urban excavations

Public performances in calendar year 2017, live or filmed, were many and thrilling, with new talents and old familiars, in large venues and intimate spaces. By my rough count, during 2017 I saw 290 theatrical productions (including a few staged readings) and 24 cabaret performances (basically a singer and musicians in a club setting, singing a set list). A paltry number of film screenings, compared to prior eras of my life, are also listed here, and I hope to up these numbers in the upcoming year.

Some particular favorites, for a variety of reasons, are highlighted in bold among the full listing below. All these performances have elements that charm, haunt, and define what keeps me going to the theater almost every night.

I look forward to much more of the same in 2018, and to writing stories already pitched and stories yet to be imagined.

January

• (1/1) A Revolutionary Impulse: The Rise of the Russian Avant-Garde (exhibit, MOMA)
• (1/4) The Humans (Schoenfeld) [4th visit in 12 months — three theaters, Off Broadway to Broadway, same ensemble]
• (1/5) Marilyn Maye By Request (Metropolitan Room)
• (1/6) Manifesto (Park Avenue Armory)
• (1/6) Baby Mama: One Woman’s Quest to Give Her Child to Gay People (Caps Lock | IRT)
• (1/8) ReconFIGUREd (Honest Accomplice | The Tank)
• (1/8) Ute Lemper (Feinstein’s / 54 Below)
• (1/10) The Present (Barrymore)
• (1/12) Made in China (Wakka Wakka | 59E59 )
• (1/14) The Oregon Trail (WP | McGinn Cazale)
• (1/15) ARE YOU SERIOUS?: A Woman of a Certain Age Inquires (Cornelia Street Cafe)
• (1/18) Orange Julius (Rattlestick)
• (1/20) PEER GYNT & the Norwegian Hapa Band (Ma-Yi | A.R.T./New York Mezzanine)
• (1/22) Jitney (MTC | Friedman)
• (1/23) Author Directing Author (La MaMa | Ellen Stewart)
• (1/24) Yours Unfaithfully (Mint | Theatre Row Beckett)
• (1/29) Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose (Davenport | Loft)
• (1/29) Our Lady of 121st Street (Actors Studio)
• (1/31) The  Stephen Colbert Show (Ed Sullivan Theatre, filming)

February

• (2/1) Fade (Primary Stages | Cherry Lane)
• (2/4) Yen (MCC | Lortel)
• (2/5) The Mother of Invention (Abingdon)
• (2/7) Jonah and Otto (Lion | Theatre Row)
• (2/9) Sight Unseen (Access)
• (2/10) The Object Lesson (NYTW)
• (2/11) On the Exhale (Roundabout | BlackBox)
• (2/14) Paramour (Lyric)
• (2/15) Fish Men (Intar)
• (2/16) Sunset Boulevard (Palace)
• (2/17) Turning Page (Dixon Place)
• (2/18) Morning in America (Primary Stages | Cherry Lane)
• (2/18) Latter Days (Theater 511)
• (2/19) Kunstler (59E59)
• (2/22) Nebraska (Second Stage | Tony Kiser)
• (2/24) Careers Beyond Academia (panel member, Department of Performing & Media Arts, Cornell, Ithaca NY)
• (2/25) Evening at the Talk House (Signature)
• (2/26) If I Forget (Roundabout| Laura Pels)
• (2/26) The Skin of Our Teeth (TFANA, Brooklyn)
• (2/28) Dolphins and Sharks (Labyrinth)

