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    With ‘Empire Records: The Musical,’ Zoe Sarnak Revives a ’90s Cult Classic

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    The composer is breaking the rules of musical theater and finding an increasingly warm welcome this year for her rock sound. Next up, “Empire Records: The Musical.”As a teenager in New Jersey, the composer and lyricist Zoe Sarnak was a star soccer player, earning her place in the Princeton High School Athletic Hall of Fame. Her position? “Center mid,” she said in a recent interview. “The one who runs the most.”In addition to displaying endurance, the center midfielder plays a crucial role in coordinating defense and attack, and controlling the game’s tempo. Experience that must have come in handy this year, when Sarnak, now 37, will have had multiple productions at prestigious institutions around the country.In May, Berkeley Repertory Theater premiered “Galileo,” a musical with a score by Sarnak and the composer Michael Weiner, in which science and religion duke it out. A few days later, a retooled version of “The Lonely Few,” a heated love story between two rockers, opened at MCC in New York.Now Sarnak is back in her hometown, Princeton, with “Empire Records: The Musical,” an adaptation of the 1995 grunge-adjacent teen film that begins previews at the McCarter theater on Sept. 6.“Maybe it’s from growing up playing sports and feeling like there’s something really gratifying about saying, ‘I can just run that extra wind sprint, I know I have it in me,’” she said during one of three conversations we shared over the summer — each at a different location attached to a different project.Lauren Patten, left, and Taylor Iman Jones in “The Lonely Few,” another Sarnak show set in a musical milieu — this one in a rock club.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      15 Summer Theaters for That Nearby, Out-of-Town Experience

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      Easygoing days of drama and comedy are just a few hours away (or even closer) in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.Summer used to be when playgoing in the city came to a full stop. With no air-conditioning, most shows closed, at least until fall.But now that urban theater is a year-round sport, Memorial Day is more like a comma than a period. Notable productions play straight through the hot months — some even opening in August, even on Broadway.So what has happened to the regional festivals, straw-hat theaters and avant-garde outposts that once flourished as the city languished? Many are struggling. Yet others are surging.Regardless, they’re worth visiting.There’s something different about summer theater outside the city. Subways are rarely involved, though a train ride or overnight stay at a lovely inn might be. Dress is casual — by which I mean “more casual than usual” because I’ve seen people at Shakespeare in the Park in pajamas. And the fare is more varied, including not just the prestige and tourist-bait extremes of the spectrum but also the hokey, offbeat and silly stuff in between.Another plus: what you spend on that inn, you’ll save on the tickets.So here’s a selection of theater that will help you get out of the city — or at least make you feel like you did.The Big MagnetsFormerly the jewel of the summer theater circuit, famous for classics and knotty new works, the Williamstown Theater Festival, in Williamstown, Mass., is regrouping after its production model, dependent on unpaid labor, collapsed. This season includes just one fully staged production: David Ives’s detective drama, “Pamela Palmer” (starting July 23). But much more is going on, including a multigenre, multistage event called “WTF Is Next” (Aug. 1-4). Think of it not as crisis management but as a tasting platter of ideas for the future.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Guide to Summer Theater Festivals in New York and the Berkshires

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      In summertime, a lot of stage talent heads for the Hudson River Valley and western Massachusetts, where curious audiences follow. Here is some of what theaters there have on tap this year.Hudson Valley Shakespeare FestivalAmong this summer’s offerings at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival is a production of “Henry V,” directed by Davis McCallum, the company’s artistic director.T. Charles EricksonThis company has a knack for magnificent vistas. Its new home is high above the Hudson River in Garrison, N.Y., with breathtaking views. Picnicking, should you care to, is very much part of the preshow experience, and performances are alfresco, under a sturdy, festive, big white