Michael Dale - Page 6

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.

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.