Matthew Michaels

Before Dear Evan Hansen and The Greatest Showman came Dogfight, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's 2012 off-Broadway musical. It tells the story of a group of marines' last night of debauchery in San Francisco before being shipped out to war in 1963. This gritty story of love and deception has been revived as part of the British Theatre Academy's 2019 summer season at Southwark Playhouse.

When is desire not enough? Former lovers are reunited and grapple with this and other questions in a new production of SKYLIGHT. From esteemed playwright David Hare, the play has graced the stages of the West End and Broadway and is now playing in Princeton, New Jersey. SKYLIGHT is the final show of director Emily Mann's penultimate season as artistic director and resident playwright of McCarter. SKYLIGHT opens with Kyra coming home to her dilapidated apartment with groceries. A schoolteacher in her thirties, Kyra lives alone without central heating and works with children who have been deemed by some as a lost cause, a charity case for someone with as much intelligence and talent as Kyra possesses.

BroadwayWorld presents a comprehensive weekly roundup of regional stories around our Broadway World, which include videos, editor spotlights, regional reviews and more. This week, we feature Lea Michele in THE LITTLE MERMAID, THE FLAMINGO KID at Hartford Stage, DEAR EVAN HANSEN in Toronto and More!

Church, thy name is theater. Shakespeare@ kicks off their inaugural run in Jersey City with a sharp production of HAMLET. William Shakespeare's Danish tragedy of revenge and mental insanity transforms the space of Grace Church Van Vorst, a New Jersey Episcopal church on the National Registry of Historic Places. The first few minutes of this HAMLET are in Wittenberg as the prince studies beside his school chums with inaudible whispers; the rest, as they say, is silence. The audience does not hear any dialogue until Hamlet begins his famous 'to be or not to be' soliloquy, moved up from Act 3 to be juxtaposed with Hamlet reading a letter and learning of his father's death. Beneath the scene, the sound of what seems to be a ticking clock quickly turns into the pulsating heart beat of Hamlet as he begins his swift descent into madness.

The jazz king of Harlem is alive and well in Newark, New Jersey. In honor of the 120th anniversary of his birth next month, Crossroads Theater Company and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center have co-produced a short run of DUKE ELLINGTON'S SOPHISTICATED LADIES. The musical revue, which originally made its way to Broadway in 1981, includes all of Ellington's best-known standards, including 'In A Sentimental Mood,' 'I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good,' and 'Mood Indigo.' This collaborative production at NJPAC is directed by Andre De Shields.

Esteemed playwright Ken Ludwig, winner of multiple Tony and Olivier Awards, introduced his newest piece at The McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, New Jersey. KEN LUDWIG'S THE GODS OF COMEDY opened to rapturous laughter and a receptive audience thanks to a bright production and terrific performances. THE GODS OF COMEDY opens, appropriately enough, in the birthplace of Western theater. In modern day Greece, we are introduced to Daphne (played by Shay Vawn), a young, career-oriented, tenure-track classics professor working on a translation and performance of Euripides' MADEA for her thesis. Although the set and lighting are fantastic in the short opening scene, and the play centers around Greek theater and mythology, the introduction is light on humor and there isn't proper motivation to set it away from the rest of the show.

Broadwayworld welcomes this guest review by Matthew Michaels on Harold Pinter's 'The Caretaker' presented by Hudson Theater Works. The show will be on stage until March 10.

Broadwayworld welcomes this guest review by Matthew Michaels. Matthew attended 'SIGNIFICANT OTHER' at Black Box PAC in Teaneck.

'Who Tells Your Story?: The Contemporary Songbook Project IV': In its 4th edition, Evynne Hollens' Contemporary Songbook Project is a celebration of the best of the new generation of songwriters working in the world of post-modern musical theatre.

Kevin Cahoon, Megan Lawrence, Constantine Maroulis, Catherine Brunell and other stars performed in the Gotham Stage Company's (GSC) first annual benefit performance, A Night in Gotham, which took place on October 9th at the Lucille Lortel Theatre