While Guild Hall launched its summer season two weeks ago with a dance program featuring Gibney Company and Lucinda Childs, the theater schedule doesn’t kick into high gear until the weekend of June 20, which will feature a solo dance performance by Lloyd Knight, a culinary conversation with Padma Lakshmi, and an evening of musical theater with Marc Shaiman, Susan Stroman, and Robyn Hurder.
The lineup is typical of the summer’s offerings, which reflect what Anthony Madonna, Guild Hall’s theater director and curator of performing arts, called a blend of “icons and new voices. For dance you see New York City Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem, but alongside that you see Jacob Jonas the Company,” a Los Angeles contemporary dance troupe founded by Jonas, who will be joined by Sara Mearns, a New York City Ballet principal dancer.
In August, Roderick George and his dance company Knoname Artist will perform “The Grave’s Tears,” which explores the impact of systemic oppression and erasure of the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ communities. Jonas, Mearns, and George were all former artists in residence at Guild Hall, which commissioned “The Grave’s Tears.”
Another former resident artist is Adam Tendler, whose “Inheritances,” set for June 28, was a Grammy nominee for best classical instrumental solo. But “solo” is only part of the story. After his father’s unexpected death, Tendler used his cash inheritance to invite a broad spectrum of sound artists and composers to create new works that explore inheritance as lineage, loss, and place. “Inheritance” includes new commissions by Devonté Hynes, Nico Muhly, Laurie Anderson, and Pamela Z, to name only a few.
Other classical programs feature an evening of chamber music by members of the New York Philharmonic, Itzhak Perlman conducting string talents from the Perlman Music Program, and Angel Blue, who won the Grammy for best opera recording for the Metropolitan Opera production of “Porgy and Bess.”
“We have this motto, Guild Hall for All, so we try to really make sure the programming is diverse,” said Madonna. “We try to do an equal amount of dance, music, comedy, talks and lectures, and readings, but each season is also to some extent determined by what the audience’s appetite is.” To that end, the responses to the previous season come into play.
Madonna also said, “When we’re programming we are really thinking of it as a series, what are the different offerings we can give a lover of dance or a lover of comedy. We try to create an arc within each series.”
Confirming that many people attend the entire series of a particular genre, he cited a 6-year-old from the Amagansett School who came to Guild Hall last summer with her grandmother to see Tiler Peck, a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. “She fell in love with it and watched the entire program,” said Madonna. She returned for the New York City Ballet’s performance, and when Peck came back to Guild Hall to do a book talk, “There was the kid again.”
Because it was getting late her grandmother asked if the child could get her book signed before the talk. Madonna led them backstage, Peck signed her book, and she and the child talked. Months later, the girl went to see the “Nutcracker” for the first time, and again met with Peck backstage. “You’re getting some of the highest forms of art on this stage, and it’s able to make an impression on someone as young as 6,” Madonna said.
As for theater and cabaret, Shaiman will celebrate his memoir, “Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories From a Sore Loser.” The creator of film sound tracks and such Broadway musicals as “Hairspray” and “Smash,” he will be joined by Stroman, who directed the latter, and Hurder, one of that play’s stars, for an evening of music and conversation.
Speaking of “Hairspray,” humor will bring two icons to the venue: John Waters, whose 1988 film was adapted for the musical, and Fran Lebowitz, who can be counted on for sharp wit and incisive observations.
“We’re really bringing into the season artists you know, who have these legendary careers, in the same series as artists we think you should know,” said Madonna. Thus, “The Best of Second City” will blend improv, songs, and sketches from Second City’s greatest minds, reimagined by today’s members of the company, who might be tomorrow’s Bill Murray, Tina Fey, or Dan Aykroyd.
Guild Hall will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the musical “Grey Gardens” with a program of conversation and performance with Christine Ebersole, who played “Little” Edie Beale on Broadway, Scott Frankel, the musical’s composer, and Frank DiLella, an Emmy Award-winning journalist.
One of the most unusual theatrical programs features no famous stars, in fact, it has no stars at all yet. For “The 24 Hour Plays,” Guild Hall is still putting together playwrights, directors, and cast. The night before the performance, four playwrights, four directors, and the cast will meet for the first time to share things they’ve always wanted to do but never have. The playwrights will take that night to write, and the following morning everyone will return to Guild Hall for table reads, tech rehearsal, and, that evening, the performance.
Popular music will include two of G.E. Smith’s “Portraits” programs. One will feature Patty Smyth, the singer-songwriter who fronted for the rock band Scandal. She will be joined by her husband, John McEnroe, who is not only a tennis icon but also a rock and blues aficionado. Smith will return over Labor Day weekend with Samantha Fish, a Grammy nominee.
“Next/Now” will bring a cohort of emerging artists from N.Y.U.’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. While the performers were not finalized as the paper went to press, it will range from students to alumni to a few artists with major tours on the horizon, “sort of a mixed bag, but they all have this shared training under the Clive Davis umbrella,” said Madonna.
Guild Hall and BookHampton are joining forces for talks by Colson Whitehead, Andrew Sean Greer, and Angela Duckworth, each of whom will sign copies of their new books after the talks.
Other talks will range from the astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson, alongside a panel of guests and comedians, discussing the mysteries of the universe, to David Breslin, the Metropolitan Museum’s curator in charge of modern and contemporary art, who will preview the museum’s upcoming exhibition “Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous,” which he co-curated.
In addition to Lakshmi, “Stirring the Pot” will feature Kwame Onwuachi, whose restaurant Tatiana was just named the 12th best in New York City by The New York Times; Niki Russ Federman and Josh Russ Tupper, the owners of Russ and Daughters on the Lower East Side, and Florence Fabricant, the series’ host, who will turn the tables to celebrate her forthcoming memoir. Book signings will follow all programs.
While there are too many events to list here, Guild Hall’s website is the place to visit for the most complete and up-to-date information on the summer’s offerings.
