![]() by Michael Dale - August 14, 2022 A while back. I was in an audience of theatre fans watching an onstage conversation between Frank Rich and Stephen Sondheim and the subject of unauthorized changes made in regional and amateur productions came up. The composer/lyricist mentioned that he had heard of a production of Company that ended with Bobby committing suicide by shooting himself. ![]() by Michael Dale - August 7, 2022 Like many theatre fans, I'd been reading the raves she's been getting as Beanie Feldstein's standby, and since I doubted press would be offered comps during her run, I sprung for a ticket to see for myself. ![]() by Michael Dale - July 31, 2022 A popular stage actor best known for being quirkily funny in musicals (Off-Broadway in March Of The Falsettos, on Broadway in Romance, Romance, The Secret Garden and Gypsy), Fraser reinvents a classic character and turns in a performance that thrills with its gutsy power masked by her character's well-rehearsed elegance. ![]() by Michael Dale - July 24, 2022 A collaboration of two of Off-Off-Broadway's favorite historically subversive companies, the HERE production of Cannabis! A Viper Vaudeville, presented at La Mama is an entrancingly fun and educational two-hour festival of song, dance and spoken word, beginning as a relaxing communal experience and evolving into a call for activism. ![]() by Michael Dale - July 17, 2022 Irondale is arranging for Ukrainian solider Oleg Onechchak's ensemble of child actors to give two performances in Brooklyn of Mom On Skype, which was originally performed in a warehouse-turned-bomb-shelter in the city of Lviv. ![]() by Michael Dale - July 10, 2022 With a name lending new urgency to a rhyming couplet from the African-American spiritual 'Mary, Don't You Weep' ('God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time') the annual Fire This Time Festival has produced dozens of ten-minutes plays in its mission to 'provide a platform for early-career playwrights from the African diaspora to explore new directions for 21st century theater'. ![]() by Michael Dale - July 3, 2022 The title refers to the 53% of white women who voted for Donald Trump in 2016, but that's just the starting point. ![]() by Michael Dale - June 26, 2022 The Mint brings back another forgotten gem by Elizabeth Baker and Martha Clarke explores the Biblical playboy who tossed it all. ![]() by Michael Dale - June 19, 2022 We're told that numbers don't lie, but when the numbers conflict with what we see in front of us, are they really telling the truth? ![]() by Michael Dale - June 12, 2022 Billy Aberle and Chris Sabol's Straight Forward is an original musical inspired by an article by Mike Iamele that went viral on social media in 2014, explaining how he began developing romantic and sexual feelings for his male best friend Garrett Lech, despite them both identifying as straight. ![]() by Michael Dale - June 5, 2022 Count Christine Carmela Herrero and Samora La Perdida as early favorites for Stage Pair of The Season, as they crackle with chemistry in Mara Vélez Meléndez's playfully packaged political outrage. ![]() by Michael Dale - May 29, 2022 Musical theatre fandom and body image issues in Ana Nogueira's hilarious and touching Which Way To The Stage. Also, Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks commences with Trish Harnetiaux's fun and offbeat California and jazz favorite Nancy Harrow scores a pair of Russian classics. ![]() by Michael Dale - May 22, 2022 When portraying a comedian in a play, sometimes getting the laugh is not the point. ![]() by Michael Dale - May 15, 2022 Three plays where what seems like the truth might be a subjective point of view. ![]() by Michael Dale - May 8, 2022 This week I saw a Broadway farce, an Off-Broadway history play and an Off-Off Broadway adaptation all written and directed by women. ![]() by Michael Dale - May 1, 2022 Seven Sins returns to Brooklyn, plus thoughts on Funny Girl and 'for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf' ![]() by Michael Dale - April 24, 2022 Immersive All The Mournful Voices takes audience members to a time that tore the country apart just as it was beginning to heal and Citizen Wong celebrates a 19th Century activist for Chinese American rights. ![]() by Michael Dale - April 17, 2022 Notes on David Greenspan in The Patsy, a Mets memory from Take Me Out and keeping track of New York theatre's Lenape Land Land Acknowledgements. ![]() by Michael Dale - April 10, 2022 Broken Box Mime Tackles Contemporary Issues, I get emotional at Suffs and Dominique Morisseau encourages laughter at Confederates. ![]() by Michael Dale - April 3, 2022 And Toto Too is riotously funny and remarkably true, Balkan Bordello arrives at La MaMa from Kosovo, and Gong Lum's Legacy combines romantic comedy with a controversial Supreme Court case. ![]() by Michael Dale - March 27, 2022 Notes on Rich Roy's autobiographical A White Man's Guide To Rikers Island, Sam Chanse's 'what you are now' and a Hamilton-related theatre landmark on St. Marks Place. ![]() by Michael Dale - March 20, 2022 Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley is an extraordinary recreation of A 1965 televised debate, Glass Town is a fun rock concert with a Bronte band, The Life gets reworked for Encores! and an O'Neill drama involving Andrew Jackson may be seen differently today. ![]() by Michael Dale - March 13, 2022 This week I saw productions of two decades-old musicals, each written by one of theatre's great composer/lyricists, which, in their original productions, ran a combined total of nine performances on Broadway. ![]() by Michael Dale - March 6, 2022 An audience participation panel discussion show that tours one-nighters around the country debates how to get dating right. ![]() by Michael Dale - February 27, 2022 A recreation of Eartha Kitt's brief speech at a White House event is the thrilling dramatic centerpiece of playwright/performer Dierdra McDowell's excellent solo play, Down To Eartha. |