tent. But productions here often use the landscape just outside for striking tableaus, with the tent’s wide, arced entrance framing bits of action on the sloping lawn.This season’s shows are Shakespeare’s “Henry V” (through Aug. 21), directed by Davis McCallum, the company’s artistic director; a musical spin on Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labor’s Lost” (through Aug. 27), adapted and directed by Amanda Dehnert, who wrote the pop-rock score with André Pluess; and “Penelope” (Sept. 2-17), a solo musical re-envisioning of “The Odyssey,” directed by Eva Steinmetz, with music and lyrics by Alex Bechtel, who wrote the book with Grace McLean and Steinmetz. (hvshakespeare.org)New York Stage and FilmThe dance musical “Paradise Ballroom,” featuring choreography by Princess Lockerooo, above, will close out New York Stage and Film’s season next weekend.Kenny RodriguezThere is a particular excitement to seeing theater by daring artists while it is still taking shape. Such is the allure of New York Stage and Film’s readings and workshops, on the campus of Marist College in Poughkeepsie. Last weekend, people filing in to see Lauren Yee and Heather Christian’s new musical adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” were handed a slip of paper advising that many lyrics would be spoken, not sung. “There is much music still to be written,” it said. Disappointing? Not if you approach these shows knowing that they are incubating. Also, Katrina Lenk was playing Mrs. Whatsit, fabulously.The company’s new-play readings this weekend are “The Good Name” (July 29), written by Sopan Deb, a New York Times reporter, and directed by Trip Cullman; and “Downstairs Neighbor” (July 29), by Beth Henley, directed by Jaki Bradley. The season closes with the dance musical “Paradise Ballroom” (Aug. 4-6), directed by Colette Robert, with book, lyrics and choreography by Princess Lockerooo, and music by Harold O’Neal; and a workshop presentation of “Like They Do in the Movies” (Aug. 5-6), a solo show written and performed by Laurence Fishburne, directed by Leonard Foglia. (newyorkstageandfilm.org)Williamstown Theater FestivalFrom left, Jon-Michael Reese, Natalie Joy Johnson and Eden Espinosa at a recent WTF Cabaret performance. The loose and lively weekend concert series has a rotating roster of performers.Emilio MadridWestern Massachusetts’s most powerful magnet for boldface-name stage artists is taking a sparer approach this year — minimal physical production, a focus on works in progress, blink-and-you-miss-them runs. But even as the company looks for a less costly, more sustainable way forward, it has not left glamour behind.At the ’62 Center for Theater and Dance at Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass., the play reading on the main stage this weekend is Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” (July 29-30), with Meryl Streep’s daughters, Louisa Jacobson, Mamie Gummer and Grace Gummer, in the title roles, and her son, Henry Wolfe Gummer, as the sisters’ brother. Next weekend, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Michael Chernus and Alison Pill star in a reading of Martin McDonagh’s “The Pillowman” (Aug. 5-6).The loose and lively WTF Cabaret, on the same intimate stage, is hosted this week by the comedian Lewis Black (July 27-29) and next week by the comedian Jaye McBride (Aug. 3-5). The band is terrific.The festival’s Fridays@3 reading series takes place close by, at the Clark Art Institute, where you might want to leave time to see the exhibition “Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth” or dip your toes in the three-tiered reflecting pool outside. (It’s allowed.) With Diana Oh in the cast, Clarence Coo’s “Chapters of a Floating Life” (July 28) is about two couples from China in postwar New York City. The series finishes with Aurora Real de Asua’s “Wipeout” (Aug. 4), a septuagenarian surfing comedy with Emily Kuroda, Becky Ann Baker and Candy Buckley. (wtfestival.org)Barrington Stage CompanyA revival of Pearl Cleage’s “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” with Tsilala Brock, left, and Ryan George, is at Barrington Stage Company through Aug. 5.Daniel RaderIn downtown Pittsfield, Mass., this theater has a slate of full productions this summer. A beautifully acted, vibrantly designed revival of Pearl Cleage’s “Blues for an Alabama Sky” is on the Boyd-Quinson Stage (through Aug. 5), followed by a revival of William Finn and James Lapine’s musical “A New Brain” (Aug. 16-Sept. 10). With a cast that includes Adam Chanler-Berat, Andy Grotelueschen and Mary Testa, it’s produced in association with Williamstown Theater Festival.A few blocks away, on the St. Germain Stage