March

• (3/1) Wakey Wakey (Signature)
• (3/1) Everybody (Signature)
• (3/2) Linda (New York City Center)
• (3/3) Penitent (Atlantic | Linda Gross)
• (3/4) The Town Hall Affair (Performing Garage | Wooster Group)
• (3/5) Kidnap Road (La MaMa)
• (3/5) The Outer Space (Joe’s Pub)
• (3/6) Reviewing the Situation: Producing Theater and Cultural Awareness (LMDA event on criticism, culture, and public response, Castillo Theatre)
• (3/8) Red Bike (Lark, reading)
• (3/9) Panel: Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Yale Drama Series + What Playwrights Talk About When They Talk About Writing by Jeffrey Sweet (Yale, New Haven)
• (3/10) Town Hall (Lark, reading)
• (3/10) Sundown Yellow Moon (Ars Nova + WP | McGinn-Cazale)
• (3/11) Come From Away (Gerald Shoenfeld)
• (3/12) 9 Circles (Sheen Center)
• (3/12) White Guy on a Bus (59E59)
• (3/13) The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (The Actors Studio | La MaMa)
• (3/15) Significant Other (Booth)
• (3/15) When It’s You (Keen | Clurman Theatre Row)
• (3/16) Chess Match No. 5 (June Havoc)
• (3/17) Joan of Arc: Into the Fire (Public)
• (3/18) The Light Years (Playwrights Horizons)
• (3/18) Kid Victory (Vineyard)
• (3/19) The Other Plays (Breaking Through Barriers | A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (3/19) God of Vengeance (New Yiddish Rep at Theatre at St. Clement’s)
• (3/20) Villa (PlayCo | Wild Project)
• (3/21) The Price (Roundabout | American Airlines)
• (3/22) The Gravedigger’s Lullabye (TACT | Beckett Theatre Row)
• (3/23) How to Transcend a Happy Marriage (LCT | Mitzi E. Newhouse)
• (3/24) The Moors (Playwrights Realm | Duke on 42nd Street)
• (3/25) The Bourgeois Oligarch (reading, HERE)
• (3/25) Church & State (New World Stages)
• (3/26) All the Fine Boys (Signature)
• (3/27) Inside Indecent (panel discussion, Drama League)
• (3/29) Sweat (Roundabout | Studio 54)
• (3/30) Vanity Fair (Pearl)

April

• (4/1) Latin History for Morons (Public | Anspacher)
• (4/1) American Mill No. 2 (A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (4/2) How to Hamlet, or Hamleting Hamlet (Theater Reconstruction Ensemble | HERE)
• (4/4) Gently Down the Stream (Public)
• (4/5) The Play That Goes Wrong (Lyceum)
• (4/6) Amelie (Walter Kerr)
• (4/7) Cry Havoc! (New Ohio)
• (4/8) Her Opposition (Theater Center)
• (4/9) Come Back Little Sheba (Gym at Judson)
• (4/9) Picnic (Gym at Judson)
• (4/11) Glass Menagerie (Belasco)
• (4/13) War Paint (Nederlander)
• (4/14) Present Laughter (St. James)
• (4/15) Samara (Soho Rep | A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (4/15) Angel & Echoes (59E59)
• (4/17) The Lightning Thief (Lucille Lortel)
• (4/18) Picnic (Gym at Judson)
• (4/19) Indecent (Cort)
• (4/20) The Little Foxes (Linney as Regina, Friedman)
• (4/22) The Assignment (Houses on the Moon | A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (4/22) Daniel’s Husband (Primary Stages | Cherry Lane)
• (4/23) Oslo (LCT | Beaumont)
• (4/23) gUN COUNTRY (Houses on the Moon | A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (4/25) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Lunt-Fontanne)
• (4/26) Anastasia (Broadhurst)
• (4/27) Hello, Dolly! (Shubert)
• (4/27) Miss Vodka Stinger + the Martha Rayes (Feinstein’s/54 Below)
• (4/28) Bandstand (Jacobs)
• (4/29) Antipodes (Signature)
• (4/29) Seven Spots on the Sun (Sol Project | Rattlestick)
• (4/30) Themes in Kidnap Road (postshow discussion member, La MaMa)
• (4/30) Kate Bornstein (La MaMa)

May

• (5/1) Baghdaddy (St. Lukes)
• (5/2) Six Degrees of Separation (Barrymore)
• (5/3) Emperor Jones (Irish Rep)
• (5/3) Marry Harry (York)
• (5/4) East Coast Curriculum (Lee Strasberg Theater Institute)
• (5/5) 3/Fifths (3LD Art and Technology Center)
• (5/6) The Profane (Playwrights Horizons)
• (5/6) Groundhog Day (Stephen Sondheim)
• (5/7) Jamie DeRoy and Friends (Birdland)
• (5/9) Beautiful Mistake, Bucchino + McBroom (Pangea)
• (5/10) Rebel in the Soul (Irish Rep)
• (5/11) The Lucky One (Beckett | Theatre Row)
• (5/12) The Little Foxes (Nixon as Regina, Friedman)
• (5/13) Happy Days (TFANA, Brooklyn)
• (5/13) The Promised Her the Moon (Theatre at St. Clement’s)
• (5/14) Encores! The Golden Apple (City Center)
• (5/14) Karen Mason (Don’t Tell Mama)
• (5/16) A Doll’s House, Part 2 (Golden)
• (5/18) Drifting (reading, Royal Family Performing Arts Space)
• (5/19) Can You Forgive Her? (Vineyard)
• (5/20) The Roundabout (59E59)
• (5/20) Derren Brown Secret (Atlantic Theater Company)
• (5/21) Sojourners (New York Theatre Workshop)
• (5/21) Her Portmanteau (New York Theatre Workshop)
• (5/22) Building the Wall (New World Stages)
• (5/23) Rotterdam (59E59)
• (5/24) Iphigenia in Splott (59E59)
• (5/25) Lanford Wilson 80th Birthday Party (New Dramatists)
• (5/25) The Government Inspector (Duke on 42nd Street | Red Bull)
• (5/26) Rooms (Irish Cybert Tire & Car | Irish Arts Center)
• (5/27) Arlington (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
• (5/28) Ernest Shackleton Loves Me (Second Stage)
• (5/28) Waterwell’s Hamlet (Sheen Center)
• (5/30) Pacific Overtures (Classic Stage Company)
• (5/31) The Whirligig (New Group | Signature Theatre Black Box)
• (5/31) Coward in Vegas (Metropolitan Room)

