Michael Dale - Page 3

After an impressive inaugural production of HAMLET in the atmospheric surroundings of Jersey City's Grace Church Van Vorst, Artistic Director Sean Hagerty's Shakespeare@, like so many theatre companies around the country, was suddenly placed in the position rethinking its immediate future.

When playwright/director Richard Nelson introduced Public Theater audiences to a family of Rhinebeck, New York residents by the surname Apple, he referred to his creation as a 'disposable play.' Well, it's been nearly ten years and, thankfully, he hasn't disposed of the Apples yet.

Back in pre-COVID New York, barely a midsummer weekend would go by without a theatre company somewhere presenting an outdoor production of Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM in whatever garden, meadow or parking lot would offer a permit. When you add the countless indoor productions, the Bard's merry mixture of comedy, romance and fantasy - offering numerous juicy roles for a talented ensemble -- is doubtlessly one of his most enduringly popular pieces.

'What does it mean to have a Black man who is deemed unfit to rule and what does it mean to have a Black woman take his place?'

'I was lying in the bath last night. And it just occurred to me, I all of a sudden realized: I have not touched another human being for over three months.'

'I guess I knew that you could miss the things you love; I didn't know you could miss the things you hate,' ponders a New York apartment-dweller who sees little reason to get out of bed as she lives in isolation in this era of COVID-19.

It's been nearly two years since the recording company Audible set up residency in Greenwich Village's Minetta Lane Theatre to produce small-cast plays, usually solo pieces, for short Off-Broadway runs that are recorded for commercially released audios.

'The first cough in the audience and who's listening to the play?,' wonders a character when contemplating the return of live theatre.

For over two years, the Chicago-based Candle House Collective has been creating non-tradition, immersive theatre for both site-specific locations and virtual enjoyment. But with the current health crisis putting live theatre on hold, their virtual plays can be especially inviting for audience members seeking an artistic connection.

When thinking of site-specific theatre, visions of following actors through a forest as they play out A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM or sitting in a musty old playhouse for a performance of FOLLIES may dance through your head, but in these days of government-regulated social distancing necessitating the suspension of live performances, one must think even further outside of the black box.

As someone who has indulged in all the creations concocted by the genius director/choreographer Austin McCormick for his spectacular mix of performing artists, Company XIV, since the early years of this century when they displayed their talents in modestly-scaled productions on East 4th Street, this reviewer will say without hesitation that SEVEN SINS, a lavish feast of biblical misbehaviors, is their most gloriously achieved blending of athleticism, artistry and eroticism.

For BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON, Michael Friedman whipped up an emo rock score that comically skewered white male privilege. For LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST his music and lyrics embraced the open-hearted awkwardness of lovers testing the waters of adulthood, and in THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, they nostalgically provided a tapestry of pop harmonies, soul and rap. And then there was the abundance of fresh material created for The Civilians, the investigative theatre company he co-founded.

If it were up to Billy, the sweet-natured Unitarian pastor who opens Hilary Bettis' 72 Miles to Go... speaking to audience members as if they were members of his Tucson, Arizona congregation, the play about his family would be one of those warm domestic comedies where the kids learn valuable life lessons guided by their wise, but somewhat goofy dad.

From the Marin Headlands, a hilly peninsula north of San Francisco that overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge, a father points out to his ten-year-old son the spot across the bay where he first met the boy's mother.

After spending two full careers as a Broadway composer, first writing jazzy smash hits with lyricist Lorenz Hart and then adapting more dramatic and character-driven styles for scores penned for classics with Oscar Hammerstein II, Rodgers, upon his second partner's passing, for the first time supplied the complete set of lyrics for a musical's score.

Even the best written of Broadway's jukebox musicals tend to sacrifice dramatic content in order to showcase the beloved hit songs that fans came to hear. But it would be misleading to label playwright/director Conor McPherson's lovely, introspective drama Girl from the North Country, which incorporates twenty selections from the extraordinary songbook of American folk legend Bob Dylan, a jukebox musical.

It seems every four years, as political primaries come upon us, Americans start thinking more about those far off people in drastically different communities we share this country with. If New Yorkers have had many thoughts about the coal industry recently, they probably had to do with President Trump's vocal support of it in the face of cleaner options.

Family secrets, political history, moral dilemmas in the face of genocide and loud, kick-ass rock tunes mix terrifically in Lauren Yee's gripping and (for this reviewer) informative new drama Cambodian Rock Band, an often horrifying, but ultimately exhilarating reminder that if there's one thing totalitarian regimes fear, it's artists.

'I'm tired of Negro dreams. All they ever do is break your heart,' contemplates an unemployed nightclub singer after an audition that turned out to be for a mistress rather than for an entertainer in Pearl Cleage's ravishingly written post-Harlem Renaissance portrait, Blues for an Alabama Sky.

'Revitalized' is the new euphemism for 'about 80% rewritten', or at least it appears that way in regards to the new musical that carries the name The Unsinkable Molly Brown.