Michael Dale - Page 21

'So what the hell is this?!,' John Lithgow quizzically quips to the audience at the outset of his Broadway solo stint.

Savvy playgoers attending British lip-sync artist Dickie Beau's RE-MEMBER ME at this year's Under The Radar Festival will notice that when a recording of Michael Douglas, playing Broadway director Zach in the film adaptation of A CHORUS LINE, instructs the solo performer to step forward, tell me your real name, your stage name if it's different, where you were born, and how old you are, they're watching a take-off of a moment that originated in the very space where they're sitting; The Public's Newman Theater, where that classic Pulitzer-winning musical was first seen by audiences in 1975.

That old adage that if men got pregnant, abortion and reproductive health would be fully funded by the federal government gets quite a workout in playwright/director Robert O'Hara's wild gender politics satire MANKIND.

Be careful about expressing your admiration for certain artists during Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's hard-edged solo play, HOW TO BE A ROCK CRITIC. Though the audience is encouraged to engage in some give and take with Jensen as he impersonates the legendary writer Lester Bangs, fans of Jethro Tull, Herb Alpert, Styx and others may find their tastes abruptly dismissed as the gonzo journalist flings the LPs of musicians he can't abide by across the room.

Ninety-nine years before television producer Aaron Spelling first invited viewers aboard 'The Love Boat,' Gilbert and Sullivan made good on their promise of shipboard romance with their enduring hit, H.M.S. PINAFORE.

Boris Karloff... Peter Boyle... Shuler Hensley... and Robert Fairchild. One of these things is not like the others.

Sure, HAMLET may be William Shakespeare's dramatic masterpiece, but when pining for some romantic comedy, it's hard to beat Twelfth Night.

Fans of trained actors filling Broadway houses with the richness of their unamplified voices (not to mention those who believe electric lights are overrated) have reason to rejoice. Shakespeare's Globe, the British theatre company that in 2014 arrived on Broadway with their productions of TWELFTH NIGHT and RICHARD III that replicated Elizabethan theatre technological, is back in town with a new play that is also witnessed solely by candlelight and graced with actors who project.

It may not be as well-known a holiday tradition as seeing the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, but for the fifth straight year, the Summoners Ensemble Theatre's delightful presentation of John Kevin Jones' thoroughly engaging solo performance of A CHRISTMAS CAROL at the Merchant's House Museum is one of the hardest-to-get tickets in town.

When you consider the number of years that humans have been the dominant species on this planet, it was a comparatively quick burst of industrialization that set up the very real dilemma of progress causing irreversible harm to the environment that could lead to our ultimate demise.

Despite its provocative title, and despite a game effort by director Scott Elliott's ensemble cast, Seth Zvi Rosenfeld's fact-inspired drama DOWNTOWN RACE RIOT, is a bit of a bore.

Feel free to lavish director Tina Landau with a flood of praise for spinning seaweed into gold with SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS, the hyperactive new musical based on the long-running Nickelodeon animated series that brings a cartoon vaudeville to the famed Palace Theatre.

Before every performance by The Public Theater's Mobile Unit, the audience is reminded of Joseph Papp's credo that the plays of William Shakespeare belong to everyone. The theatre pioneer created the world-famous Shakespeare In The Park based on that simple philosophy, and it's the driving force behind this unique outreach branch helping to fulfill the historic company's mission.

While there's nary a mention of global warming or human-made climate change in Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens', captivating and joyous Caribbean story-theatre musical ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, director Michael Arden's exhilarating new Broadway production of the popular 1990 hit based on Rosa Guy's novel My Love, My Love, smacks audience members with the issue as soon as they enter Circle In The Square.

Don't be fooled. That familiar-sounding melody played at the top of Matthew Lombardo's hilariously subversive WHO'S HOLIDAY is not Welcome Christmas, the joyous chorale from the beloved television adaptation of Dr. Seuss' equally beloved How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

Donald Trump hadn't even won his first Republican primary when Henri Becque's comedy of sexual liberation, LA PARISIENNE, created such an uproar at its 1895 Paris premiere. But while the current president never makes an appearance in Beau Willimon's new version of the story, THE PARISIAN WOMAN, the current White House resident is certainly on the tips of everyone's tongues.

They say communication is the key to a successful relationship. They also say there's such a thing as overdoing it.

For over a decade, the unquestionably brilliant director/choreographer Austin McCormick's Company XIV has been dazzling audiences with unexpected wonders.

The almost completely circular, arena style seating of Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater makes it a perfect venue for The Wolves, Sarah DeLappe's 2017 Pulitzer finalist drama about the individuality hidden beneath the uniformity of a girls soccer team.

Though the teenage girls at the center of Jocelyn Bioh's endearing and poignant SCHOOL GIRLS; OR, THE AFRICAN MEAN GIRLS PLAY all have wonderful qualities that should be appreciated and nurtured during their years at Aburi Girls Boarding School in central Ghana, there is one quality that prevents them all from having a chance to represent their country in the 1986 Miss Universe Pageant. They all look like a teenage girl from Ghana.