Curtain Up! Fall’s Theater-Themed Talks & Events

By Troy Segal

As the weather cools down, New York stages heat up. Arranged by locale, these lectures, demonstrations, and performances by some of Broadway’s best are ideal for augmenting the new season’s shows, stirring memories of seasons past, or just scratching that itch for a star sighting.

Andrea Martin in Pippin. Photo: Joan Marcus

The 92nd Street Y, as usual, offers up a varied array of celebrity appearances. Two comedic, Tony Award-winning treasures — Andrea Martin (currently in Pippin) and Nathan Lane (now starring in It’s Only A Play) come together to chat and discuss Martin’s new autobiography, Sept. 14 … A quartet of singers from the original Jersey Boys cast (including Tony winner Christian Hoff) were so inspired by the show that they formed their own group, The Midtown Men; they describe how it happened, and hopefully warble a ’60s tune or two, Oct. 20.

Angels in America. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

Across the river, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) keeps the intellectual fires burning with two playwright-themed talks. Several of Samuel Beckett’s plays are featured this season, and the man, his works, and his relationship with BAM are the subject of a dialogue between BAM’s Hamm Archives director and a theatre critic, Sept. 18 … On a more contemporary note, Tony Kushner — whose Angels in America trilogy is also being performed this season — appears to chat with director Ivo van Hove and NPR reporter Neda Ulaby, Oct. 22.

For a few years now, the Guggenheim Museum has hosted concerts and performing arts displays within its famed rotunda. Some show-biz heavyweights (director Susan Stroman, the writing team Ahrens & Flaherty) are doing a musical about Marie Van Goethem, the real-life apprentice ballerina and model for Degas’ famous sculpture of a Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, and they’ll discuss it and show excerpts from the show, Oct. 5 … Jerome Robbins was one of those rare choreographers equally at home at the ballet and on Broadway. On Nov. 9, you can see excerpts from his first ballet, Fancy Free, and his first musical, On the Town — along with narration by current-day interpreters/choreographers Robert LaFosse and Joshua Bergasse.

Bet you didn’t know there are performing spaces within the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center (they don’t call it the Library for the Performing Arts for nothing). To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the musical Fiddler on the Roof, there’ll be a Sept. 30 sing-along to its famous score, with its lyricist Sheldon Harnick as an honored guest, inside the library café … Not an interactive type? Just listen, then, to various stories about how the show came to be, as Harnick and various historians discuss 50 Years with Fiddler, in the library’s subterranean auditorium, on Oct. 6 … Also in the auditorium, tap your toes in time to cabaret pianist Steve Ross and other stage pros, as they warble songs about dancing from musical plays and films, plus a few Halloween-themed treats, Oct. 30.