theatre

Uncertainty is the name of the arts and culture game as Boston proceeds with the phased reopening that began the week of Monday, May 18. How successful the reopening is will dictate how and when arts institutions are able to reopen their doors. In an attempt to arm the arts community with as many tools as possible, ArtsBoston has become the regional partner in the COVID-19 Audience Outlook Monitor (AOM), an international study run by WolfBrown of audience attitudes about returning to the cultural sector.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, public spaces have shuttered, but the need for stories of perseverance is greater than ever, and so Suitcase Stories has taken to the screen for virtual storytelling and community conversations.

Boston’s theaters may be dark, but the talent that usually fills them is alive and available to stream online.

This week is like nothing I’ve ever in my lifetime experienced. Along with everyone, I have been juggling, re-arranging, shifting everything I am involved in to the virtual world while the arts and cultural world from Broadway to Boston and beyond shuts down.

Eugene O’Neill’s classic play “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” explores the dynamic of a family during the course of 24 hours, revealing that deep familial love can exist simultaneously with addiction and conflict. This month, WaltersWest Project and Fort Point Theatre Channel are shaking up the timeless story by producing it with an all black cast at Hibernian Hall March 17–April 4.

Acclaimed choreographer Camille A. Brown has been praised and awarded for her riveting, soulful and innovative dance-theater performances, which explore the rich and complex history of African American culture. The artistic director and founder of the dance company Camille A. Brown & Dancers invites audiences to experience stories and dialogues about race, culture and identity.

Comedian Maysoon Zayid often begins a show by saying, “I got 99 problems and palsy is just one. I’m Palestinian, Muslim, a woman of color, and [pause] — I live in New Jersey.”

Powerful bass-baritone singer Alfred Walker returns to the Boston Lyric Opera as Oroveso in “Norma,” running March 13 through 22. Written in 1831 by famed composer Vincenzo Bellini, the powerful show about love and female power strikes a resonant chord in the ongoing fight for gender equality.

After a dramatic debut to the Boston theater scene in 2016 with “Historia de Amor” the avant-garde Chilean theater company Teatrocinema is back in town with a new U.S. premiere. “Plata Quemada” (“Burnt Money”) runs at ArtsEmerson March 11 through 15, exploring the true story of a bank heist in 1965 Buenos Aires that devolved into a historically renowned shoot out.

In 1966, Nina Simone’s song “Four Women” sent shockwaves through radios all across the United States and ignited controversy for its archetypal descriptions of black women. Now, that song has been shaped by Christina Ham into a moving stage show, “Nina Simone: Four Women,” running at the Merrimack Repertory Theater in Lowell through March 8.

Lynn Nottage’s prophetic 2015 play, “Sweat,” could have been a bellwether of the 2016 election. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning work portrays a plight faced by a broad swath of Americans either ignored or manipulated by the candidates. “Sweat” follows a group of friends, lifelong residents of a factory town, as their lives are pulled apart when the local plant shuts down.