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  Hamilton Off-Broadway in February, 2015 with original cast memberstop left to right: Phillipa Too as Eliza Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr,Bottom left to right: Okieriete Onaodowan , Lin-Manuel Miranda, Daveed Diggs, Anthony Ramos. See July 3

Les Blancs by Lorraine Hansberry. See July 2

Amadeus, see July 16

We Are Freestyle Love Supreme, see July 17

Carousel. See July 10

Heroes of the Fourth Turning . See July 18

Below is the day-by-day calendar of “theater openings”* in July, 2020. The big news is the release of “Hamilton” online at Disney Plus — and (less hyped) the “Freestyle Love Supreme” documentary on Hulu — but in truth Lin-Manuel Miranda’s shows are not all that’s exciting this month in the world of online theater — a world in which “online” and “theater” have been synonymous since physical theaters were shut down in March (though there are small signs this may be changing; see July 13). And most of the other shows don’t require subscriptions.

Among the scheduled delights are acclaimed plays by Pulitzer finalist Will Arbery (July 18) and MacArthur “genius” grant winner Samuel D. Hunter (July 11), as well as a new Richard Nelson Apple Family play (July 1) and a new documentary play about frontline medical workers by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, creators of The Exonerated and Coal Country (July 8.) There a couple of inventive substitutions for the usual summer theater festivals.

Since so many shows are being put together at the last minute — sometimes not announced until the very day of their launch .. and there also have been fairly frequent last-minute postponements/cancellations/replacements — I will be updating/filling in this preview guide every day, and highlighting the offerings each new day with the link up top. This calendar as of this moment offers a glimpse of what’s in store. Come back day by day for a better look.

Here are some ongoing series that have proven to be reliable sources of art and entertainment.

Four offer live performances (often called readings) of original plays: The Homebound Project Livelabs: One Acts from MCC Play-PerView Viral Monologues from 24 Hour Plays

Play-PerView makes an exception this month to its original plays with what counts as a coup — the live reading of the Pulitzer finalist play “Heroes of the Fourth Turning” (which was supposed to debut last month but was postponed, as were a good number of productions due to the Black Lives Matter protests.)

A fifth offers live readings of classics and recent favorites: Plays in the House, Stars in the House’s twice weekly matinees  and now Plays in the House Teen Edition.

Three offer recordings of previous (glorious) stage productions.

Metropolitan Opera National Theatre at Home The Shows Must Go On from Andrew Lloyd Webber

For details about these and other ongoing series, check out my post Where To Get Your Theater Fix Online  (which lists, for example, the many long-running online sites such as BroadwayHD and Marquee TV that offer video-capture recordings of shows that were on stage)

All performances are free unless otherwise noted, although almost all hope for a donation (either to themselves or to a designated charity.)

*My definition of theater for the purposes of this calendar generally does not extend to variety shows, cast reunions, galas, panel discussions, documentaries, classes, interviews — all of which are in abundance this month, many worth checking out. My focus here is on creative storytelling in performance. (I make an occasional exception for a high-profile Netathon,involving many theater artists.)

A reminder that this calendar lists when the shows “open.” Some are live and available only for that one performance. Others are available for a week or weeks afterward or longer.

July 1

Die Mommie Die Plays in the House Launches at 2 p.m. Available for four days. In this latest of Stars in the House’s Wednesday matinees, Charles Busch is joined by BD Wong, Willie Garson, Brandon Contreras, Jennifer Cody and Ruth Williamson in this reading of his campy 1999 melodrama Die, Mommie, Die!, a mix of Aeschylus and Bette Davis.Directed and narrated by Carl Andress.

The Book of Job Project Theater of War Launches at 4 p.m. live only The latest from Bryan Doerries terrific community-oriented theater using classic texts (best-known for Antigone in Ferguson), is a dramatic reading of The Book of Job as a catalyst for discussion about injustice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring performances by Jeffrey Wright, Frankie Faison, Kimberly Hebert, David Strathairn, David Zayas, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

And So We Come Forth Apple Family Productions Launches at 7:30 pm. Available for 8 weeks The Apple Family, a dramatic series of plays which first appeared 10 years ago, returned last April with the premiere of a play written especially for Zoom, What Do We Need to Talk About? Now this second Zoom play, And So We Come Forth is set in early July 2020, amidst massive protests against injustice and racism in our country, as well as the anxious easing of a worldwide lockdown.

Richard II, part 1 Shakespeare@ Home

Shostakovich’s The Nose Metropolitan Opera Launches at 7:30 p.m., available for 23 hours It all begins with an absurd scenario: A hapless Russian bureaucrat wakes up one morning to discover that his nose has gone missing. He eventually locates his fugitive facial feature, which has been masquerading as a human being, but has no luck reattaching it. Based on a satirical short story by Nikolai Gogol

Mary’s Mixology The Tank Launches at 8 p.m. Kev Berry’s monologue about his first year on the wagon. “What does it mean for a gay man to give up liquid courage?”

