Michael Dale - Page 28

'We're dealing with some fairly old and ancient material, so maybe let's trust it to be really wise and meaningful, okay?' asks a character acting as a kind of host at the beginning of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' fun and breezy new play, Everybody.

When tragedy strikes a community, after the initial shock and the effort to neutralize the situation, there's always a strong desire to return to normalcy.

It would be nice to be able take in The Wooster Group's intriguing docu-theatre piece, THE TOWN HALL AFFAIR, as a look at the grotesquely blatant brand sexism of nearly 50 years ago that we have since outgrown. Sadly, this glimpse at a carnival-like event disguised as a serious debate on the subject of, as it was known at the time, women's lib, is likely to remind audience members of current headlines.

Those who have yet to have their fill of half-price post-Valentine's Day candy will be happy to discover that what looks like crudites when you step into Derek McLane's environmental set for Wallace Shawn's fascinating Evening at the Talk House are actually sugary treats such as marshmallows, Swedish fish and gummy worms.

Deceptively, little seems to happen in the first several scenes of Tracy Letts' riveting 2004 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Man from Nebraska, now receiving a superb New York premiere at Second Stage.

When Nazis began publicly burning copies of his latest musical theatre piece, composer Kurt Weill took it as a hint that he might be better off sailing to America and writing for Broadway.

One would assume that Mark Twain would have been amused that his 1884 novel condemning America's history of enslavement of Africans, 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,' has occasionally been condemned itself as racist literature for its realistic use of a certain slur.

With all due respect to the world class singers and dancers who trod Broadway's boards every season, watching Glenn Close completely enthrall and mesmerize an audience with her two dramatic solos in the new concert revival of Sunset Boulevard is a reminder that musical theatre is at its most thrilling when musical moments are enhanced by incisive acting.

After establishing himself as resident doorman, stage manager and sex slave at the Caffe Cino, the historic Cornelia Street birthplace of Off-Off Broadway and America's gay theatre movement, Robert Patrick summoned up the courage to join the ranks of the venue's resident staff of playwrights (Lanford Wilson, Tom Eyen and William Hoffman among them) to begin submitting his own creations to owner Joe Cino. Eventually, the Broadway production of KENNEDY'S CHILDREN would help Patrick gain recognition as one of the significant dramatic voices emerging from New York's downtown scene.

The legendary Puerto Rican salsa singer Hector Lavoe, who died of AIDS in 1993 at age 46, has been long gone when Paola Lazaro's humorous drama, Tell Hector I Miss Him, takes place, but his absence has the same symbolic meaning as when Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel asked, 'Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?'

As soon as you enter the Lortel for director Trip Cullman's tight and tense production of Anna Jordan's unsettling, hard-edged drama, YEN, the intention to catch audience members a little off-balance is evident.

When Jerry Herman was pegged by producer Gerard Oestreicher to write the score for a Broadway musical set in the fledgling State of Israel, he was a 28-year-old composer/lyricist mostly known for writing clever lyrics and snazzy tunes for Greenwich Village topical reviews like NIGHTCAP and PARADE. But now, instead of writing for hip, downtown performers like Charles Nelson Reilly and Dody Goodman, he'd be penning a romantic score for opera stars Mimi Benzell and Robert Weede, with special comic relief material for Yiddish Theatre legend Molly Picon.

Teetering somewhere between an incisive study of human fidelity and a sexy comedy of manners, Miles Malleson's Yours Unfaithfully is the kind of play that, under different circumstances, might have been made into a classic Hollywood romantic comedy starring Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Tony Randall.

Press performances for David Ives' sharp and funny verse comedy THE LIAR began just around the time when political headlines were being made about the phrase 'alternative facts.'

When August Wilson's Jitney had its 1982 world premiere at Pittsburgh's Allegheny Repertory Theatre, there were no plans for it to serve as 1/10th of the greatest achievement in American drama. But by the time a revised version of that script opened Off-Broadway in 2000, six of the plays that would each represent a decade in his American Century Cycle had made it to Broadway and Wilson was firmly established as one the country's great playwrights.

'Are you ready for autobiographical solo performance!?!' Marga Gomez would enthusiastically ask the crowd to commence performances of her recently concluded run at the Public Theater's 2017 Under The Radar Festival.

Traditionally, you can regard the name of the Public Theater's annual January festival, Under The Radar, as a reference to the relative obscurity of the theatre companies and artists involved. But in the case of Belarus Free Theatre, the meaning is a bit more literal and a lot more serious.

The 1998 Tony Award ceremony was quite a history-making night, as THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE's Garry Hynes became the first woman to be awarded a Tony for directing a play. Her honor was received mere minutes before THE LION KING's Julie Taymor became the first woman awarded a Tony for directing a musical.

While the title MARK FELT, SUPERSTAR may receive befuddled reactions from those not fully familiar with American political scandals, you can't blame bookwriter/composer/lyricist Joshua Rosenblum for not naming his smart, breezy, informative and extremely enjoyable show 'Deep Throat, the musical.'

When Americans think of the shows that entertained soldiers during World War II, visions of Bob Hope on a temporary outdoor stage wisecracking for thousands of servicemen, courtesy of the USO, are what usually comes to mind.