All stories by Michael Dale on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

BWW Review: Musical Dating Adventure NEUROSIS Is Extremely Enjoyable Fluff by Michael Dale

While the exact location of composer Ben Green, lyricist Greg Edwards and bookwriter Allan Rice's funny and frothy new musical dating adventure, Neurosis, is never revealed, it's a safe bet …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 03:04AM
Monday, September 17, 2018

BWW Review: Richard Nelson Gives UNCLE VANYA The Rhinebeck Treatment by Michael Dale

For the better part of the present decade, playwrightdirector Richard Nelson has been going seriously Chekhovian, first with a quartet of plays set during the Obama years in the Rhinebeck, N…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:42AM
Thursday, September 13, 2018

BWW Review: Jen Silverman's Weird and Wonderful COLLECTIVE RAGE by Michael Dale

Eat your heart out, THE PERSECUTION AND ASSASSINATION OF JEAN-PAUL MARAT AS PERFORMED BY THE INMATES OF THE ASYLUM OF CHARENTON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE MARQUIS DE SADE. Paul Weiss' 1963 h…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:06AM
Friday, September 7, 2018

BWW Review: R.R.R.E.D. Warns of Genetic Extinction of Redheads by Michael Dale

There are times in musical theatre when a talented cast performing their hearts out can make questionable material not only endurable, but even somewhat enjoyable. Sadly, this is not the cas…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:32AM
Monday, August 27, 2018

BWW Review: The Mint Revives Lillian Hellman's Intriguing Labor Drama DAYS TO COME by Michael Dale

Perhaps if Clifford Odets' landmark pro-union drama, WAITING FOR LEFTY, hadn't opened the year before,Lillian Hellman's 1936 labor drama, DAYS TO COME, the sophomore Broadway effort of the p…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 01:18AM
Monday, August 20, 2018

BWW Review: Bland PRETTY WOMAN Is Not An Affair To Remember by Michael Dale

With an innocuous book more focused on moving to plot points than creating interesting leading characters and a platitude-heavy score that tends to linger on moments instead of expanding on …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 01:36AM
Thursday, August 16, 2018

BWW Review: GETTIN' THE BAND BACK TOGETHER Salutes A Different Breed of Jersey Boys by Michael Dale

The past several Broadway seasons have seen extraordinary developments in musical theatre, with a steady stream of new shows, usually transferring from non-profit Off-Broadway, offering smar…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:54AM
Monday, August 13, 2018

BWW Review: Austin Pendleton Creates a Shakespearean Combo in WARS OF THE ROSES: HENRY VI & RICHARD III by Michael Dale

The stage is quite empty, save for a makeshift throne in a corner and a couple of rows of ordinary looking chairs in the back, where actors not involved with scenes sit. The costumes are con…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 08:18AM
Saturday, August 11, 2018

BWW Review: Joe Iconis and Joe Tracz's Hard-Rocking, Super-Charged and Very Well Written BE MORE CHILL by Michael Dale

It may not have the romantic sweep of 'Some Enchanted Evening' or the driving intensity of 'Don't Rain On My Parade,' but so far, the best new theatre song of this young season is a finely-c…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 07:24PM
Wednesday, August 8, 2018

BWW Review: Renee Taylor's MY LIFE ON A DIET Is a Comedy Feast by Michael Dale

Back in the days, really not very long ago, when self-effacing gags about failed diets were one of the few topics of discussion deemed acceptable for women in comedy, the punchline Renee Tay…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:06AM
Tuesday, August 7, 2018

BWW Review: Israeli Star Sasson Gabay Revisits His Film Role in Broadway's THE BAND'S VISIT by Michael Dale

The last time an actor appeared in a Broadway musical playing a role he had previously essayed on film, it was 1983, when Anthony Quinn opened in the revival of ZORBA. Sharing that unusual d…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 01:33AM
Saturday, August 4, 2018

BWW Review: Karen Finley's Defiant GRABBING PUSSY Attacks Patriarchal Sexual Oppression by Michael Dale

One of the most exciting and important voices to emerge from the 1980s-90s American performance art movement, Karen Finley might be regarded as one of the country's most noted censored artis…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:06PM
Thursday, August 2, 2018

BWW Review: Public Works' Joyous Musical TWELFTH NIGHT Returns To The Delacorte by Michael Dale

The late afternoon and early evening rain that had been steadily falling last Friday didn't stop the faithful from arriving at Central Park's Delacorte Theater for Shakespeare In The Park's …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:24AM
Tuesday, July 31, 2018

BWW Review: Illusionist Vitaly Beckman Dazzles and Charms in VITALY: AN EVENING OF WONDERS by Michael Dale

'I sound like Borat and I look like Seinfeld,' jokes the Russian-accented illusionist Vitaly Beckman, who indeed sports a resemblance to 9th Avenue's most famous diner patron.