Borders Queerly Festival Launches at 8:30 p.m. live Boaz and George meet on Grindr. They are attracted to one another instantly and want to meet in person, but something prevents them from doing so. One lives in Israel, the other- in Lebanon. Also Friday at 3 p.m. The festival also offers three short plays tonight starting at 7 p.m.: Before We Can Make a Final Decision, Backup Plan, and an excerpt from “I Tried” by Veronica Garza, “my one woman show that I’ve been working on about the men I slept with in my struggles to be straight”

  July 2

Les Blancs National Theater Launches 2 p.m. Available until July 9 In this final play by Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun), in a production directed by Yael Farber in 2016, a society prepares to drive out its colonial present and claim an independent future. Tshembe, returned home from England for his father’s funeral, finds himself in the eye of the storm.

Hypochondriac! Theater in Quarantine Launches at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. The first installment of a new adaptation of Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid by David McGee and Joshua William Gelb.Featuring Gelb, Jessie Shelton, and Alex Hawthorne

Bizet’s Carmen Metropolitan Opera Launches at 7:30 p.m., available for 23 hours The tale of the irresistible and free-spirited Gypsy, whose fatal attraction with the jealous soldier Don José burns too hot for them to control.

July 3

Hamilton Disney Plus Available from this date on. A live-capture of the stage production with the original Broadway cast, which was shot over three days in June 2016. A Disney Plus subscription is required. One way to look at this is that it costs $6.99 to see “Hamilton” and you get a month to watch everything else on the service (which includes titles familiar to theatergoers though not the same versions — Frozen, The Lion King, Aladdin.) Here is my video review of “Hamilton” in 2015:

Here is my review of Hamilton on Broadway in 2019

  Mozart’s Don Giovanni Metropolitan Opera Launches at 7:30 p.m., available for 23 hours Mozart’s 1747 melodic version of the Don Juan myth, with two baritones starring alongside one another as the title Lothario and his faithful yet conflicted servant, Leporello, as well as three memorable female roles—multifaceted women who both suffer the Don’s abuses and plot their revenge.

July 4

Donizetti’s Don Pasquale Metropolitan Opera Launches at 7:30 p.m., available for 23 hours Beverly Sills stars in her final performance as a clever young widow, who goes up against a crusty old bachelor, no match for her wiles.

A Capitol Fourth PBS 8 – 9:30 p.m. The annual July 4 celebration will feature new performances from locations across the country, as well as highlights from the concert’s 40-year history. Among the performers are theater artists Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kelli O’Hara, Mandy Gonzalez and Renée Fleming

July 5

Rossini’s La Donna del Lago Metropolitan Opera Launches at 7:30 p.m. available for 23 hours The retelling of Sir Walter Scott’s shadowy epic of clan warfare in 16th-century Scotland, which is at heart a classic love triangle.

July 6

Summer Stock Streaming Festival Mint Theater Available through July 19 Archival recordings of three old and forgotten plays that the Mint resurrected (which is what they do; I saw two of these on stage and found them fascinating.) “The Fatal Weakness” written in 1946 by George Kelly: Society woman Ollie Espenshade, after 28 years of marriage is still an incurable romantic (her fatal weakness). Perhaps discovering that her husband is a lying cheat will cure her?

“The New Morality” written in 1911 by Harold Chapin who died at age 29 in World War I: A comedy set aboard a houseboat on a fashionable reach of the Thames in 1911, in which brazen Betty Jones restores dignity to her household and harmony to her marriage.

“Women Without Men,” written in 1938 by Hazel Ellis: An all-female cast tells this humor-laced tale set in the teacher’s lounge of a private girls boarding school in Ireland in the 1930’s, where young new teacher Jean Wade, popular with her students but at odds with her quarrelsome colleagues, is accused of sabotaging her main antagonist.

July 8

Unveiled Premiere Stages at Keane Separate live showings at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets $10 Rohina Malik plays five Muslim women navigating complex social issues in a post 9/11 world. Following the screening, Ms. Malik will host a live Q & A with all ticket holders.

The Line Public Theater Launches at 7:30 p.m. Available until August 4. This new documentary play by Jessica Blank & Erik Jensen (The Exonerated, Coal Country) presents the experiences of frontline medical workers in New York and their battle to save lives in a system built to serve the bottom line. The cast includes Santino Fontana, Arjun Gupta, John Ortiz, Alison Pill ,Nicholas Pinnock , Jamey Sheridan and Lorraine Toussaint

July 9

The Deep Blue Sea National Theatre Launches at 2 p.m. available until July 16 In this play by Terence Rattigan, Hester Collyer (Helen McCrory) is found by her neighbours in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt, which leads to the story of her tempestuous affair with a former RAF pilot and the breakdown of her marriage to a High Court judge.

