Curtain Up! Bay Street Season Begins
The Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor will kick off its 25th summer season Saturday night with “How Long Has This Been Going On?” an evening of stories, songs, and laughs with Mario Cantone and Jerry Dixon, followed next week by the world premiere of “The Forgotten Woman,” a new comedy-drama by Jonathan Tolins.
Mr. Cantone and Mr. Dixon will take the stage at 8 with a program of music and repartee created in February for Lincoln Center’s American Songbook. “It’s the first time my husband and I have done a concert together,” said Mr. Cantone. “We’ve put together a show, mostly music, that kind of represents the dynamics of our relationship. We are pretty much the same onstage as off.”
The show includes songs by Louis Prima, Cole Porter, Eric Benet and David Foster, and Maury Reston, as well as “some Broadway and pop stuff. We picked songs individually, and we do a handful of duets. Some of it is very funny, and some of Jerry’s stuff is amazing, because he’s got this gorgeous, rich, creamy, beautiful deep voice. I’m just a crazy-ass belter. I have to sing one ballad, and it’s scary, but I get through it.”
Mr. Cantone is a comedian and actor who has appeared in three hit Broadway shows: Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s “Assassins,” Terrence McNally’s “Love! Valor! Compassion!” and “Laugh Whore,” his own one-man show, which he developed at Bay Street. “They gave us rehearsal space, and I did a few run-throughs there with my director, Joe Mantello, who lived in Sag Harbor at the time. I’ve got a real history with Bay Street.”
Mr. Dixon is an actor, vocalist, songwriter, and director who, as an actor, has appeared on and off Broadway and on television. His stage directing credits range from “Two Gentlemen of Verona” to “The Full Monty,” and he has written for CBS, VH1, Comedy Central, and “The View.” As a soloist, he has performed with the Belgian National Symphony, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra.
Tickets for “How Long Has This Been Going On?” are priced from $69.25 to $125.
“The Forgotten Woman,” directed by Noah Himmelstein, will open Tuesday at 7 p.m. and continue through June 19. The woman of the title is Margaret Meier, a gifted soprano on the verge of an important operatic career. When a reporter appears at her Chicago hotel room, she must face her less-than-passionate marriage, her child, her ambition, her weight, and the price of aspiring to stardom.
The title role is played by Ashlie Atkinson, who has appeared on stages in New York City and nationally, on television in “30 Rock,” “Law and Order,” “Louie,” “The Good Wife,” and “Boardwalk Empire,” and in such films as “Bridge of Spies,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and “Inside Man.”
“Margaret was a shy 15-year-old girl who loved to sing,” said Ms. Atkinson. “Once she was discovered, with hard work everything fell into place, but there weren’t a lot of choices along the way. This play is about her deciding what her path is going to be as a woman, as a romantic partner, as a performer. It’s about choice and agency and taking control of your life, but it’s also about the life of an artist, and ways artists are fundamentally different from other people.”
Ms. Atkinson knew nothing about opera before undertaking the role. “To be able to have a crash course as part of my work is really exciting for me. I love the tension between the heightened, beautiful, transcendent quality of the work and the mundane, everyday, often challenging, often downright depressing aspects of Margaret’s offstage life. This was originally a comedy. But truthfully, like most of the things I love to be in and watch, I think it’s very funny until it’s not. And then it’s really not funny.”
No stranger to divas as subject matter, Mr. Tolins is the author of “Buyer and Cellar,” a 2013 Off Broadway comedy hit about a struggling actor who lands a job working in Barbra Streisand’s basement, where she has created a mall of old-time shops. That play, according to Ben Brantley of The New York Times, “manages to keep you laughing as hard as any first-rate celebrity spoof.”
Performances of “The Forgotten Woman” will take place daily except Mondays. Show times are 7 p.m. on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, with 2 p.m. matinees on Sundays. Tickets are priced from $25 for back row seats to $125. For Tuesday’s performance, a limited number of pay-what-you-can tickets will be available on a first-come-first-served basis at the box office, beginning at 11 a.m.