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:12AM
Saturday, July 28, 2018

BWW Review: Savion Glover Directs/Choreographs Micki Grant's Landmark DON'T BOTHER ME, I CAN'T COPE by Michael Dale

Coming in at the heels of landmark musicals like AIN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE A NATURAL DEATH and INNER CITY, composerlyricist Micki Grant's DON'T BOTHER ME, I CAN'T COPE was an important part of t…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 07:18PM
Friday, July 27, 2018

BWW Review: Sir Philip Sidney Meets The Go-Go's in Love-Happy Romp, HEAD OVER HEELS by Michael Dale

Fans of late 16th Century pastoral poetic narrative tragicomedy have been all abuzz anticipating the Broadway arrival of the new song and dance adaptation of a Sir Philip Sidney classic. But…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:24AM
Tuesday, July 24, 2018

BWW Review: Young Jean Lee's STRAIGHT WHITE MEN Returns to New York Faster, Funnier and Focused by Michael Dale

There was plenty to admire when playwrightdirector Young Jean Lee's STRAIGHT WHITE MEN opened at The Public Theater in November of 2014. Those familiar with the exceedingly non-traditional w…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:39AM
Monday, July 23, 2018

BWW Review: Joshua Bergasse Creates a Sensational New Style For the Leiber and Stoller Smash SMOKEY JOE'S CAFE by Michael Dale

When the smash hit revue SMOKEY JOE'S CAFE, celebrating the pop classics of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, opened on Broadway in 1995, director Jerry Zaks staged each beloved number with sna…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:36AM
Saturday, July 21, 2018

BWW Review: Tracy Letts' MARY PAGE MARLOWE Offers Random Moments That Add Up To A Life by Michael Dale

'If life were only moments, then you'd never know you had one,' sings a character from Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's INTO THE WOODS while pondering whether the intimate encounter she j…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:15PM
Tuesday, July 17, 2018

BWW Review: Rebecca Naomi Jones is Terrifically Engaging in Rinne Groff's Coney Island Excursion, FIRE IN DREAMLAND by Michael Dale

It's a classically-styled cinematic pose. The kind that tends to define a certain era of film noir. A woman stands alone on the Coney Island boardwalk on a chilly day. Covered in a tan trenc…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:32AM
Monday, July 16, 2018

BWW Review: The Late Michael Friedman's GONE MISSING Evokes an Emotional Response From Encores! Off-Center Audience by Michael Dale

The person seated in the back of the orchestra section on opening night of the Encores Off-Center concert mounting of GONE MISSING, who was loudly sobbing during the closing song, was by no …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:12AM
Thursday, July 12, 2018

BWW Review: High School Machiavellian With Cerebral Palsy Claws His Way To Power in Michael Lew's Shakespeare Riff TEENAGE DICK by Michael Dale

'Now that the winter formal gives way to glorious spring fling,' recites our antihero at the outset of Mike Lew's enormously clever contemporary riff on Shakespeare's RICHARD III, titled Tee…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:12AM
Saturday, July 7, 2018

BWW Review: Anika Noni Rose is Captivating , But John Doyle Heavily Edits Oscar Hammerstein's CARMEN JONES by Michael Dale

This is not shaping up to be a good year for Oscar Hammerstein II, American musical theatre's most important writer, who spent the first half of the 20th Century not only making significant …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:42PM
Monday, July 2, 2018

BWW Review: Jesse Tyler Ferguson As A Gay Man Facing His Own Privilege in Jordan Harrison's LOG CABIN by Michael Dale

'We're all fully interested in navigating this brave new world with them,' says an exasperated character in Jordan Harrison's comedy of social politics, Log Cabin, 'but it sometimes seems li…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:04AM
Saturday, June 30, 2018

BWW Review: SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD Reveals The Remarkable Artistic Maturity of a Young Jason Robert Brown by Michael Dale

Jason Robert Brown was just 25 years old when his SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD took the stage of Off-Broadway's intimate WPA Theatre. As he played piano and led the handful of musicians in director…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:58AM
Friday, June 29, 2018

BWW Review: Carey Mulligan Considers Violence and Gender in Dennis Kelly's GIRLS & BOYS by Michael Dale

Perhaps some of the good people at Britain's Royal Court are in need of a hug these days. This week New York playgoers welcomed two transfers of exceedingly violent productions from that cel…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:42AM
Wednesday, June 27, 2018

BWW Review: Stephen Rea is Chillingly Understated in David Ireland's CYPRUS AVENUE by Michael Dale

On the surface, the plot of CYPRUS AVENUE is just a little too weird to take seriously, and that's one of the strengths of David Ireland's creepy drama, as director Vicky Featherstone, Artis…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 06:42PM
Tuesday, June 26, 2018

BWW Review: Donja R. Love's SUGAR IN OUR WOUNDS Depicts Gay Love Between Slaves During The Civil War by Michael Dale

The existence of queer people of color, particularly of African descent, has repeatedly been washed over, or forgotten altogether, writes Donja R. Love, whose SUGAR IN OUR WOUNDS is receivin…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 08:42PM
Sunday, June 24, 2018

BWW Review: Antoinette Nwandu's PASS OVER, A Tightly Written Bit Of Urban Absurdism by Michael Dale

If upon entering a theatre, the stage is populated by a young black man sleeping under a street lamp as another young black man quietly scrutinizes all in attendance, while the pre-show musi…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 03:36PM
Friday, June 22, 2018

BWW Review: Problem Solved! Wild West Shakespeare Musical DESPERATE MEASURES is Hilarious and Tuneful by Michael Dale

David Friedman and Peter Kellogg may be billed, respectively, as composer and bookwriterlyricists of the rollickingly fun new musical comedy DESPERATE MEASURES, which has just moved from the…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 07:29PM
Wednesday, June 20, 2018

BWW Review: Angelina Fiordellisi and Michael O'Keefe Are Charming As Older Leftists in Charles Mee's FIRST LOVE by Michael Dale

Is there anything more charming than watching two older people falling in love Well, perhaps. Like when the romance occurs, as instructed by playwright Charles Mee in his 2001 one-act, FIRST…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:48AM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic
TBA: Ragtime