Review - Slava's Snowshow & Dust
by Michael Dale
- Dec 9, 2008
While there are many artistically pleasing features to be seen on stage in SLAVA'S SNOWSHOW, the Russian clown piece that returns to New York for a limited Broadway run, you can also have a heck of a good time if you just like having things thrown at you, dropped on you, sprayed at you or bouncing off of you.
Review - Billy Elliot: I Just Wanna F***in' Dance
by Michael Dale
- Nov 27, 2008
If I were a betting man I'd wager Billy Elliot to be the last show standing should the economy remain steadfast in its current quest to entirely obliterate Broadway. (Any truth to the rumor that the next thing moving into the St. James is a Starbucks?) Throngs who were enchanted by the musical's source film and even more who have been undertowed by the waves of publicity surrounding the three adolescents who alternate performing the title role (presumably until puberty brings out the hook) will no doubt enter the Imperial Theatre for many months or even years to come, as eager to see the kid dance as audiences at Miss Saigon were to see Royal Academy of Dramatic Art graduate Jonathan Pryce hump a Cadillac. And Billy Elliot never disappoints in that respect. My Billy of the evening was the very game Trent Kowalik, but even if you catch a performance starring David Alvarez or Kiril Kulish (or understudy Tommy Batchelor) you can take your seat assured you'll be witnessing the work of a specially trained specimen carefully schooled in the arts of ballet, tap, street dance, jazz and gymnastics at the exclusive Billy Elliot House, which I'm told is only a short drive from Grease Academy.
Review - All My Sons: Flying Blind
by Michael Dale
- Oct 20, 2008
After his Broadway debut shut down after four performances, All My Sons was the play that put Arthur Miller on map; running for a good nine months, winning the 1947 Tony Award for Best Play and bringing the author to the attention of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Review - Around The World In 80 Days: Racing With The Clock
by Michael Dale
- Jul 21, 2008
First things first; there is no hot air ballooning in Mark Brown's stage adaptation of Jules Verne's Around The World In 80 Days, just in case your only familiarity with the plot comes from Michael Todd's not exactly faithful 1956 movie version. (For that matter, there aren't any martial arts fight scenes either, in case you only saw the Jackie Chan remake.) But if Verne's hero did dabble in a bit of ballooning, I'm sure Brown and director Michael Evan Haney would have found some clever way to depict it in this lively and entertaining little production that's landed at the Irish Repertory Theatre in association with Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.
A Brief Appreciation For John Dickinson
by Michael Dale
- Jul 3, 2008
While the rest of the country celebrates Independence Day with barbeques and fireworks, musical theatre lovers like me will gather around their television sets for the traditional viewing of what I and many others call the finest film ever made from a Broadway musical, 1776.
Review - reasons to be pretty & Len, Asleep In Vinyl
by Michael Dale
- Jun 3, 2008
There's a moment in Show Boat where a woman sings that her true love, 'just plain Bill,' is 'an ordinary man' who 'isn't half as handsome as dozens of men' and is, on the whole, kinda stupid. This is considered by many to be one of the most romantic love songs of the 20th Century. In Neil LaBute's new reasons to be pretty the main character, reacting to his buddy's ravings about how hot another woman is, says that his girlfriend of four years may be 'regular' looking, but he wouldn't trade her for a million bucks. This will not be considered one of the most romantic sentiments of the 21st Century.
Review - Mark Nadler and KT Sullivan in A Swell Party: RSVP Cole Porter
by Michael Dale
- Jun 16, 2008
'We are not here to tell the life story of Cole Porter,' Mark Nadler advised the Town Hall audience last Monday night. 'There are two excessively mediocre films for that. Indeed, if there was any educational value A Swell Party: RSVP Cole Porter, Nadler and K.T. Sullivan's return engagement of their dynamite Algonquin Oak Room tribute playing a one-nighter on what would be the golden child of Peru, Indiana's 117th birthday, it was in how to find unexpected shadings in songs we've known and loved forever.
NYMF Announces 2008 'Best of Fest' Award Winners
by Faetra Petillo
- Oct 14, 2008
The New York Musical Theater Festival concluded its fifth season on October 5th having presented 241 performances over the course of 21 days. A record-breaking 25,000 people, selling the festival to 87.5% of capacity, attended the festival. Over 75% of productions had sold-out performances, and 11 productions extended their runs to accommodate demand.
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