Irving Berlin once praised, “that happy feeling when you are stealing that extra bow,” but at Monday night’s 10th Annual Broadway Unplugged concert at Town Hall, Tonya Pinkins didn’t have time for an extra bow, even when it was handed to her. Fortunately, there would be a lot more reasons to cheer during the two-hour extravaganza, directed by Scott Coulter and music directed by Ross Patterson, where the main spectacle on display was the glory of the trained and unamplified human voice. Camille Saviola, returning to the New York theatre scene after a lengthy stay on that other coast, followed with a slow and soulful rendition of “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” containing that aforementioned lyric. She followed in the second half with Zorba’s rousing dark anthem, “Life Is (What You Do While You’re Waiting To Die).” Hearty and romantic male voices were in grand abundance, including Max von Essen (“Love Can’t Happen”), John Easterlin (“Stranger in Paradise” “And This Is My Beloved”), Ben Davis (“If I Can’t Love Her”) and Jeff Mattsey (“One Alone”). Christiane Noll provided that special face for Marc Kudisch, whose passionate rendering of “Were Thine That Special Face” was performed with a slyly comical mix of romance and self-absorbedness. William Michals continued the Kiss Me, Kate theme with a robust “Where Is The Life That Late I Led.” Charming character man Bill Daugherty contributed a fiery “Some Days Everything Goes Wrong,” the 11 o’clocker from the first Broadway album he ever heard, What Makes Sammy Run?, and then opened the second act with a funny and hammy Al Jolson impersonation for “Let Me Sing And I’m Happy.” While there really aren't any good reasons to have a gender-reversed, colorblind production of Purlie, Eddie Korbich's joyous performance of "I Got Love” might momentarily tempt you to make an exception. Jeffrey Denman’s innovative interpretation of “Something’s Coming” had the character releasing his nervous energy through tap dancing breaks. Noah Racey brought in his crew from the New York Song and Dance Company (C.K. Edwards, Danny Gardner, Kevin Worley and Jason Yodff) for a wild routine set to “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” featuring ferocious tapping, clapping and body slapping. The thrilling female voices included Barbara Walsh (“I Belong Here”), Carole J. Bufford (“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out”) and Natalie Toro (“I Don’t Know How To Love Him” “Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind”). After her modeling gig for Kudisch, Christiane Noll merrily showed off her soprano trills with a gracefully indulgent rendering of “By Strauss” and Liz Callaway, who spent five years on Broadway playing Grizabella in Cats, offered another beautiful performance of “Memory.” Photos by Genevieve Rafter Keddy: Top Tonya Pinkins; Bottom: Christiane Noll and Marc Kudisch Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Thursday, October 03, 2013 @ 01:26 AM Posted by: Michael Dale
Here's Gwen Verdon posing for Look Magazine in May of 1953. On the 7th day of that month she suddenly became a Broadway star as a featured dancer stopping the show on opening night of Can-Can. She seems to be taking to stardom very well. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 @ 02:36 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
They can shut down the government, they can shut down City Opera... How the hell is Soul Doctor still running? Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Tuesday, October 01, 2013 @ 05:24 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
"I am the opposite of a stage magician," explains the autobiographical narrator of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, the play that provided the Broadway debut of one of America's leading playwrights. Nevertheless, there is a breathtaking display of theatre magic in director John Tiffany's glimmering production. It's the kind of magic that enthralls an audience when a masterful play is interpreted with sensitive, theme-enhancing imagination and acted to perfection by an extraordinary ensemble. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Friday, September 27, 2013 @ 01:59 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Perhaps there's a barrister or two who might experience a bit of a thrill over the current proceedings at the Public's LuEsther Theater, but generally speaking there's nothing that can make even the sensual gyrations of a nightclub stripper lose their sex appeal like reducing it all to judicial procedure and legal jargon. And that's one of the funnier points of Elevator Repair Service's zany comical piece, Arguendo, a visual farce directed by John Collins that gets its text verbatim from a United States Supreme Court case regarding whether or not Indiana strippers should be forced to wear g-strings and pasties, rather than dance completely nude. Click here for my full review of Arguendo. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 @ 12:18 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Her classic turn as Agnes Gooch in Mame, as well as performances in Dear World, Me and My Girl, Lend Me a Tenor, Crazy For You and Moon Over Buffalo, will always be cherished by Broadway fans, but the performance of hers that sticks with me the most was at the intimate Off-Broadway Actors’ Playhouse, where she played the title role in Rory Seeber’s solo play, The Singular Dorothy Parker. In what was essentially an evening of the great Algonquin literary figure reciting her poems and reading her stories, the actress best known for her zany antics delivered a quiet, reserved portrayal of a woman who hid her emotional fragileness with a public image of strength through educated wit. She was quite enchanting. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 @ 01:42 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
