Michael Dale - Page 20

'One of the few great musical comedies of the last thirty years.' - Howard Taubman' 'What a show! What a hit! What a solid hit!' - Walter Kerr' 'The best musical of the century.' - John Chapman'

One of the great characteristics of live theatre is that, as opposed to film and television, no matter how iconic a performance is, no matter how indelibly attached an actor may seem to a role, there will be other actors playing it.

'Dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians,' sings a young lady feeling the bright television lights on her face as cameras capture her every move for a national audience in Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee's outrageous, endearing and perceptive social commentary, JERRY SPRINGER -- THE OPERA.

'I have a friend - She's a liberal. I don't know if there are any liberals here...'

Introverts weren't exactly regarded as sexy, at least not as a norm, when Edward Albee's one-act classic 'The Zoo Story' premiered in 1958, launching the career of a playwright whose name became synonymous with the psychoanalyzation of privileged white American dysfunctionality.

Intended for Ethel Merman, created by Carol Channing, reinvented by Pearl Bailey and based on a character made famous by Ruth Gordon, the title character of Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello, Dolly! is perhaps the most flexible starring role to ever grace the Broadway musical stage.

It was nearly two years ago when The Public Theater opened the first major New York production penned by the relatively unknown Sarah Burgess. Her tersely scripted and aridly humored DRY POWER delved into the cutthroat world of corporate takeovers, and director Thomas Kail's bracing production matched the playwright's vicious verbal chess match with the same abundance of pop and vibrancy.

There are no live actors involved in with the Scottish theatre company Vox Motus' new storytelling attraction, FLIGHT, and though New York's theatre critics were invited to sample showings at the McKittrick Hotel, their creation can be more accurately described as an art installation.

With a name like BAR MITZVAH BOY, it should be no surprise that the current musical at the York is a coming of age story. What is surprising is that the composer of this intimate piece is Jule Styne, better known for brassy star vehicles like GYPSY and FUNNY GIRL.

"Do you have any idea who I am?," Eve Ensler asks the doctor who suggests radiation treatment of her vagina to prevent the resurgence of her cancer. "Do you have any fucking sense of irony?"

It might be easier to pity the hardworking gentleman at the core of Martin McDonagh's new darkly comic drama, who loses his job when his employer eliminates his position, if it weren't for the fact that the function of his profession was to kill people.

When the subject of New York City Center Encores! comes up among musical theatre enthusiasts, the conversation almost invariably steers to what shows they should be presenting in their series of concerts. Although several of their productions, like the mega-hit revival of CHICAGO, have transferred, a night out at Encores! is, to many, most satisfying when they revive shows that, although significant in one way or another, are unlikely to find themselves back on Broadway.

In the second act of Terrence McNally's fact-based drama, Fire and Air, the legendary dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev privately examines the technique of a young dancer he may consider as a successor to his protegee-turned-international star, Vaslav Nijinsky.

In last season's GROUNDHOG DAY, the exceedingly charismatic Andy Karl was given the unenviable task of playing out a romantic comedy as a thoroughly despicable character. Now, in Greg Pierce's Cardinal at Second Stage, Anna Chlumsky's perfectly fine performance is similarly weighed down.

Sentimental stories of adults returning to their childhood homes to face the demons of the past after achieving success far, far away are a staple of popular entertainment, and though Ngozi Anyanwu's engaging contribution to the genre, The Homecoming Queen, adds nothing surprising, the elegant storytelling, packaged in director Awoye Timpo's superb production, contributes to a very fine theatrical venture.

Audiences and critics alike swooned over relatively unknown Leslie Uggams when she made her Broadway debut starring in Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Arthur Laurents and Jule Styne's progressively-minded 1967 Broadway musical HALLELUJAH, BABY!

With the past year bringing in a new administration with a new Secretary of Education, the national awareness of how overworked, undercompensated and financially burdened America's public school teachers are has fueled debate within discussions of federal budget restructuring and tax reform.

All too often, the word dated is misguidedly used to diminish the impact a play of a bygone era can have on contemporary audiences. Take, for example, the puritanical attitude towards pre-marital sex expressed by many of the characters in English playwright Stanley Houghton's social commentary, HINDLE WAKES, which premiered in Manchester in 1912 and crossed the ocean to Broadway before the year was done.

As the ground-breaking theatre troupe Split Britches - which they founded with former member Deb Margolin in 1980 - Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver have been challenging both gender norms and theatrical norms for nearly four decades, ranking them among the respected elders of America's performance art movement.

Fear not, all you American playgoers whose comprehension skills usually require a few minutes of ear adjustment whenever a production from Britain or Ireland crosses over with its native cast.