at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center, Julianne Boyd directs Brian Friel’s classic “Faith Healer” (Aug. 1-27), a drama told in monologues. Downstairs, Mr. Finn’s Cabaret presents a lineup of Broadway veterans: Lillias White (Aug. 13-14), currently playing Hermes in “Hadestown”; Hugh Panaro (Aug. 21), a former Phantom in “The Phantom of the Opera”; the composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown (Aug. 31-Sept. 1), whose musical “Parade” just won the Tony Award for best revival; and Alan H. Green (Sept. 2-3), a company favorite. (barringtonstageco.org)Berkshire Theater GroupChristine Lahti in Berkshire Theater Group’s production of the actress’s autobiographical solo show “The Smile of Her.”Emma K. Rothenberg-WareThis is the final weekend to catch Christine Lahti in “The Smile of Her” (through July 29), an autobiographical solo show about her suburban family in the patriarchal 1950s, at the Unicorn Theater in Stockbridge, Mass. Next up, also at the Unicorn, is the world premiere of the musical “On Cedar Street” (Aug. 12-Sept. 2), about two widowed small-town neighbors who start sleeping side by side to alleviate their loneliness. Adapted from Kent Haruf’s final novel, “Our Souls at Night,” it has a book by Emily Mann, music by Lucy Simon and Carmel Dean and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. (berkshiretheatregroup.org)Shakespeare & CompanyBrian D. Coats and Ella Joyce in a production of August Wilson’s “Fences,” through Aug. 27, at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass.Eran ZelixonNot a lot of Shakespeare is among the theater happening this summer in green and gorgeous Lenox, Mass., but “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Aug. 1-Sept. 10) is coming right up in an open-air production, with the excellent Jacob Ming-Trent as Bottom. Ken Ludwig’s two-hander “Dear Jack, Dear Louise” (through July 30) is wrapping up its run in another of the company’s outdoor spaces.Indoors are August Wilson’s “Fences” (through Aug. 27), William Gibson’s “Golda’s Balcony” (Aug. 5-20) and Donald Margulies’s “Lunar Eclipse” (Sept. 15-Oct. 22), making its world premiere with Karen Allen and Reed Birney at the tail end of summer. Also inside: a staged reading of “Hamlet” (Sept. 1-3), with Finn Wittrock in the title role and Christopher Lloyd, who played the mad monarch in Shakespeare & Company’s “King Lear” two summers ago, as Polonius. (shakespeare.org) More

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      Where Do Theater Artists Go to Ask Questions? Poughkeepsie.

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      New York Stage and Film provides an unlikely haven for inquiring writers of new plays and musicals.POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — For Michael R. Jackson, the question was quite specific. What kind of underscoring do you write for a melodramatic yet serious musical inspired by soap operas, Lifetime movies and “Law and Order: SVU”?Jackson has been developing his musical, “White Girl in Danger,” since 2017, through so many workshops and readings that he can barely list them all. He had already nailed down the plot, about a Black performer on a surreal soap who schemes, from the “blackground,” to outshine the white stars and get a story of her own.Now he needed to figure out something smaller but crucial: how to apply the organ stings, ominous monotones and other instrumental plot thickeners that would underline the satire and keep the audience on track.That was the reason he spent two weeks recently on the stately campus of Marist College here, working in free rehearsal halls and sleeping in an undergraduate dorm bed. He was a guest of New York Stage and Film, the quietly influential incubator of new plays and musicals (and screenplays and television scripts) offering year-round workshops and residencies. And though its theater season each summer is a must-see in the industry, even that is more inward facing than outward, with only a few performances of each show and no reviews allowed.Call it a concierge service for works in progress.“These days have been nothing short of stupendous and invaluable,” Jackson told me last week as “White Girl” was preparing for its debut under an open-sided tent along the Hudson River. He was not referring to the festival’s coffers; the Marist season was pay-what-you-can. Rather, like all the artists I spoke to, he was excited by what he’d learned in rehearsal, and by what he expected to learn from the audience that weekend as it laughed, gasped, cheered or fell silent.