Michael Dale - Page 27

It's no secret to theatregoer's that the frenetically paced, multi-character solo plays by Obie-winner John Leguizamo have provided far more insight into Latin-American history and culture than can be found in most American school textbooks.

After her breakout Off-Broadway production of INTIMATE APPAREL and a Pulitzer Prize for her brutal depiction of rape as a weapon of war in RUINED, Lynn Nottage has been well established as one of America's most important 21st Century playwrights.

The authors who wrote the books for even the most successful Broadway musical comedies of the 1920s and 30s often get a bum rap for the flimsiness of their plots and the nonsensical nature of their gags.

The helicopter is real this time, as is the Asian heritage of the leading man, as Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil's MISS SAIGON lands at the Broadway Theatre once more. Laurence Connor does a solid job of mounting producer Cameron Mackintosh's newest version, with three of its West End stars crossing the Atlantic to make their Broadway debuts.

As patrons enter the Mitzi Newhouse for Sarah Ruhl's newest clever and quirky comedy, HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE, they're greeted by set designer David Zinn's rendering of a smart and simply furnished living room, above which hangs the carcass of a slaughtered and skinned goat.

Who is she? Where did she come from? These are questions likely to pass through the minds of Off-Broadway's regular attendees while witnessing Jo Lampert's stellar performance as the title character of David Byrne's new musical, JOAN OF ARC: INTO THE FIRE.

By the time Arthur Miller's THE PRICE hit town in 1968, the playwright had already established himself during the 1940s and 50s as one of America's greatest dramatists with classics such as ALL MY SONS, DEATH OF A SALESMAN, THE CRUCIBLE and A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE.

At the beginning of The Debate Society's premiere production of THE LIGHT YEARS (written by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, developed and directed by Oliver Butler) we're told that Arcturus, the star that guided Christopher Columbus to what he thought was India, is precisely forty light years away from Earth.

'Look for the helpers,' Fred Rogers would say. 'When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.''

One of the great things about live theatre is its lack of permanence. In film, the words, directorial choices, performances and other artistic contributions all exist as an unchangeably whole work of art. But with theatre, each production of a play, no matter how many times it has been done before, begins with only the author's text, leaving a new collection of creative souls to decide what to do with it.

Five years ago, playwright/composer/lyricist/performer Ethan Lipton stood on the stage of Joe's Pub as the central character of his solo musical NO PLACE TO GO, explaining the choices he had to make when the company he worked for announced it was relocating to Mars.

Straight cisgender teenage boys looking to lose their virginity are generally accepted as a staple of coming-of-age comedies that make movie theatre box offices hum. But when it comes to the matter of young girls being eager to have their first sexual encounter, audiences tend to prefer a bit more delicacy.

When Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's classic musical thriller Sweeney Todd: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET opened on Broadway in 1979, Harold Prince's production was of grand operatic proportions. Opera houses frequently produce the show in that manner, but New York's stage revivals seem to be getting increasingly smaller.

It's not exactly a spoiler to note that the closing scene of Penelope Skinner's wonderfully absorbing and issue-oriented dramatic comedy, LINDA, has the title character, a successful marketing executive, addressing a group of colleagues in the year 2007, excited about how the anti-aging cream she promotes has been putting out the message that the beauty in all women of all ages is a cause for celebration.

'I'm almost twenty-nine years old and no one has ever told me they love me,' says the sweet, funny and open-hearted Jordan during a monologue that opens the second act of Joshua Harmon's giddy and enrapturing romantic comedy, Significant Other.

A night out at David Mamet's tense and terse new play, The Penitent, now getting a hard-edged premiere by director Neil Pepe via Atlantic Theatre Company, isn't so much an observance of human behavior as it is a debate of moral issues.

Listening to the original Broadway cast album of Jerry Herman's 1969 entry, DEAR WORLD, it's almost unimaginable to think you're hearing the score of a show that shuttered on Broadway after less than four months worth of performances.

You can't say that playwright/director Will Eno doesn't go out big with his new piece, WAKEY, WAKEY. Just before curtain calls, an extra-bright video montage, set to The Olivia Tremor Control's “Love Athena,” wreaks havoc with audience members' pupils. Once eyes are able to adjust, they'll notice bubbles floating through the house, followed by balloons. There's even a large disco ball reflecting lights all over the place.

Inspired by Georges Seurat's pointillism masterwork 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,' the authors explore how 'the art of making art' can be less about applying paint to a canvas as it is about applying a signature to a check.

Though the brilliant musicals that composer John Kander created with his late lyricist partner Fred Ebb frequently tackled dark and violent issues (CABARET, CHICAGO, KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN and THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS among them), they did so with a shiny, often cynical veneer of show-biz. Snazzy melodies and joyful lyrics barely hid horrific subtext.