Michael Dale - Page 4

It's been said that movies are made in the editing room. To some extent, the same might be said of Lucas Hnath's unconventional, and very personal docudrama, Dana H.

'The text has been 'scored',' states the script for British playwright Alice Birch's Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winning Anatomy of a Suicide, a fascinating, tragic piece about a neurological legacy shared by three generations of women, now receiving a fine American premiere at the Atlantic's Linda Gross Theater.

Count this reviewer among those who, contrary to conventional musical theatre wisdom, never thought there was anything horribly wrong with Michael Stewart's original book for MACK & MABEL, the big, splashy 1974 musical about silent movie director Mack Sennett and the star he discovered, Mabel Normand.

Dear kindly Ivo van Hove, I often like your work, But when you stage revivals Your concepts go berserk. Your symbolism's clunky, Your edits are too thick. West Side Story doesn't need your schtick.

'Welcome to our meeting,' greet the actors to those entering the intimate Paradise Factory for The Seeing Place Theater's very engaging production of Brandon Walker's adaptation of George Orwell's allegorical classic, ANIMAL FARM.

In this version, Count Dracula is not an obvious outlier with fangs and pale skin, but a charming fellow you'd never suspect is spreading the acceptance of patriarchal attitudes and gender roles through his seductive bites.

The first thing that happens in director Timothy Douglas' Classic Stage Company mounting of Tristan Bernays' adaptation of Mary Shelley's beloved gothic novel, Frankenstein, is that actor/musician Rob Morrison, playing a one-member chorus, comes out on stage and tunes the three string instruments he'll use during the 90-minute production.

Back in the days before multiple workshops and lengthy regional runs, the geniuses of musical theatre often had to work miracles during of-of-town previews to quickly revise and rewrite surefire flops like HELLO, DOLLY! and A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM into Broadway hits.

'You know, I hate your plays,' the great Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov once recalled the exalted Leo Tolstoy telling him during a friendly visit. 'Shakespeare was a bad writer, and I consider your plays even worse than his.'

The internationally-known standup who first brought his Jewish-focus material Off-Broadway in 2018 with STRICTLY UNORTHODOX arrives at the SoHo Playhouse with a show inspired by his friendship and professional collaboration with Muslim standup Imran Yusuf. Having spent a great deal of time traveling together from gig to gig, Yusuf had a lot of questions about Judaism, and their conversations prompted Blaker to examine how to explain his faith to a goy.

Sometimes the most truthful answer to the standard job interview question, 'Why do you want to work here?', is 'I'm behind on my rent, I have no health care and I'm desperate for money because I don't make enough at my other job.'

If the open hardcover copy of Thomas A. Harris, M.D.'s 1967 self-help bible 'I'm OK - You're OK' casually placed upon an ottoman makes you chuckle a bit as you settle down for The New Group's latest endeavor, you're of a proper mindset to enjoy Duncan Sheik (music/lyrics), Amanda Green (lyrics) and Jonathan Marc Sherman's sweet, funny and endearing new easy chamber musical BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE.

a?oeWe'll make an Olivier of you yet,a?? an actor-for-hire says to his nervous client. a?oeI have no wish to be an Olivier,a?? the fellow retorts. a?oeNo, but for the sake of our audience, let us at least try.a??

Nowadays there appears to be an increasing awareness in the theatre about presenting women characters through the aesthetic of male playwrights and directors, much of it involving the movie term 'male gaze' which was coined by Laura Mulvey in the 70s to describe the disproportionately sexualized manner in which women were presented in film.  From that context, it's possible to conclude that this is what playwright/actor Charles Busch has been commenting on all along.

'Magic Speed Dating' is the way the wryly entertaining master of deception Todd Robbins describes the up close and personal showcase he hosts at The McKittrick Hotel, Speakeasy Magick.

'Fame was like a tongue sandwich to my mother,' is one way Barra Grant puts it in her autobiographical (almost) solo play, MISS AMERICA'S UGLY DAUGHTER: BESS MYERSON AND ME.

Back in that age we call golden, Broadway marquees were frequently set ablaze by long-running plays that producers looking to turn a profit lovingly referred to as boulevard comedies. These were typically middlebrow laugh machines expertly crafted by the likes of Mary Chase, Neil Simon or Abe Burrows (Think HARVEY, THE ODD COUPLE or CACTUS FLOWER), involving contemporary everyday characters in realistic situations containing just enough sentiment to make you care about what happens next, while maybe even wrapping up with an uncontroversial, heartwarming message.

When a soldier in the United States Army, just before the final surge of World War II, is found shot to death in the Louisiana town where he's stationed, the immediate assumption is that one or more of the locals committed the murder.

It's been only three months since the brilliant lyricist/director Gerard Alessandrini opened the latest edition of his Tony-honored satirical creation Forbidden Broadway at The Triad, but after a brief hiatus, the company has moved their antics east for a stint at The York.

Obviously, it would be foolish to expect anything resembling high art from a musical comedy titled Emojiland, which not only attaches bodies to those expressive emotion-summarizing faces from social media and texting but brings them to singing-and-dancing life. But even shows that aspire to little more than silly junk-food fun should be sprinkled with some degree of cleverness.