Michael Dale - Page 56

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.

The opening fanfare of one of the most exhilarating overtures ever to hit Broadway signals the joyous return of New York City Opera. After financial woes threatened to pull down the curtain for good in 2013, the company that was christened in 1943 as 'the people's opera' by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia has returned with a new home and an old friend, director Harold Prince's rollicking production of Leonard Bernstein, Richard Wilbur, Stephen Sondheim, John La Touche and Hugh Wheeler's CANDIDE.

Those introspective, philosophical, womanizing man-children who inhabit the oeuvre of Anton Chekhov tend to be annoying bores, so even though the unpublished manuscript discovered after the playwright's death has been posthumously named after, its leading man, Platonov, it's no surprise that it's the leading lady who gets all the juicy material.

As the history books and Stephen Sondheim tell us, in 1853 Matthew C. Perry, Commodore of the United States Navy, sailed to Japan on a mission to forcibly end the island empire's policy of national seclusion and establish trade with America.

While the McKittrick Hotel's ongoing attraction SLEEP NO MORE requires audience members to seek out its immersive entertainment as they venture from floor to floor and room to room, the venue's new co-tenant, the National Theatre of Scotland's delightful production of David Greig's cleverly done THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART, confines the action to The Heath, a cozy pub where patrons can take advantage of a cash bar while the actors handle the trailblazing.

While David Yazbek's moxie-driven melodies and clever, character-creating lyrics are best known from his fast and funny Broadway hits THE FULL MONTY and DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, his captivating and charming new Off-Broadway musical of cultural and romantic exchanges, THE BAND'S VISIT, begins with self-effacing modesty.

Since its first publication in 1843, Charles Dickens' holiday classic, A CHRISTMAS CAROL, has been adapted countless times for various stages, screens and pages, but undoubtedly the most authentic presentations of the story of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghosts who assist in his transformation into a kind and generous soul were the numerous live readings the author gave during the last 18 years of his life.

When the a cappella musical In Transit played Off-Broadway in 2010, most musical theatre fans would identify 'Let It Go' as composer/lyricist David Yazbek's finale song for musical version of THE FULL MONTY.

Sometimes when somebody offers you a job you have no time for that's a lot of work for no pay and no credit you just have to reply, 'Yeah, I'm in.'

Dan LeFranc's RANCHO VIEJO, now receiving its world premiere in a handsome Playwrights Horizons production featuring a terrific cast, is one of those three-hour long plays that may find you tempted to flip through your program at any time for a clue as to what the heck is going on.

As audience members enter the Minetta Lane Theatre's auditorium for producer/director Luke Comer's abstract multi-media theatre piece THE PORTAL, they're greeted by a projected slide summarizing the 90 minute long production's plot, followed by the advisory, 'The show is less literal and more allegorical and dreamy.'