The Public Theater to Live Stream WHAT DO WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT? Starring Jon DeVries, Stephen Kunken and More

The Public Theater announced the world premiere of WHAT DO WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT? Conversations on Zoom, a new play in the Rhinebeck Panorama, written and directed by Tony Award winner Richard Nelson, on Wednesday, April 29 at 7:30 p.m. ET. The live-streamed play will be available to watch for free via both YouTube Live and The Public's website. Commissioned by The Public Theater and written by Nelson from his home in Rhinebeck, New York, during the COVID-19 pandemic, this unique theatrical experience will be performed as a benefit for The Public Theater.

Watch the stream when it goes live below!

"Richard Nelson has spent the last decade chronicling the way we live now in his glorious plays set in Rhinebeck, N.Y. For What Do We Need to Talk About? he has not only turned out a beautiful new play in a matter of days, he has invented a new form: the dramatic Zoom call," said artistic director Oskar Eustis. "For the last time, the Apples are back, and what a wonderful thing it is to welcome them into our homes."

WHAT DO WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT? will feature the return of the original Apple Family performing from their homes including Jon DeVries (Benjamin), Stephen Kunken (Tim), Sally Murphy (Jane), Maryann Plunkett (Barbara), Laila Robins (Marian), and Jay O. Sanders (Richard).

For the past 10 years, The Public has been presenting Richard Nelson's minimalist epic, The Rhinebeck Panorama, which includes The Apple Family Plays, The Gabriels, and The Michaels. Now, in the midst of our unsettled world, The Apple Family, last seen in 2014, returns, though not over the dinner table, but via Zoom. This hour-long play picks up with them during their now suspended and quarantined lives. They talk about grocery shopping, friends lost, new ventures on a hoped-for horizon-all at a time when human conversation (and theater) may be more needed than ever before.

"These plays have always been, in my mind, about the need to talk, and the need to listen. That is, at their heart, they are about our need for each other. Never in my life have I felt that need more than now," said playwright and director Richard Nelson. "I last wrote about The Apples in 2014. Recently, I began to think about what they would be going through today, in my hometown, Rhinebeck; thought about how close they live to each other, only a street or two apart. How they, like us, are now separated, isolated from each other. And how they, like us, would find ways to come together."

In advance of the live premiere, Richard Nelson's four original Apple Family Plays and The Gabriels trilogy are now available to stream for free in the New York Metro area on THIRTEEN's Theater Close-Up website: thirteen.org/theatercloseup.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos