All stories by Michael Dale on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

BWW Review: Prepubescent Battles Rage in Clare Barron's Exhilarating DANCE NATION by Michael Dale

'How're you gonna cap off your prepubescent years', a stony-faced teacher asks his competitive dance team members, shortly after winning a competition that saw one of their own suffer a seas…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:54AM
Tuesday, May 8, 2018

BWW Review: Rocker Grandmom Clashes With Her Gospel-Singing Daughter in Sweet and Funny Musical UNEXPECTED JOY by Michael Dale

Though the characters in bookwriterlyricist Bill Russell and composer Janet Hood's sweet, funny and very entertaining new musical UNEXPECTED JOY are all women, there's a guy in the mix who s…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:52AM
Sunday, May 6, 2018

BWW Review: Marin Ireland Delivers a Must-See Performance in Tennessee Williams' SUMMER AND SMOKE by Michael Dale

Despite only three Broadway credits, Marin Ireland must be regarded as one of the absolute best actors to regularly grace New York stages during this century. Through her steady work Off-Bro…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:48PM
Wednesday, May 2, 2018

BWW Review: Denzel Washington Stars in George C. Wolfe's Oddly-Energized Mounting of Eugene O'Neill's THE ICEMAN COMETH by Michael Dale

Escaping disillusionment through the comfort of alcohol while clinging to hopeless pipe dreams is rarely depicted with such crackling energy as it is in director George C. Wolfe's puzzling p…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:33AM
Monday, April 30, 2018

BWW Review: The Mobile Unit Brings Free Performances of Shakespeare's HENRY V To The Public by Michael Dale

'Raise your hand if you've ever been underestimated,' instructs Program Director Stephanie Ybarra before every performance of Shakespeare's HENRY V, as performed by The Public Theater's Mobi…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:42AM
Sunday, April 29, 2018

BWW Review: Shaw's SAINT JOAN Gains Fresh Relevance As Condola Rashad Plays a Teen Inspiring a National Movement by Michael Dale

The title character of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan was burned at the stake nearly 500 years before the play premiered at Broadway's Garrick Theatre in December of 1923, but for many vie…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:06AM
Wednesday, April 25, 2018

BWW Review: Tom Stoppard's TRAVESTIES or A Novelist, A Communist and A Dadaist Walk Into A Library by Michael Dale

Czech-born British dramatist Tom Stoppard, whose densely intellectual plays may be the most potent augment known for America's need to step up its public education funding, was first noticed…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:33AM
Tuesday, April 24, 2018

BWW Review: LaChanze, Ariana DeBose and Storm Lever Share The Title Role in SUMMER: THE DONNA SUMMER MUSICAL by Michael Dale

Now, if you want to sing along, you just go right ahead and sing, the hostess of Broadway's newest musical advises her audience at the top of the show. And if you want to dance, go 'head, fl…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:18AM
Monday, April 23, 2018

BWW Review: A Complete Neophyte's Guide To HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD by Michael Dale

If, like this theatre reviewer, you've managed to survive the last twenty years without reading a word of J.K. Rowling's wildly popular series of Harry Potter novels, nor taking in a screeni…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 03:24AM
Friday, April 20, 2018

BWW Review: Bartlett Sher's Contemporary Spin On MY FAIR LADY Allows Lerner and Loewe's Musical To Speak For Itself by Michael Dale

From SOUTH PACIFIC to THE KING AND I to FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and now MY FAIR LADY, director Bartlett Sher has been spending the better part of this young century perfecting his method of moun…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:48AM
Wednesday, April 18, 2018

BWW Review: Lynn Nottage's Ivory Trade Drama MLIMA'S TALE Honors The Beauty of The Beast by Michael Dale

When I was young I was taught by my grandmother to listen to the night, says the title character of Lynn Nottage's nobly lyrical drama of the ivory trade, MLIMA'S TALE.

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:06AM
Monday, April 16, 2018

BWW Review: Lindsey Ferrentino's THIS FLAT EARTH Explores a Child's Reaction to a School Shooting by Michael Dale

The willingness to suspend disbelief is a long-standing tradition in live theatre, and as long as playwrights and directors firmly establish their boundaries of realism, it's reasonable for …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:06AM
Friday, April 13, 2018

BWW Review: Joshua Henry Thrills in Jack O'Brien's Drastically Edited Version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's CAROUSEL by Michael Dale

During the first half of the 20th Century, there was no artist as important to the development of American musical theatre from strictly light entertainment to a legitimate dramatic art form…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:51AM
Thursday, April 12, 2018

BWW Review: Echoes of G.B. Shaw in Mark Medoff's CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD by Michael Dale

While audiences gather at Lincoln Center to see Lerner and Lowe's musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's classic, there's a different kind of Pygmalion story being played out at Studio …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:49AM
Wednesday, April 11, 2018

BWW Review: Quiara Alegr?a Hudes and Erin McKeown's MISS YOU LIKE HELL Explores The Emotional and Political Walls That Can Separate a Mother and Daug by Michael Dale

The current American president is never mentioned in bookwriterlyricist Quiara Alegria Hudes and composerlyricist Erin McKeown's lovely and touching chamber musical MISS YOU LIKE HELL. But e…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:10AM
Monday, April 9, 2018

BWW Review: High School Life Gets Un-Cliqued in Tina Fey, Nell Benjamin and Jeff Richmond's MEAN GIRLS by Michael Dale

There's a theory, hopefully an accurate one, that the things that make you an outcast in high school are the things that make you awesome as an adult. And maybe that's why scenes in the buoy…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 06:22AM
Saturday, April 7, 2018