June

• (6/2) Remembering Evengeline (HERE)
• (6/3) Master (Irondale Theatre Center, Brooklyn)
• (6/3) The End of Longing (MCC | Lucille Lortel)
• (6/4) Venus (Signature Theatre Center)
• (6/5) LPTW Oral History: Paula Vogel interviewed by Linda Winer (Bruno Walter | NYPL-PA)
• (6/6) Dear Evan Hansen (Music Box)
• (6/7) Woody Sez (Irish Repertory)
• (6/7) Coffee House Club Annual Tonys Discussion (panel member, Coffee House Club)
• (6/8) Animal (Atlantic Stage II)
• (6/9) Julius Caesar (Public Shakespeare in the Park)
• (6/10) Great Again (A.R.T./New York)
• (6/10) The Boy Who Danced on Air (June Havoc)
• (6/11) Cost of Living (New York City Center)
• (6/12) Remembering Hal David (92nd Street Y)
• (6/13) Sweetee (Signature, rental)
• (6/15) Indecent (Cort)
• (6/16) Clarence Darrow (Arthur Ashe Stadium, special event)
• (6/17) A Hunger Artist (Connelly)
• (6/17) Seeing You (450 West 14th Street)
• (6/18) The Traveling Lady (Cherry Lane)
• (6/18) Terezin (Peter Jay Sharp)
• (6/19) Kill Move Paradise (National Black Theatre)
• (6/22) Derren Brown (Atlantic Theater Company)
• (6/23) (Not) Water (3LD Art & Technology Center)
• (6/23) Measure for Measure (TFANA, Brooklyn)
• (6/24) Dramaturgy Outside the Theatre (panel member by Skype, LMDA annual meeting, Berkeley, CA)
• (6/24) Somebody’s Daughter (Second Stage Uptown | McGinn-Cazale)
• (6/24) Seth Sikes (Feinstein’s/54 Below)
• (6/25) Napoli, Brooklyn (Roundabout | Laura Pels)
• (6/25) Fulfillment Center (New York City Center II)
• (6/26) The Crusade of Connor Stephens (Jerry Orbach)
• (6/27) Barb Jungr (Joe’s Pub)
• (6/28) The Aran Islands (Irish Repertory)
• (6/28) 1984 (Hudson)
• (6/29) Invincible (59E59)
• (6/30) In a Word (Cherry Lane)

July

• (7/1) Bella (Playwrights Horizons)
• (7/1) Afterglow (Davenport Loft)
• (7/2) Say Something, Bunny! (514 West 20th)
• (7/5) Marvin’s Room (Roundabout | American Airlines)
• (7/6) Amerike the Golden Land (Museum of Jewish History)
• (7/7) Me the People (The Triad)
• (7/8) A Footnote in History (New Ohio)
• (7/9) Of Human Bondage (Soulpepper | Signature)
• (7/13) Pipeline (Lincoln Center | Mitzi Newhouse)
• (7/15) Bastard Jones (The Cell)
• (7/16) The Traveling Lady (Cherry Lane)
• (7/18) Karrin Allyson (Birdland)
• (7/20) Dear Jane (Clurman | Theatre Row)
• (7/22) Money Talks (Davenport)
• (7/23) Hamlet (Public)
• (7/24) Linda Lavin (Birdland)
• (7/25) Annie Ross (Metropolitan Room)
• (7/26) A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Delacorte)
• (7/27) The Angels Will Let You Fall (Workshop)
• (7/30) A Parallelogram (Second Stage)

