs, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, The Sheldon, STAGES St. Louis, the Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis, and more. For more information: www.opera-stl.org/explore-and-learn/for-everyone/arts-united-stl

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, in collaboration with Baltimore Center Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, The Public Theater and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, present Play at Home, a series of micro-commissioned short plays from some of the American theatre's most exciting and prominent playwrights. These new plays – which all run 10 minutes or less – are available for the public to download, read and perform at home for free at playathome.org.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis invites budding young writers throughout the nation to develop and submit plays to for inclusion in its all-new WiseWrite Digital Play Festival. Open to all students grades 4 through 12, this online celebration of storytelling will culminate in June when professional actors perform selected student submissions over Zoom. To help students develop the skills to write their first plays, The Rep will release a six-part online learning curriculum - one part each week through the end of May. For more information: repstl.org/wisewrite.

Shakespeare Festival St. Louis presents plays, readings, and other features as part of its #SHAKESPEARETV lineup through June 21st. Current offerings include their made-for-video production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline and readings of selections from Camu's The Plague. For more information: https://stlshakes.org.

St. Louis Actors' Studio offers short films written and (mostly) directed by Neil LaBute from Contemptible Entertainment through their Twitter account through June 15. The lineup changes every Monday morning. For the current list, visit twitter.com/@stlas1.

Looking for auditions and other artistic opportunities? Check out the St. Louis Auditions site.

For information on events beyond this week, check out the searchable database at the Regional Arts Commission's Events Calendar.

Would you like to be on the radio? KDHX, 88.1 FM needs theatre reviewers. If you're 18 years or older, knowledgeable in this area, have practical theatre experience (acting, directing, writing, technical design, etc.), have good oral and written communications skills and would like to become one of our volunteer reviewers, send an email describing your experience and interests to chuck at kdhx.org. Please include a sample review of something you've seen recently.