After his attention-grabbing 1922 satire of amateur theatrics, The Torch Bearers, there was hardly a month during the ensuing decade when there wasn't a George Kelly play on Broadway, or one that was set to come in shortly. His sophomore effort, The Show-Off, has seen five Broadway revivals and its initial run was quickly followed by the Pulitzer winner,Craig's Wife. But the name Geore Kelly is scarcely remembered by 21st Century playgoers, making him an excellent subject for exploration by the Mint Theater Company, those specialists in reviving what was once popular, but is now forgotten. Click here for my full review of Philip Goes Forth. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Monday, September 23, 2013 @ 03:01 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
A white tank top with Hugh Jackman's sweat stains went for $1,250. Auction host Jen Cody said, "I would bid on it but my husband's show didn't run." Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Sunday, September 22, 2013 @ 05:21 PM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
The first year of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama they decided that no play was worthy of the award. That must have been a fun decision to make. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Sunday, September 22, 2013 @ 08:33 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
Today's schedule: A matinee about a delusional woman and her daughter with no self-esteem followed by an evening performance about strippers demanding their First Amendment rights. And no, neither of them is Gypsy. Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Saturday, September 21, 2013 @ 11:03 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
This past Sunday evening I attended the 20,000th Off-Broadway performance of The Fantasticks. I’ve seen all but 19,994 of them. The 20,000, of course, have not been continuous. Back in 2002 I attended the last public performance of its original run at the Sullivan Street Playhouse. (There was a final, invitation-only, performance later that evening.) The 42-year run had to finish because the rising cost of Manhattan real estate made weekly losses too great. Soon the former site of the tiny theatre displayed a sign crassly announcing that "Four Fantastic Condominium Residences" were on their way. I became a Snapple Drinker for life when the company created two new theatre spaces on 50th Street and Broadway and took in both The Fantasticks and the city’s second longest running theatre production, Perfect Crime, which was also forced to close when its venue was torn down. Great care was taken to re-create the Sullivan Street experience in the new uptown home. Though the seats are certainly cushier, they’re placed in the same half-oval arrangement and Jones and his designers have replicated the late director Word Baker’s original 1960 production. Those familiar with the piece will notice some revisions to the text here and there, most significantly in the lyric of “It Depends On What You Pay,” where multiple repetitions of “rape” have been cut due to audiences’ changing attitudes toward the word. But for the most part, what’s playing at the Orbach is the same theatre experience that pre-dates the moon landing, The Beatles and the Kennedy presidency. With fresh and lively performances by the current company, visiting The Fantasticks today is like experiencing a marvelous artifact of our cultural heritage. Photos: Current Cast Members George Dvorsky as El Gallo (top) and MacIntyre Dixon as Henry (bottom). Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.
Posted on: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 @ 11:36 AM Posted by: Michael Dale | Leave Feedback
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After opening the show with her knock-out performance of “Last Midnight,” producer/writer/host Scott Siegel tried calling Pinkins out to acknowledge the continuing cheers and applause, but the busy actress had to rush to the Golden Theatre to make her first entrance in A Time To Kill, which was already in progress while she was singing.
Christopher Sieber didn’t have to remind the audience to whistle along for his goofy rendering of “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life.”
The beloved character actress Jane Connell’s first significant New York performance was as a replacement for Charlotte Rae’s Mrs. Peachum in the legendary Theatre de Lys production of The Threepenny Opera. Soon she was making her Broadway debut in New Faces of 1956, lending her adorable comic eccentricities to Murray Grand’s delightful “April in Fairbanks.”
Bookwriter, lyricist and original cast member Tom Jones, who wrote the show with composer Harvey Schmidt, was on hand to welcome the audience and to quote Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V (“For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”) as a way of thanking those who have stuck with The Fantasticks, through good times and bad, throughout the gloriously simple musical’s 53 year history.
Though the phrase “museum piece” is often meant negatively in regards to theatre, the production that occupies what is now named The Jerry Orbach Theatre (He originated the lead role of El Gallo as an unknown 24-year-old and introduced the classic “Try To Remember.”) wears the label proudly.
About Michael: 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 Shea Stadium 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.
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