August

• (8/7) Curvy Widow (West Side)
• (8/8) A Real Boy (59E59)
• (8/10) A Never Ending Line (Players)
• (8/12) Van Gogh’s Ear (Signature)
• (8/13) Summer Shorts A (59E59)
• (8/13) Summer Shorts B (59E59)
• (8/15) Come Light My Cigarette (Theatre at St Clements)
• (8/16) Michael Moore: The Terms of My Surrender (Belasco)
• (8/17) The Suitcase Under the Bed (Mind | Theatre Row)
• (8/18) Prince of Broadway (Friedman)
• (8/22) Mama’s Next Big Act (Don’t Tell Mama)
• (8/24) If Only (Cherry Lane)
• (8/26) Inanimate (Flea)
• (8/29) Mama’s Next Big Act (Don’t Tell Mama)
• (8/31) Nick and Zoe (IRT Theater)

September

• (9/1) Charm (Lucille Lortel)
• (9/3) The Baroness (Clurman | Theatre Row)
• (9/3) Charolais (59E59)
• (9/5) 54 Sings Sugar (54 Below)
• (9/7) Loveless, Texas (Sheen Center)
• (9/8) The Rape of the Sabine Women (Duke on 42nd Street)
• (9/9) On the Shore of the Wide World (Atlantic Theater Company)
• (9/10) The Climbers (Metropolitan Playhouse)
• (9/11) Melissa Manchester (Birdland)
• (9/14) One Night Only (WP Theater)
• (9/15) Small World (59E59)
• (9/16) For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday (Playwrights Horizons)
• (9/16) Fucking A (Signature)
• (9/17) The Violin (59E59)
• (9/19) KPOP (A.R.T./New York Theatres)
• (9/20) In the Blood (Signature)
• (9/20) Fuel (reading, Lark Roundtable)
• (9/22) Mary Jane (New York Theatre Workshop)
• (9/23) The Treasurer (Playwrights Horizons)
• (9/23) Charm (Lucille Lortel)
• (9/24) Up the Rabbit Hole (Theatre for the New City)
• (9/24) I of the Storm (Gym at Judson)
• (9/25) Harvardwood: High Noon — the Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic (The Lambs)
• (9/27) The Show-Off (Theatre at St. Clement’s)
• (9/28) Desperate Measures (York)
• (9/28) Neighbors (Intar)
• (9/29) The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord (Primary Stages | Cherry Lane)
• (9/30) No Wake (59E59)
• (9/30) Tiny Beautiful Things (Public)

October

• (10/1) A Clockwork Orange (New World Stages)
• (10/2) My Lingerie Play (Rattlestick)
• (10/3) On a Clear Day I Can See to Elba (reading, Atlantic Theater Company)
• (10/3) Too Heavy for Your Pocket (Roundabout | Underground)
• (10/4) Outside Paducah (Wild Project)
• (10/5) Synching Ink (Flea)
• (10/6) Time and the Conways (Roundabout | American Airlines)
• (10/7) Ace (Marjorie Deane Little Theater)
• (10/7) Measure for Measure (ERS at Public)
• (10/8) The Home Place (Irish Rep)
• (10/10) As You Like It (Classic Stage Company)
• (10/11) Squeamish (Theatre Row | Beckett)
• (10/12) Breeders (Access)
• (10/14) Criticism in a  Changing America (panel member, Goodman, Chicago)
• (10/14) A View from the Bridge (Goodman, Chicago)
• (10/17) Torch Song (2nd Stage | Tony Kiser)
• (10/18) Ron Carter (Birdland)
• (10/19) Tomorrow in the Battle (Ars Nova)
• (10/20) La Dottoressa (reading, Rose Studio Lincoln Center)
• (10/20) The Last Match (Roundabout | Laura Pels)
• (10/21) Hamilton 101 (Show Score Seminar | Primary Stages Studio)
• (10/21) M. Butterfly (Cort)
• (10/22) Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Greene (Castillo)
• (10/22) Oedipus el Rey (Public + Sol Project)
• (10/24) People Places & Things (St. Ann’s Warehouse)
• (10/25) The Portuguese Kid (MTC | New York City Center)
• (10/25) Lea DeLaria (Birdland)
• (10/26) Red Shoes, Green Gold (Minetta Lane)
• (10/27) Knives in Hens (59E59)
• (10/28) Shadowlands (Theatre Row)
• (10/28) Tartuffe (Wild Project)
• (10/29) Jesus Hopped the A Train (Signature)
• (10/29) Lucie Awards [Art Shay honored] (Carnegie Hall)
• (10/30) Marcel + The Art of Laughter (TFANA)
• (10/31) Ann Hampton Callaway (Birdland)

