Michael Dale - Page 15

'Cuddles the puppy had fallen into the 50 foot deep well and was trapped,' an unseen television anchor is heard reporting at the outset of Patricia Ione Lloyd's chilling and evocative EVE'S SONG. 'After 30 hours volunteers rescued Cuddles from near death,' she continues. 'Locals are demanding stricter standards on well construction. The mayor's office will be holding a town hall meeting to address their concerns.'

"There are many factors, grant and school board requirements that we need to fulfill with this piece," the director explains to the cast on the first day of rehearsal of a Thanksgiving play for children.

A frustrated African-American woman, convinced that the young, armed, white police officer she's alone with isn't revealing everything he knows about her missing son, loses control of her temper and yells at him.

For most New York playgoers, the words "Shakespeare In The Park" will immediately bring to mind the free performances at Central Park's outdoor Delacorte Theater, created decades ago by The Public Theater's visionary founder, Joseph Papp.

The play is no longer titled TORCH SONG TRILOGY and the venue is no longer known as The Little Theatre, but there's still a marvelous homecoming taking place at The Helen Hayes, where Second Stage's recent Off-Broadway revival of Harvey Fierstein's groundbreaking TORCH SONG has transferred to the home of its historic original Broadway run.

'I hate white people,' blurts out a diminutive, small-voiced white teenager, trying to convince the white activist she just met that she would be a valuable addition to his commune. 'I can't help it. I always have.'

It was October 31st, 1926 when the world famous escape artist Harry Houdini succumbed to the one thing in life that's inescapable, and every year since, believers hold seances on Halloween night, anticipating his return.

"You're more afraid of looking like a racist than you are of being a racist," an African-American college student surmises when her white professor reacts with panic when it becomes clear that she intends to go public on social media with the content of the conversation they just had.

'The whole neighborhood is changing,' is the oft-repeated melancholy observation of the 85-year-old woman at the center of Kenneth Lonergan's 2001 Pulitzer-finalist, THE WAVERLY GALLERY.

For the past five years the very fine actor John Kevin Jones has been drawing packed houses to East 4th Street's 1832 landmark Merchant's House Museum building for Summoners Ensemble Theatre's delightful recreation of Charles Dickens' public readings of 'A Christmas Carol.'

Falling in love is the easy part. Functioning day to day as a couple can take work, especially when sexual incompatibility becomes an issue.

As the grand finale of their fourteen year residency at Christopher Street's Lucille Lortel Theatre, before moving to their brand new Hell's Kitchen digs, Manhattan Class Company brings in an encore engagement of Jocelyn Bioh's Lortel and Outer Critics Circle Award-winning drama from last season, the endearing and poignant School Girls; or, the African Mean Girls Play.

The angry graffiti painted on the red bricks of the Bogside alleyway, memorializing Irish Republicans who have fallen in the cause of independence, contributes to the ominous mood of the opening scene of Jez Butterworth's Olivier-winning THE FERRYMAN, which has transferred to Broadway with most of its large London cast intact.

'I grew up in working class Toledo,' says the subject of Emily Mann's Gloria: A Life, arguably the most potent, informative, emotionally riveting and ultimately uplifting theatre piece currently playing in New York, 'and my biggest dream was to become a Rockette.'

'I take liberties with things that deepen the central truth of the piece,' explains writer John D'Agata. 'Don't get bogged down in the details, keep your eye on the big picture.'

Behind most poverty-to-celebrity stories, there's usually a hard-working parent or two who dreamed of a better life for their child, but perhaps never imagined that better life might include rock stardom, athletic heroism or, in the case of Jane Anderson's Mother of the Maid, breaking all gender molds to lead an army that will free their enslaved country.

While it would be easy to exit the York Theatre these days having been absolutely swept away by Mark Sonnenblick's wonderfully engaging and ear-tingling score for his new musical, MIDNIGHT AT THE NEVER GET - a sumptuous collection mixing beautiful melodies framing lyrical poetics with jaunty numbers loaded with snazzy jokes and unexpected rhymes - it's the superb storytelling of his book, exploring issues of the 1960s gays rights movement in a universal manner that can apply to other civil rights battles, that makes the musical truly soar.

Savvy New Yorkers will immediately have a clear picture of the work environment when Azgi, the narrating character of playwright/actor Aasif Mandvi's solo piece SAKINA'S RESTAURANT, says he's moving from a village in India to Manhattan to work as a waiter at a restaurant located at 400 E. 6th Street.

'A Jew? In heaven? Jews?' an incredulous 92-year-old Cosima Wagner asks her delirium-induced vision of her long-gone husband, Richard, at the outset of Allan Leicht's history-based My Parsifal Conductor.

Though designer Rachel Hauck's set for Heidi Schreck's inescapably truthful, yet eventually hopeful autobiographical performance piece WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME is based on the author/performer's memories of her home town's VFW Hall, it's likely that many audience members entering the auditorium of New York Theatre Workshop will take one look and be reminded of recent photos depicting Christine Blasey Ford's view of the Senate Judiciary Committee.