BWW Review: Immersive AMPARO Tells The Rags To Riches To Revolution Tale Behind Havana Club Rum by Michael Dale

Magazine ads and television commercials may reach millions more, but perhaps the highest compliment I can pay Havana Club Rum's immersive theatre experience, AMPARO, is that it effectively g…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:53AM
Sunday, April 1, 2018

Stephen Sondheim To Make Guest Appearance, Premiere New Song, On Crazy Ex-Girlfriend by Michael Dale

Broadway's legendary composerlyricist Stephen Sondheim will be making a guest appearance next season on Rachel Bloom's musical romantic comedy television series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend in an epi…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 08:27AM
Saturday, March 31, 2018

BWW Review: Dan Lauria Stars As An Eccentric Children's Book Author in THE STONE WITCH by Michael Dale

Older character men hungry for fresh scenery to chew will certainly look forward to the day when Shem Bitterman's The Stone Witch becomes available for regional and amateur productions.

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 12:20PM
Friday, March 30, 2018

BWW Review: Retired From Parliament, Glenda Jackson Returns to Broadway in Edward Albee's THREE TALL WOMEN by Michael Dale

It's been nearly three decades since the superb stage artist Glenda Jackson took her last opening night bow on Broadway, playing Lady Macbeth in 1988. Since then she's been working in the so…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:00AM
Thursday, March 29, 2018

BWW Review: Classical Standards Play Second Fiddle to Power Anthems in ROCKTOPIA by Michael Dale

As with the Broadway season's earlier pop concert extravaganza, HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, this theatre critic readily admits to not exactly being an ideal arts journalist to authoritatively rev…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:14AM
Tuesday, March 27, 2018

BWW Review: Kenneth Lonergan's LOBBY HERO Debates Doing The Wrong Thing For The Right Reason by Michael Dale

The best news coming out of 44th Street these days is that the refurbishing of the Helen Hayes Theater has been completed and that Second Stage, while retaining its longtime Off-Broadway hom…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:38AM
Monday, March 26, 2018

BWW Review: ANGELS IN AMERICA Revival Flies In The Face of Trump Presidency by Michael Dale

It wasn't exactly a stellar weekend for Donald Trump. Nationwide protest rallies condemned his party's relationship with the NRA, a woman revealed on national television that her life was th…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:26AM
Sunday, March 25, 2018

BWW Review: In GRAND HOTEL, Berlin's Celebration of Decadent Luxury Fails To See The Horrors Ahead by Michael Dale

Though the songwriting team of Robert Wright amp George Forrest is best remembered by Broadway enthusiasts for adapting the music of Edvard Grieg into SONG OF NORWAY and similarly using the …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:00PM
Friday, March 23, 2018

BWW Review: Patti Murin Is A Ray of Sunshine in Disappointingly Perfunctory FROZEN by Michael Dale

It was less than five years ago when little girls around the globe were presented with a computer-animated rebellious role model who was fed up with hiding her true self to conform to other …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:01AM
Monday, March 19, 2018

BWW Review: Company XIV's CINDERELLA, An Enchanted Evening of Erotic Fun by Austin McCormick by Michael Dale

Typically, the immediate attraction between Cinderella and the handsome prince is presented as simply a matter of physical chemistry, but in Company XIV's newest variation of Charles Perraul…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:20AM
Friday, March 16, 2018

BWW Review: Jimmy Buffett Jukeboxer ESCAPE TO MARGARITAVILLE is Breezy, Mindless Fun by Michael Dale

The smiling, bobbing head and swaying shoulders of the self-proclaimed Parrothead who accompanied this Jimmy Buffett neophyte to the breezy fun new jukebox musical comedy, ESCAPE TO MARGARIT…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:52AM

BWW Review: White Liberals Preach Diversity But Practice Privilege in Joshua Harmon's Hilarious ADMISSIONS by Michael Dale

Innovative genius Norman Lear will forever be remembered for expanding the limits of what television comedy could do by bringing Archie Bunker, and his everyday brand of casual and not-so-ca…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 12:40AM
Tuesday, March 13, 2018

BWW Review: Bruce Norris' Economic Commentary THE LOW ROAD is a Rollicking Anti-Candide by Michael Dale

Teaser There is a knockout of a surprise moment, cleverly devised and wonderfully played, contained within Pulitzer-winner Bruce Norris' mini-epic THE LOW ROAD, now getting a rollicking prod…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:52AM
Monday, March 12, 2018

BWW Review: Martyna Majok's QUEENS Provides an Intriguing Profile of Contemporary Immigrant Women by Michael Dale

'We take care homes,' a Polish immigrant living in New York's Borough of Queens bluntly explains to a young newcomer from Ukraine who has yet to get settled.'Us kinds people, we take care ho…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 08:52AM
Wednesday, March 7, 2018

BWW Review: Jayne Houdyshell and Pascale Armand Confront Generational and Racial Feminist Divides in RELEVANCE by Michael Dale

Historically, it hasn't been unusual for writers like Amantine Lucile Dupin better known as George Sand and Nelle Harper Lee published as Harper Lee to take on traditionally male or androgyn…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:24AM

All that Chat

2025-2026 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 12, 2025: Call Me Izzy - Studio 54
Sep 16, 2025: Art - Music Box Theatre
Oct 08, 2025: Beetlejuice - Palace Theatre
Nov 13, 2025: Oedipus - Studio 54
Nov 16, 2025: Chess - Imperial Theatre
Mar 23, 2026: Giant - Music Box Theatre
Apr 06, 2026: Becky Shaw - Hayes Theater
Apr 16, 2026: Proof - Booth Theatre
Apr 26, 2026: Drama Desk Cut-Off