The Mendel Center

Streaming this fall!

Broadway Talkback Series & BroadwayHD

Click "Buy Tickets" once on any date above for access to the ENTIRE series

$25 - Broadway Talkback Series + BroadwayHD

Free - Broadway Talkback Series only ($10 donation option also available)

 

Even though stages across the country are still dark, Broadway is alive and well…wherever you stream online content!

The Mendel Center’s Broadway Talkback Series gives you access to national and international award-winning Broadway directors, writers, choreographers, and actors from well-known performances during six, 40-minute live Zoom talks where YOU can ask the questions.

This series is unique to The Mendel Center - you won't find it anywhere else!

 

You also unlock more than 300 Broadway and performing arts productions with BroadwayHD that you can stream on demand with your 3-month subscription!

 

How it works:

With one Broadway Talkback Series pass, you gain online access to six sessions hosted by The Mendel Center through Zoom, each on the topic of a particular Broadway performance.

Join the pre-talk back watch party during which time you can chat online with other Mendel Center patrons about the show you are watching and submit questions for the guest speaker. Immediately following the watch party, the talkback will begin.

Don't have time to join the watch party? No problem. Watch the featured performance any time before or after the talkback. You can jump directly into the talkback Zoom session at its start time

 

Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza (family friendly)

Saturday, October 24

Watch party, 5:25 pm

Talkback session, 7 pm with Michael Garner, head clown, Cirque du Soleil

 

Michael Jay Garner started his performing career like many who pursue this type of work: by accident. He received a BA in Psychology from Emory University, where he also learned how to juggle, play various musical instruments, and found comfort on stage as a cast member of the nation's oldest college improv troupe. After college, Michael worked in the corporate world, but took many side gigs as a performer. While preparing an audition piece for The Big Apple Circus, he realized that by assembling this random assortment of skills, he had inadvertently been training to be a clown for ten years, without even realizing it. Since then, Michael's life has been a swirling vortex of clowning and circus arts. He has toured with Britney Spears on her World Circus Tour and has been touring internationally with Cirque du Soleil since 2016, playing the Handyman clown in KOOZA.

Cirque du Soleil BroadwayHD Preview

 

The King and I

Saturday, November 7

Watch party, 11:15 am

Talkback session, 2 pm with Bartlett Sher, director

Barlett Sher is the Resident Director at Lincoln Center Theater where he won a Tony Award for his production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific (which he also directed in London and Australia); and was nominated for Tony Awards for his LCT productions of My Fair Lady, Oslo (2017 Tony Award for Best Play, Obie Award, also National Theatre, London), Rodgers & Hammerstein's The King and I (also London), Golden Boy, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Awake and Sing!, and The Light in the Piazza.

The King and I BroadwayHD Preview

 

The Wind in the Willows (family friendly)

Sunday, November 15

Watch party, 9:45 am

Talkback session, 12 pm with George Stiles & Anthony Drewe, composer & lyricist

Stiles and Drewe are a multi award-winning musical theatre writing partnership whose shows have been seen all over the world. Their scores include the international smash-hit Cameron Mackintosh/Disney production of Mary Poppins, the Olivier Award-winning Honk!, and the recent West End productions of Half A Sixpence and The Wind in the Willows. Their other shows are Soho Cinders, Betty Blue Eyes, Travels With My Aunt, Peter Pan - A Musical Adventure, Just So and Tutankhamun.

The Wind in the Willows BroadwayHD Preview 

 

Into the Woods

Saturday, November 21

Watch party, 4:20 pm

Talkback session, 7 pm with James Lapine, co-author

James Lapine is a playwright, director, and Theater Hall of Fame inductee who has been nominated for twelve Tony Awards, winning three times, along with receiving five Drama Desk Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He has written the book for and directed Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Passion, and the multi-media revue Sondheim on Sondheim. With William Finn he collaborated on A New Brain, Muscle, Little Miss Sunshine, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. He has written five plays and directed many Broadway and off-Broadway productions, as well as four films. His HBO documentary Six by Sondheim won a Peabody Award and Emmy nomination for direction.

Into the Woods BroadwayHD Preview

 

Peter Pan (family friendly)

Sunday, December 6

Watch party, 5:10 pm

Talkback session, 7 pm with Cathy Rigby, starring role of Peter Pan

During her gymnastics career, Cathy won numerous international medals- including eight gold. When Cathy retired from the sport, she joined ABC Sports for 18 years, providing expert commentary on the sport of gymnastics around the world. After seven years of intense voice and theatrical training, she embarked on a new career in performing arts. National and regional tour credits include: Annie Get Your Gun, Meet Me in St. Louis, South Pacific, Paint Your Wagon, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Silvia, and Steel Magnolias. On Broadway, she starred as the title role in Peter Pan in 1991 and 1998, and in Seussical the Musical as Cat-In-The-Hat in 2002. Cathy has been honored with the National Broadway Theatre Award, “Ovation” Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2004 Distinguished Lifetime Service Award from The League of American Theatres and Producers.

Peter Pan BroadwayHD Preview  

 

Kinky Boots

Saturday, December 12

Watch party, 4:50 pm

Talkback session, 7 pm with Jerry Mitchell, choreographer

Jerry Mitchell received the Tony Award for Best Choreography twice, initially for the revival of La Cage aux Folles and thereafter for the Tony Award-winning Best Musical, Kinky Boots, for which he was also nominated as Director. Jerry was most recently represented on Broadway as Director/Choreographer of Pretty Woman, now playing on the West End and in Hamburg. He directed the Gloria Estefan Broadway musical, On Your Feet! and its international tour, recently presented in London’s Coliseum Theatre and was nominated for an Olivier Award for his choreography in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which he also directed and co-produced in London. In the 35 preceding years, Jerry has been involved with more than 50 Broadway, West End and touring productions.

 Kinky Boots BroadwayHD Preview

A closer look at BroadwayHD

Enjoy musicals such as An American in Paris, Billy Elliot, Jekyll & Hyde, Kinky Boots, Kiss Me Kate, and Memphis, concert events such as Les Miserables in Concert and The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall, classics such as The King and I, Oklahoma, and Gypsy, plays such as Driving Miss Daisy, Ann and Death of a Salesman, and 10 astounding productions from Cirque du Soleil.

In addition to Broadway, a huge range of performing arts are featured including ballet (Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, and more), BBC’s Proms concerts, Disney’s Broadway hits live in concert, Riverdance, Live from Lincoln Center concerts featuring Broadway favorites Sutton Foster and Stephanie J. Block, documentaries such as Carole King: Natural Woman, and The Making of West Side Story, the Nunsense collection of 7 side-splitting musicals, and much more.

High definition (HD) cameras capture the excitement of a Broadway performance in front of an audience and deliver the best angles, video quality, and audio quality right to your living room. With a catalog of over 300 shows from Broadway, the West End, and beyond, there’s something for everyone. Check out BroadwayHD on any streaming-enabled device.

 

Bring Broadway to your home

• The Broadway HD 3-month subscription and the series of six talkback sessions is just $25!
• If you wish to make a donation to support this series hosted by The Mendel Center, a $10 donation option is available at checkout.

If you already subscribe to Broadway HD, you can extend your subscription by 3 months for $25 and have access to all six talkback sessions.