“What question are you asking that you can’t ask anywhere else?” said Chris Burney, Stage and Film’s artistic director, discussing what he sees as the organization’s mission. “What’s your big dream project? That’s why we are here, outside the bounds of the commercial theater.”This year, most of New York Stage and Film’s productions took place in a tent on the banks of the Hudson.Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesOutside its bounds, perhaps, but not a stranger to it. Many shows developed at Stage and Film in its 37 seasons have had long and profitable afterlives. The best known is “Hamilton,” which appeared as “The Hamilton Mixtape” in 2013, but Poughkeepsie has also been a stop in the journey of “The Wolves,” by Sarah DeLappe, “The Humans,” by Stephen Karam and “A 24-Decade History of Popular Music,” by Taylor Mac.Those were big works, and so is “White Girl”: Stage and Film hosted Jackson and a company of 22, while providing advice, support, space and two paid apprentices. Jackson, who won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for his musical “A Strange Loop,” now wending its way toward Broadway, is a big name, too, and “White Girl” is already on track for a New York production, after several workshops over the last two years at the Vineyard Theater.But the season’s smaller shows, by artists not yet as well known, got much the same treatment as they set out to answer their own idiosyncratic questions. Though I didn’t get to see “South,” by Florencia Iriondo, who was turning her five-character musical into a solo show so it could be performed more easily in a pandemic environment, I saw the other four productions on offer, three in the tent and one online, with a huge star, Billy Porter, attached.At whatever stage in their evolution, from nowhere near finished to almost complete, the shows received the same careful, sheltered airing. Audiences included some theater professionals but they did not bring with them the hothouse feeling that so often and unhelpfully hangs over developmental work in New York City.Well, the tent was hot, especially at matinees. (Admission included a precautionary temperature check as well as a jaunty paper fan.) And the atmosphere was more informal than in previous seasons, which were held at theaters on the campus of Vassar College nearby.The switch was not an aesthetic choice, though. Two weeks before Burney was to announce his first season as artistic director, in March 2020, the pandemic hit. Vassar shut down in the middle of spring break, meaning that Stage and Film, even if it were functioning by summer, could not do so there; the dorms that usually housed artists were filled with the students’ abandoned belongings.Nygel D. Robinson and Brian Quijada in “Mexodus.”Buck LewisThe Vassar programs were canceled, but some of this season’s most promising productions emerged from the disaster. One was “Mexodus,” by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, which began when Quijada was “scrolling good old Facebook many years ago,” he told me, and came upon a bit of history he’d never learned, about thousands of Black people who had escaped slavery not by the familiar northern route but by a southern one, leading to Mexico.“My parents” — who are from El Salvador — “both crossed in the ’70s,” Quijada said, meaning from Mexico to the United States. “I wanted to explore this reverse border story but didn’t know how I would do it alone.”He didn’t have to; Robinson, whom he met at a conference, was on board the minute Quijada shared the idea; they began riffing on ideas the next day, including one that became the first song.“It could have just been a little passion project,” Robinson says, “if Stage and Film hadn’t put some fire under it.”The fire came in the form of an offer, said Quijada, who had worked with the institution before: “They said, ‘Is there anything you want to do? We have funds.’”This is not the kind of question artists, no matter how seasoned, usually hear from producers. When Quijada and Robinson picked their jaws up off the floor, they shared their idea, which as yet had no plot or structure.Stage and Film loved it anyway, suggesting that the two write a song each month from their quarantines in different cities as they built the story into a virtual concept album. Then, when live theater returned, Burney promised to bring them to Poughkeepsie to work on it in person. “They even sent me a new bow for my bass,” Robinson said.By the time the two men arrived here in July, the score was in good shape to tell the story they’d settled on, about an enslaved Black man (played by Robinson) who crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico after murdering a white man who has raped his sister. He nearly dies en route but is nursed back to health by a Mexican farmer (Quijada) with a troubled past of his own.The specific question the authors needed to answer was technical: How could they perform the music they had created electronically during the pandemic, including frequent looping, in a live environment?When I saw “Mexodus,” they were still sorting out that complicated choreography, but it never got in the way of the story, or of the feedback the artists were receiving from the audience.