After 20-odd years singing, dancing and acting in dinner theatres, summer stocks and the ever-popular audience participation murder mysteries (try improvising with audiences after they?ve had two hours of open bar), Michael Dale segued his theatrical ambitions into playwriting. The buildings which once housed the 5 Off-Off Broadway plays he penned have all been destroyed or turned into a Starbucks, but his name remains the answer to the trivia question, "Who wrote the official play of Babe Ruth's 100th Birthday?" He served as Artistic Director for The Play's The Thing Theatre Company, helping to bring free live theatre to underserved communities, and dabbled a bit in stage managing and in directing cabaret shows before answering the call (it was an email, actually) to become BroadwayWorld.com's first Chief Theatre Critic. While not attending shows Michael can be seen at Citi Field pleading for the Mets to stop imploding. Likes: Strong book musicals and ambitious new works. Dislikes: Unprepared celebrities making their stage acting debuts by starring on Broadway and weak bullpens.
The embryonic lump of coal now inhabiting the Biltmore Theatre has more gem-like qualities to savor and enjoy than the majority of fully gestated musicals now playing around town.
In theory Terrence McNally's new plays is about a doubles team that dominated the game in their youth but really there's nothing to distract us from the fact that we're watching Marian Seldes and Angela Lansbury having a 90 minute chat
The new musical is like a big bowl of sugary butter cream frosting that you can't resist dipping your finger into and licking off every bit of delectable goodness.
For two and a half glorious hours your only care in the world should be deciding which of the magnificent songs you'll be humming on your way out of the theatre.
The new musical is not so much a horribly bad one as it is an exceedingly dull one, despite the efforts of some talented artists who try to create something entertaining out of material that's inescapably bland.
Just as everyone deals with the grief of the loss of a loved one in their own personal way, I imagine individual reactions to this stage adaptation of Joan Didion's memoir recounting her own grieving process after the loss of her husband, will be quite varied and, ultimately, personal.
Curtains may not be the kind of show that flies you into musical comedy heaven, but for two hours and forty minutes it cruises securely in the air stream of sock-o.
John Fugelsang's hilarious solo piece is filled with sharp observations about American morals and the way some may interpret the Bible for their own benefit.
The journalistic skills of first-time playwright Bernard Weinraub are put to good use in this drama of a Jewish activist who came to America in 1940 with a mission to convince the United States to help stop the systematic extermination of his people.