July 10

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel Lincoln Center Launches at 8 p.m. The latest of Lincoln Center’s Broadway Fridays (rescheduled from June 5) features a free digital stream of its concert production of this Rodgers and Hammerstein musical featuring the New York Philharmonic and starring Kelli O’Hara, Nathan Gunn, Stephanie Blythe, Shuler Hensley, Jason Danieley,Jessie Mueller, Kate Burton, Tony winner John Cullum, and New York City Ballet dancers Robert Fairchild and Tiler Peck.

Freedom Riders An online reading of Richard Allen and Taran Gray’s award-winning Freedom Riders: The Civil Rights Musical

July 11

The Few Play-PerView Written and directed by Samuel D. Hunter, featuring Gideon Glick: Four years ago, Bryan abandoned his labor of love: a newspaper for truckers. Now he’s returned—with no word of where he’s been—and things have changed. His former lover is filled with rage, his new coworker is filled with incessant adoration, and his paper is filled with personal ads.

July 12

Hershey Felder: Beethoven Based on Memories of Beethoven: Out of the House of Black-Robed Spaniards, a first-hand account by Dr. Gerhard von Breuning.

July 13

Plays about memory loss Food for Thought Productions 1:30 p.m. — 3:30 Louise Lasser and Bob Dishey star in this in-person event of three short plays (Arthur Miller’s “I Can’t Remember Anything,” Robert Anderson’s “I’m Herbert” and Daniel Rose’s “Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem”) held at The Coffee House Club, 22 West 44th Street, available first come, first served by calling 646-366-9340 or emailing info@foodforthoughtproductions. However, “if you’d rather watch from home, you can request the Zoom link.” staged reading of short plays about memory loss starring Tony nominee Bob Dishy and Louise Lasse

Richard II, part 1 Public Theater/WNYC 8 p.m. Saheem Ali directs this radio adaptation of Richard II, the Bard’s take on how the title monarch lost his crown. André Holland (Moonlight) stars, and the supporting cast includes Oscar winner Estelle Parsons, Tony winner Phylicia Rashad and Tony nominee John Douglas Thompson. The production will be broadcast in four installments from Monday, July 13 through Thursday, July 16 at 8 p.m. ET nightly on WNYC. Listeners in the New York tri-state area can tune in at 93.9 FM or AM 820. It will also stream nationwide at WNYC.org.

July 14

Richard II, part 2 Public Theater/WNYC 8 p.m. Saheem Ali directs this radio adaptation of Richard II, the Bard’s take on how the title monarch lost his crown

July 15

The Homebound Project Available through July 19 The fourth edition

The Droll Bard of the Gate Launches at 7 p.m Meg Miroshnik’s play is the second offering in Paula Vogel’s play series,

Richard II, part 3 Public Theater/WNYC 8 p.m. Saheem Ali directs this radio adaptation of Richard II, the Bard’s take on how the title monarch lost his crown. licia Rashad as the Duchess of Gloucester.

July 16

Amadeus National Theatre Launches 2 p.m. Available until July 23 Lucian Msamati portrays the envious court composer Antonio Salieri who is envious of the obnoxious genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart In this popular play by Peter Shaffer that was turned into an Oscar-winning film.

Richard II, part 4 Public Theater/WNYC 8 p.m. Saheem Ali directs this radio adaptation of Richard II, the Bard’s take on how the title monarch lost his crown.

July 17

“We Are Freestyle Love Supreme” Hulu A documentary about the improv theater company co-founded by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Virtual Fire Island Dance Festival he first-ever stream in the event’s 26-year history will feature world premieres of three new pieces and three beloved festival favorites.

July 18

Heroes of the Fourth Turning Play PerView Will Arbery’s 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist will now take place July 18 at 8 PM ET on Play-PerView after postponing the June 13 reading in solidarity with Black Lives Matter

July 20

Project Sing Out! Playbill Launches at 7 p.m. A one-night-only livestreamed event featuring musical performances, spoken word and special appearances from a variety of Broadway and TV’s biggest names, including Audra McDonald, Chirta Rivera, Don Cheadle, Vanessa Willams.

July 21

Coriolanus Bedlam

July 25

Knife to the Heart Play-PerView In this play by Stan Zimmerman and Christian McLaughlin, ulie Ann and Marshall are expecting their first baby—with Marshall’s mother Rhonda hovering over them and Julie Ann’s fellow teacher Deacon providing moral support. Everything’s going smoothly until Julie Ann accidentally learns just what exactly the bris Rhonda’s planning involves, and all good will and politeness dissolve.

July 2020 Online Theater Openings: Hamilton, PLUS. What’s streaming day by day Below is the day-by-day calendar of “theater openings”* in July, 2020. The big news is the release of "Hamilton" online at Disney Plus -- and (less hyped) the "Freestyle Love Supreme" documentary on Hulu -- but in truth Lin-Manuel Miranda's shows are not all that's exciting this month in the world of online theater -- a world in which "online" and "theater" have been synonymous since physical theaters were shut down in March (though there are small signs this may be changing; see July 13).