“Interstate,” a pop-rock musical, took nine years of work.Buck LewisThe creators of “Interstate,” a more traditional pop-rock musical — if one about nontraditional characters — wanted to address a problem that was itself more traditional: How could their second act best develop the themes of the first? After nine years of work, the setup, about a lesbian and a transgender man who tour as a duo called Queer Malady, was working just fine. But when a developmental production in Minneapolis was shut down by the pandemic, Melissa Li and Kit Yan felt that the rest of their show, focusing on the duo’s conflicts and a desperate fan, still needed work. Stage and Film stepped in.The presentation I saw thus skipped the first hour, starting just two songs shy of what would normally be the intermission. If that foreshortening meant meeting the characters in mid-arc, it allowed the audience to feel it was meeting the show in mid-arc, too; like the other productions at Stage and Film, it was revealing itself before being set in stone.That’s a thrill pretty much unique to this model of development. Still, a static production of new work can be thrilling too. That was the case with Porter’s show, “Sanctuary,” for which he is writing the book, about a pop diva with big issues, and Kurt Carr is writing the gospel score.The video that streamed for five days recently didn’t include any dialogue; Porter says that his work with Stage and Film is aimed at figuring out the tone of the book scenes in the context of such overwhelming music. (The soloists included Deborah Cox and Ledisi; Broadway Inspirational Voices was the luxury chorus.) If it was not quite stage and not quite film, “Sanctuary” is nevertheless the kind of thing Stage and Film does best: letting you experience new work before all its questions are answered. More

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      A Guide to Theater Festivals in New York and the Berkshires

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      From the Williamstown Theater Festival to New York Stage and Film, theatergoers can experience world premieres, concerts and more.Most summers, as tourists pour into New York City to see theater, New Yorkers pour out to see theater elsewhere. This summer, though, they may do so with extra ardor. As the pandemic lifts, the pent-up demand for live, in-person theater is first being met in the Berkshires and in the mid-Hudson region, where companies are putting up tents, arranging outdoor immersive experiences and welcoming audiences to buildings that have been empty for too long.Some of those companies are old and some new: The Williamstown Theater Festival has been at it since 1955, but Great Barrington Public Theater just started in 2019. Shakespeare & Company, as its name implies, goes heavy on classics — starting July 2, Christopher Lloyd plays King Lear — while Barrington Stage Company focuses on musicals and new plays. For mainstream fare (if “The Importance of Being Earnest,” opening next week, counts as mainstream), look to the Berkshire Theater Group. For something more experimental, try Bard SummerScape or New York Stage and Film.Wherever you go — below, our critics highlight five possibilities — you will still find pandemic precautions in place. (Check each theater’s website for specific safety policies.) Even so, after a dark time, these summer shows and festivals truly offer something to celebrate. JESSE GREENWilliamstown Theater FestivalAudiences have always been drawn to the Williamstown Theater Festival for its artistry, which is strong, and its geography, which is sublime. Tucked amid the Berkshires on the campus of Williams College, in a corner of western Massachusetts that’s just a meander away from Vermont, it seems like the kind of spot that would have an open-air stage or two.In an ordinary summer, no such luck. But this year, Williamstown is taking its slate of world premieres outside.The first stop is the front lawn, where the season starts with “Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination: Nine Solo Plays.” Curated by Robert O’Hara, a current Tony Award nominee for his direction of “Slave Play,” the production offers three separate programs, each made up of three 30-minute plays: by Guadalís Del Carmen, France‑Luce Benson and NSangou Njikam (July 6 to 10); J. Nicole Brooks, Terry Guest and Ike Holter (July 13 to 18); and Charly Evon Simpson, Ngozi Anyanwu and Zora Howard (July 20 to 25).