Northampton Community College’s Theatre Department will present the first production of its 2020-2021 season live-streamed from Lipkin Theatre on the Bethlehem Township campus.

There will be five performances of “Junk: The Golden Age of Debt,” 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4 - 7 and 2 p.m. Nov. 8.

William Mutimer, head of the Northampton Community College Theatre Department, who is directing the play, says performers follow CDC, state and local social distancing guidelines in auditions, rehearsals and performances of “Junk.”

“Junk,” written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad Akhtar, is set in 1985 and focuses on Robert Merkin, the resident genius of an upstart investment firm who has just landed on the cover of Time magazine.

Hailed as “America’s Alchemist,” his proclamation that “debt is an asset” has propelled him to dizzying heights. Although the characters are fiction, they are said to be based on real-life financial figures from the 1980s, including Michael Milken.

“Junk” has been described as a mix of a Shakespeare play and “The Big Short,” the 2015 feature movie starting Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and Steve Carrell based on the 2008 housing market collapse.

In the mid-1980s, United States manufacturing was in stark decline and junk-bond financing was the new tactic designed to inject vitality into the country’s economic bloodstream. The play focuses on a point of momentous transition in the American financial system.

The production opened on Broadway in 2017 and was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Play.

The NCC cast includes Joe Dionne, Ricky Negron, Brandon Costanzo, Steven Fuquay, Colton Boyd, Elijah Vazquez, Catina “Peaches” Gordon, Jim Long, Ryan Patrick Allen, Khadafy Ramirez, Christina Concilio, Carmen Soto, Maximilian Hostage, John Corl, Max Wetherhold, Jonah Padula, Jillian McLuhan, Annisa Amatul, Colleen Capponi, Julia Mason and Billy Ehrlacher.

The theater department is partnering with NCC’s Hampton Winds Restaurant for an updated version “Dinner & A Show.” With “Dinner-to-Go,” a New York City-style dinner prepared by NCC’s award-winning culinary students, is available curbside, 4 - 7 p.m. Nov. 4 - 7, along Gates Drive on the Green Pond campus.

Entree choices, roasted pork loin or chicken marsala, include lobster bisque, breads and rolls, and black forest trifles.

Prepaid orders: Carin Winans at cwinans@northampton.edu; 484-893-0579

Performance access code: ncctix.org/tickets

“Runnng Show” at Willams Center:

“The Running Show, Part 1,” a work in progress by Monica Bill Barnes and Company, premieres online, 7 p.m. Nov. 10, from Williams Center for the Arts. Lafayette College, Easton.

The filmed performance, a behind-the-scenes look at the life of a dancer and choreography, will be available for 48 hours after the premiere.

Choreographer Monica Bill Barnes and theater artist Robbie Saenz de Viteri share their work in the online new-work residency.

Through virtual movement classes and interviews, Barnes and Saenz de Viteri work with dancers in the Lehigh Valley, teaching students choreography and capturing their experience of studying and performing dance during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The works include an office party (“Happy Hour”), a guided workout through the Metropolitan Museum of Art (“The Museum Workout”) and an art exhibition in a mall (“Days Go By”).

“The Running Show, Part 2” is planned to be staged live during the 2021-22 season in Williams Center.

The mission of Monica Bill Barnes and Company, founded in 1997, is “to bring dance where it doesn’t belong.”

Tickets: www.williamscenter.lafayette.edu; 610- 330-5009. Patrons will receive a link to the event 24 hours before the virtual curtain time, and a reminder one hour before curtain.

“Curtain Rises” is a column about the theater, stage shows, the actors in them and the directors and artists who make them happen. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com