November

• (11/1) Tamar of the River Reunion Concert (54 Below)
• (11/2) Of Thee I Sing (Carnegie Hall)
• (11/3) From Page to Stage: The Journey of a New Musical The Band’s Visit (panel moderator, ATCA-NY | Theatre Row)
• (11/3) What We’re Up Against (WP)
• (11/4) The Band’s Visit (Barrymore)
• (11/5) Illyria (Public)
• (11/6) LPTW Oral History: Daryl Roth and Linda Winer (NYPL-PA)
• (11/7) Lonely Planet (Keen | Theater Row)
• (11/9) Junk (LCT | Beaumont]
• (11/10) Strange Interlude (Irondale Center, Brooklyn)
• (11/11) Office Hour (Public)
• (11/11) Latin History for Morons (Roundabout | Studio 54)
• (11/12) Toys (59E59)
• (11/12) School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play (MCC | Lucille Lortel)
• (11/13) Wingspace Salon #41: Intellectual Property and the Theater (Wingspace, Brooklyn)
• (11/14) The Mad Ones (59E59)
• (11/15) Harvardwood Presents WILL FRIEDWALD: The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums
• (11/16) Pride and Prejudice (Primary Stages | Cherry Lane)
• (11/17) Peter Pan (Bedlam | Duke on 42nd Street)
• (11/18) The Briefly Dead (59E59)
• (11/18) Must (Theatre at St. Clements)
• (11/19) Actually (New York City Center II)
• (11/19) Muswell Hill (Barrow Group)
• (11/20) Julie Halston (Birdland)
• (11/21) Diaspora (Gym at Judson)
• (11/22) Uncommon Sense (Tectonic | Sheen Center)
• (11/22) 20th Century Blues (Signature)
• (11/24) The Dead, 1904 (Irish Rep | Irish Historical Society)
• (11/25) Billy Stritch (Birdland)
• (11/26) A Deal (Urban Stages)
• (11/26) Hot Mess (Theater Center)
• (11/27) The Parisian Woman (Hudson)
• (11/28) Harry Clarke (Vineyard)
• (11/29) Once on This Island (Circle in the Square)

December

• (12/2) Downtown Race Riot (Signature)
• (12/2) Sponge Bob Square Pants (Palace)
• (12/3) Hundred Days (New York Theatre Workshop)
• (12/3) Counting Sheep (3LD)
• (12/6) Hold These Truths (Hang A Tale | Sheen Center)
• (12/7) Meteor Shower (Booth)
• (12/8) Describe the Night (Atlantic Theatre Company)
• (12/9) De Novo (Houses on the Moon | NYTW Next Door)
• (12/9) The Children (MTC | Samuel J. Friedman)
• (12/10) Bulldozer: The Ballad of Robert Moses (Theater at St. Clements)
• (12/12) Stacey Kent (Birdland)
• (12/13) Cross That River (59E59)
• (12/14) Farinelli and the King (Belasco)
• (12/15) Today is My Birthday (New Ohio)
• (12/16) So Long Boulder City (Subculture)
• (12/16) Who’s Holiday (Westside)
• (12/17) Cruel Intentions (Le Poisson Rouge)
• (12/18) Christine Ebersole and Billy Stritch (Birdland)
• (12/19) Live From Lincoln Center Presents Leslie Odom Jr. (Jazz at Lincoln Center | Appel Room)
• (12/20) Twelfth Night (Classic Stage Company)
• (12/21) Glass Guignol: The Brother and Sister Play (Mabou Mines)
• (12/22) This One’s For The Girls (St. Luke’s)
• (12/23) A Regular Little Houdini (59E59)
• (12/24) Awake and Sing (New Yiddish Rep | 14th Street Y)
• (12/25) Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (Landmark at 57 West)
• (12/26) Lady Bird (AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13)
• (12/27) The Post (AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13)
• (12/28) In The Fade (Landmark at 57 West)

© Martha Wade Steketee (December 29, 2017)