What’s on in Rockland County in May and beyond? Check out our selected listings of plays and films you don’t want to miss. NEW: We’ve added a section called On the Radar so you know what’s coming up. If you have additional films and theater performances that you’d like to see included in our next roundup, email us at info@nyacknewsandviews.com.
SPOTLIGHT: “39 Steps” on Stage at Elmwood Theater
Written by Patrick Barlow, directed by Margaret Young
May 15 to June 6
Inspired by Hitchcock’s classic tale, this adaptation is a fast-paced romantic thriller that features four actors playing more than 150 roles, delivering laughs and suspense with dazzling quick on-stage changes.
The plot: Richard Hannay is visiting 1930s London when he meets Annabella Smith, who is on the run from foreign agents after a disturbance at a music hall. Later that night, Annabella is murdered and Hannay must try to break a mysterious spy ring called The 39 Steps and prove his innocence. From an epic train chase to a feisty love interest, Hannay searches for the truth. Buy tickets
Elmwood Playhouse
10 Park Street, Nyack
On Stage in Rockland
“My Lord, What a Night” at Penguin Rep Theatre
By Deborah Brevoort
May 15 to June 7
When world-famous singer Marian Anderson is turned away from a hotel because of her race, she finds an unexpected host in Albert Einstein. What begins as a simple act of hospitality grows into a friendship based on their mutual love of music and commitment to human rights. Featuring a cast of four playing real-life historical figures — each with a unique perspective on how to effect change — this moving play is about courage, justice and our shared humanity. Buy tickets
Penguin Rep Theatre
7 Crickettown Road, Stony Point
On Screen in Rockland
While you can always see blockbusters at AMC Palisades Theater and other theaters, Rockland has great indie and fascinating films, some with talkbacks and commentary, for film lovers.
“Maintenance Artist,” Rivertown Film
May 20, 8:00 p.m.
“After the Revolution, who’s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?” challenged Mierle Laderman Ukeles. In 1977, she crashed the boundary between art and action by becoming the first artist-in-residence at NYC’s Department of Sanitation, collaborating with municipal workers to inject art directly into the city’s bloodstream.
“Maintenance Artist” is the first feature documentary about this revolutionary public artist, who, inspired by Marcel Duchamp, pioneered the notion that routine maintenance — from changing diapers to picking up city trash to caring for the earth — could be acts of performance art. Buy tickets
Meet the filmmaker: The director, Toby Perl Freilich, will discuss her film with Nyack Public Arts Advisory Committee member Kris Burns.
Rivertown Film
At the Nyack Center, 58 Depew Ave.
Friday Night Film School with Professor Geoff Klock:
“Barton Fink,” Nyack Library
May 8, 7:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Professor Geoff Klock hosts movies, pausing along the way to appreciate and discuss the audacity of cinema when it fires on all cylinders (engaging story-world, irony, metaphor, ideas and craft). Set in 1941, “Barton Fink” (John Turturro) is about an intellectual New York playwright who accepts an offer to write movie scripts in L.A. He finds himself with writer’s block when required to do a B-movie script. His neighbor tries to help, but he continues to struggle as a bizarre sequence of events distracts him. Free but registration required
Nyack Library, Community Room
59 S. Broadway, Nyack
Lafayette Theater in Suffern
May 1 – 10, “The Devil Wears Prada 2”
Various times, buy tickets
May 22 –24, “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu”
Various times, buy tickets
Note: The theater also presents organ performances. You can catch them prior to several screenings of “The Devil Wears Prada 2” and “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” See the website for details.
The Lafayette Theater
97 Lafayette Avenue
Suffern
On the Radar
The Children’s Shakespeare Theatre is offering a summer program for kids ages 8 to 18, August 17 – 28, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in Nyack. Registration is now open.