“Row,” a production of the Williamstown Theater Festival, will take place on the grounds of the Clark Art Institute, which a reflecting pool.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesDown the road at the Clark Art Institute, from July 13 to Aug. 8, the museum’s vast reflecting pool will become the stage for “Row,” Daniel Goldstein and Dawn Landes’s musical, starring the singer-songwriter Grace McLean, part of the original Broadway cast of “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.” Directed by Tyne Rafaeli, “Row” is inspired by Tori Murden McClure’s memoir, “A Pearl in the Storm,” about rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean.And from July 20 to Aug. 8 around the town of Williamstown, audiences can experience the immersive performance “Alien/Nation” on foot or by car. The director Michael Arden and his company, the Forest of Arden, who made last summer’s immersive “American Dream Study” in the Hudson Valley, teamed up with the playwrights Jen Silverman and Eric Berryman for this one, which uses local history from 1969 as a starting point. (wtfestival.org) LAURA COLLINS-HUGHESBard SummerScapeThe Frank Loesser musical “The Most Happy Fella” boasts one of the most wondrous scores of the 1950s — a decade filled with stiff competition. The show is packed with songs whose styles are mixed and matched with formidable agility, going from operatic arias to dance romps to jazzy croons and back again.Yet “The Most Happy Fella” is less famous than, say, Loesser’s “Guys and Dolls,” and that might have something to do with what some might generously call its baggage. The middle-aged, homely title character, Tony, an Italian immigrant prone to mangling English, falls for, deceives and eventually wins over a younger waitress. This plot has not aged well.This makes the prospect of the director Daniel Fish’s “Most Happy in Concert” (Aug. 5-7) even more intriguing — especially since his ensemble is made up of seven female and nonbinary performers. (While SummerScape events usually take place on the Bard campus, in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., this year’s productions will be performed at the Stage at Montgomery Place, an outdoor venue in nearby Red Hook.)Daniel Fish’s upcoming “Most Happy in Concert” at Bard SummerScape will feature Mallory Portnoy, third from left above, and Mary Testa, above right. They both appeared in Fish’s “Oklahoma!” production, above, at Bard in 2015, with, from left: Mitch Tebo, James Patrick Davis, John Carlin and Benj Mirman.Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesOf course, the experimentally minded director has been there and successfully done that already: In 2015, also at Bard, he took “Oklahoma!,” long associated with a certain aw-shucks all-Americanness, and pulled off a “vibrant, essential excavation,” as Ben Brantley put it in his review of the premiere production. The show went on to win the Tony Award for best revival four years later.Now Fish is teaming up again with his “Oklahoma!” musical collaborators, Daniel Kluger and Nathan Koci, and the actresses Mary Testa (Aunt Eller) and Mallory Portnoy (Gertie Cummings), who will sing alongside the likes of the “Toni Stone” star April Matthis and the protean performer Erin Markey. Whether a full production ever happens remains a mystery for now, but the prospect of this director with this cast and this score is enough to light up August. (fishercenter.bard.edu) ELISABETH VINCENTELLIBarrington Stage CompanyLast year, this regional theater in the Berkshires, a proving ground for new musicals, announced a truncated summer season. But state directives meant that its artistic director, Julianne Boyd, had to constrict it even further, moving an indoor show, “Harry Clarke,” outdoors. But summer 2021 promises more shows in more venues, inside and out.Mark H. Dold in last year’s production of “Harry Clarke,” at Barrington Stage Company.Daniel RaderThis season begins, in a tent on the Barrington Stage Campus, with a celebration of the songs of George Gershwin (June 10-July 3). Directed by Boyd, it stars Allison Blackwell, Alan H. Green, Britney Coleman, Jacob Tischler and Alysha Umphress. The tent will also host “Boca” (July 30-Aug. 22), an evening of Jessica Provenz’s short comedies about Florida seniors; as well as concert evenings featuring the Broadway stars Elizabeth Stanley (June 28), Jeff McCarthy (July 24) Joshua Henry (Aug. 16), and the husband-and-wife pair Orfeh and Andy Karl (Aug. 23). The couple, who met in the Broadway adaptation of “Saturday Night Fever” and later appeared together in “Legally Blonde,” call the show “Legally Bound.” Aaron