Michael Dale - Page 23

'We opened for an eight-week limited engagement and could not give a ticket away for three weeks.' That's how Harvey Fierstein described the giant leap of faith that, in 1981, brought a trio of his one-act plays that had each premiered separately on East 4th Street at the basement of Ellen Stewart's La MaMa, E.T.C., to an Off-Off-Broadway mounting on West 62nd Street, produced by John Glines' non-profit company, The Glines.

When their current engagement at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club concludes this weekend, members of the Belarus Free Theatre will return to their homeland, where they and their audience members can be arrested by the Belarussian K.G.B. for creating and attending a play.

To describe Diana Oh's newest performance art installation as the pep rally that precedes the dismantling of the patriarchy is by no means a knock on her vibrantly raucous mixture of glitter, soap bubbles, anger, art and activism. It's just that, unlike many of her previous ventures, she's unlikely to encounter negative audience vibes, or actual physical harassment, in the defiantly progressive confines of the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater.

Playwright/director Aaron Mark has a habit of leaving audiences in the dark. Not that his plays are especially hard to grasp, but the author who specializes sending chills up and down spines with his solo theatrical thrillers seems to enjoy having audience members sitting in pitch blackness for at least a part of every production. It works wonders for the creepiness factors.

I will be in Hell because I don't love my mom, the central character of Max Posner's comedic drama THE TREASURER causally admits to the audience with unemotional matter-of-factness.

Regarded by The Public Theater's artistic director Oskar Eustice as a resident company of the Astor Place venue, Elevator Repair Service's niche has always been productions with a clear focus on words, such as their fully staged complete-text reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby,' titled GATZ, or ARGUENDO, their legal vaudeville centered on documents pertaining to a Supreme Court case regarding strip clubs and the First Amendment.

When J.B. Priestley's absorbing and poetic drama, Time and the Conways premiered on the West End in 1937, you couldn't blame London audiences if they felt a bit wistful observing the playwright's wealthy Yorkshire characters feeling carefree and invincible as they emerged from the so-called War To End All Wars picturing nothing but happy days ahead.

For over twenty years, artistic director Dan Wackerman's Peccadillo Theater Company has specialized in mounting handsome productions of infrequently revived Broadway fare of notable pedigree, such as Elmer Rice's COUNSELLOR AT LAW, Dorothy Parker and Arnaud d'Usseau's LADIES OF THE CORRIDOR and, most notably, a sparkling, uproarious revival of John Murray & Allen Boretz's classic comedy, ROOM SERVICE.

It may have been underestimated how popular TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS would prove to be when it opened at The Public's Shiva Theater last November. Actor/playwright Nia Vardalos' warm, funny and endearing adaptation of the same-named book of collected advice columns written for the literary website The Rumpus by Cheryl Strayed, under the pen name Sugar, packed fans into the 100-seat space, making the quietly emotional play one of the town's hottest tickets.

If director Alexandra Spencer-Jones' intention was to stage an erotic word ballet that finds beauty in the well-chiseled male form through highly-stylized acts of choreographed violence, then the latest offering at New Work Stages certainly fulfills that goal.

To say that there are no dramatic highs and lows in Amy Herzog's touching new drama, Mary Jane, is by no means a criticism. It's more of a recognition of the beautifully understated naturalism in both the playwright's text and in director Anne Kauffman's production.

The beloved and classic premise of an idealistic teacher determined to reach out and help a classroom full of troubled and disrespectful students ('Up The Down Staircase,' 'To Sir, With Love') gets a fresh and surprising variation in Philip Dawkins' terrific new comedy/drama, Charm.

While Suzan-Lori Parks' ferocious drama from 2000, FUCKING A, enjoys an excellent new production at Signature Theatre, across the lobby of their multi-stage center, her more sensitive 1999 exploration, IN THE BLOOD, also receives a solid remounting.

It wasn't long after Mary Martin took her first Broadway flight as Peter Pan that Ann, the central character of Sarah Ruhl's sometimes-whimsical/sometimes-philosophical new drama took her own crack at the role as a 10-year-old.

For over forty years, the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players have been Gotham's go-to company for high-quality G&S productions produced with full choruses and orchestras in the traditional D'Oyly Carte style.

British playwright Simon Stephens scored big his first time on Broadway, taking the 2015 Best Play Tony Award for THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME two years after receiving the same honor at the Olivier Awards.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter' may have served as the initial inspiration for Suzan-Lori Parks' ferocious 2000 drama, FUCKING A, but, especially in director Jo Bonney's chilling Signature Theatre production, her sardonically abstract portrait of human cruelty may remind playgoers of another writer, Bertolt Brecht.

'All the world's a stage / And everybody's in the show. / Nobody's a pro.' Those words, sung at the opening of Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery's thoroughly enchanting musical adaptation of Shakespeare's AS YOU LIKE IT, were especially poignant at the Delacorte Theater this past weekend, where, since 2013, every Labor Day holiday has been celebrated with a production by the Public Theater's gloriously inclusive Public Works program.

Snuggled at the curve of a quiet little Greenwich Village side street, the quaint and historic Cherry Lane Theatre is a perfect spot to engage in a quiet little drama.

While the underrepresentation of women playwrights in contemporary American theatre remains an important issue, the Mint Theater Company, those invaluable specialists in rediscovering interesting obscurities from authors who are no longer with us, continue their practice of highlighting their seasons with contributions from a rich theatrical legacy of nearly forgotten women writers of the past.