Tveit, a current Tony nominee for “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” will perform at the theater’s gala.Indoors, the father-and-son Reed and Ephraim Birney star in the lachrymose two-hander “Chester Bailey,” starting on Friday. Harriet Harris then appears in “Eleanor” (July 16-Aug. 1), Mark St. Germain’s one-woman play about Eleanor Roosevelt. And the New Yorker writer Alec Wilkinson adapts his article about the conceptual art project, the Apology Line, into a new play, “Sister Sorry” (Aug. 13-29), directed by Richard Hamburger. (barringtonstageco.org) ALEXIS SOLOSKINew York Stage and FilmTheater is not just what you see when it’s finished, it’s what goes on beforehand. New York Stage and Film, an incubator of works in development, provides that “beforehand”; something called “The Hamilton Mixtape” showed up there in 2013, two years before it opened as “Hamilton” on Broadway.Usually held on the campus of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, the festival looks a little different this year. The pandemic has pushed its events into various venues around town, and the Black Lives Matter movement has pushed it, like all arts organizations, to rethink programming. The new artistic director, Chris Burney, has responded with a promising slate of work from Black, Latinx and Asian American artists.The big draw, on July 31 and Aug. 1, is Michael R. Jackson’s “White Girl in Danger,” a follow-up to his 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner, “A Strange Loop.” Directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, “White Girl” is a satire of Lifetime Original-style movies as seen from a Black woman’s perspective, but Jackson’s radically sympathetic worldview suggests more than a little love in the critique.Daveed Diggs, left, and Lin-Manuel Miranda working on “The Hamilton Mixtape” at New York Stage and Film in 2013.Buck Lewis, via New York Stage and FilmJackson is not the only theater artist exploring race and danger in Poughkeepsie this summer. “Mexodus,” a “concept album” created and performed by Brian Quijada and Nygel D. Robinson, is about the thousands of enslaved people who instead of heading north on the Underground Railroad went south to Mexico (July 17 and 24). “South,” by Florencia Iriondo and Luis D’Elias, is a one-woman musical inspired by Iriondo’s experiences as a Latina in the United States (July 23 and 24). And “Interstate,” by Melissa Li and Kit Yan, follows a transgender slam poet and a lesbian singer-songwriter on an eventful cross-country journey (July 25).New York Stage and Film is for artists, yes, but since artists need feedback, it’s for audiences as well. (Most events are “pay what you can.”) Who isn’t it for? Critics. We can go, but can’t review, which makes it a real vacation for everyone. (newyorkstageandfilm.org) JESSE GREENHudson Valley Shakespeare FestivalThe serenity that descends on visitors upon arrival at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival has everything to do with the landscape as seen from the bluff — breathtaking river, low mountains and sky. Never mind the saber-rattling name of the town, Garrison, or the fact that West Point is across the water, barely downstream. These grounds, at the historic Boscobel House and Gardens, are a soothing setting for pre-performance picnics and a gorgeous backdrop to the stage in the open-air tent as sunset turns to night.“As You Like It,” at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in 2016.T Charles Erickson, via Hudson Valley Shakespeare FestivalStill, it is an area with a particular reverence for the Revolutionary War, which makes the festival’s season opener an enticingly provocative match. “The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington” — directed by Taylor Reynolds and running June 24 to July 30 — is by James Ijames, one of the most exhilarating playwrights the American theater has right now. Set at Mount Vernon as the widowed Martha lies ill, tended to by enslaved people whose freedom is promised as soon as she dies, it is described as a fever dream — and if it’s anywhere near as brilliant as Ijames’s Sally Hemings-Thomas Jefferson satire “TJ Loves Sally 4 Ever,” it could be unmissable.So it’s helpful that both of the festival’s live productions this summer will be filmed for streaming. But if you can, do yourself a favor and go in person. “The Tempest,” directed by Ryan Quinn and running Aug. 5 to Sept. 4, will be the company’s goodbye to Boscobel, its home of 34 years. The theater isn’t going far — just upriver to Philipstown — but if you want to catch that stellar view from the tent, this is last call. (hvshakespeare.org)LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES More