All stories by Tony Frankel on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Los Angeles Music Preview: CARMINA BURANA & CHICHESTER PALMS (Los Angeles Master Chorale on September 23 & 24, 2017, at Disney Hall) by Tony Frankel

WHERE DO YOU GET ORFF..? There are some entertainments that bear repeating: Los Angeles Master Chorale has visited Carl Orff’s pagan-fest, Carmina Burana, under each of their music dire…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:00PM
Sunday, August 27, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: RHINOCEROS (Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice) by Tony Frankel

LIFE IS AN ABSURD BUSINESS It’s an absurdist masterwork, yet it is rarely produced in the States. A disquieting parable which warns against the herd mentality, Eugène Ionesco’s thre…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:49PM
Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES (Sierra Madre Playhouse) by Tony Frankel

IT WONDERS ME It’s uncanny that ever since Roger Bean wrote and directed this asinine jukebox musical in 1999, it’s lightweight nostalgia factor and updated arrangements of 50s and 6…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:26AM
Monday, August 7, 2017

CD Review: IRVING BERLIN’S HOLIDAY INN (Original Broadway Cast on Ghostlight Records) by Tony Frankel

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE OK, let’s get the confusion out of the way. If you’re not at all familiar with the Paramount films Holiday Inn and White Christmas, listening to the just-…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:28AM
Friday, August 4, 2017

San Diego Theater Preview: KEN LUDWIG’S ROBIN HOOD (The Old Globe) by Tony Frankel

THE GLOBE GOES BACK INTO THE WOODS Ken Ludwig is arguably the leading comic dramatist in the American theater, and with Robin Hood! he has fashioned an extraordinary new take on the legend…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:47AM
Friday, July 28, 2017

San Diego Theater Preview: PIPPIN (San Diego Junior Theatre at the Casa del Prado Theatre) by Tony Frankel

DON’T BE SKIPPIN’ PIPPIN Here’s a can’t-miss opportunity: San Diego Junior Theatre is presenting the perky but dark 1972 musical, Pippin. Don’t be fooled by the…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:44PM
Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: PARADE (Chance Theater) by Tony Frankel

SEE IT BEFORE THIS PARADE PASSES YOU BY The emotionally pile-driving Parade by bookwriter Alfred Uhry and composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown reprises an ugly and evergreen tragedy. Their…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:45PM
Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Los Angeles Theater/Music Review: SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM (Hollywood Bowl) by Tony Frankel

A GOOD THING GOING; GOING, GOING… Sondheim on Sondheim, which had a short run on Broadway in 2010, offers both songs and personal musings from one of Broadway’s greatest composer/lyr…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:47PM
Friday, July 21, 2017

San Diego Theater Review: GUYS AND DOLLS (The Old Globe’s Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage) by Tony Frankel

A FEW BLEMISHES CAN’T MAR THIS BEAUTIFUL DOLL It’s amazing. Were this masterpiece from Broadway’s golden age an actual guy or doll, he or she would be scoring Social Securi…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM
Wednesday, July 19, 2017

London Theatre Preview: ANGELS IN AMERICA (National Theatre Live Screening) by Tony Frankel

ANGELS IN AMERICA APPROACHES In two sprawling works written in the 1980’s, Tony Kushner brought alive the American national scene of the 1980’s and early 1990’s, mixing raw natural…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:34PM
Tuesday, July 18, 2017

San Diego Theater Review: AT THE OLD PLACE (La Jolla Playhouse) by Tony Frankel

OUT OF PLACE Well, that was pointless. Entertaining to a point, but pointless. I had a feeling about two minutes into At the Old Place that something was wrong dramatically. A woman shows up…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:03PM
Friday, July 14, 2017

Los Angeles/Regional Theater Preview: THE TEMPEST (Shakespeare Orange County in Garden Grove) by Tony Frankel

ENCHANTED FORGIVENESS Shakespeare Orange County (SOC) has used local community members alongside professional actors to reinvent Shakespeare as a way to offer thoughts about inclusiveness an…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:18AM
Monday, July 10, 2017

Regional Theater Preview: THE GRAND TOUR (Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach) by Tony Frankel

TAKE A GRAND TOUR WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR SEAT Pageant of the Masters, now in its 83rd year, is a singularly unique entertainment that has perfected the art of tableaux vivants (“living pic…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:08PM
Sunday, July 9, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: MARY POPPINS (Musical Theatre West in Long Beach) by Tony Frankel

MARY‘S POPPIN’ OUT ALL OVER Not just the quintessentially “practically perfect” nanny, Mary Poppins is a kind of cosmic cure. Given the state of our disunion, we probably nee…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:36AM
Thursday, July 6, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: THE CAKE (The Echo Theater Company in Atwater Village) by Tony Frankel

TRIPLE-LAYERED CAKE Thirty-something Jen (Shannon Lucio) is torn. She wants her deceased mother’s best friend, Della (Debra Jo Rupp), a talented but struggling baker, to create her we…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:52PM
Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Los Angeles Cabaret Review: HELLO, AGAIN! THE SONGS OF ALLAN SHERMAN (Linden Waddell at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre) by Tony Frankel

MY DAUGHTER, THE CABARET SINGER This year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival has given me new hope for the art of cabaret: Black and White in Paris offered standards dripping in style; Psych…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:01AM

San Diego Theater Review: AIDA (Moonlight Stage Productions in Vista) by Tony Frankel

AIDA GETS THE AID IT NEEDS There are two beautiful reincarnations with Moonlight’s production of Aida, a 2000 Disney outing that never would have seen the light of day were it not for the …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM
Thursday, June 22, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD (Worst First Kiss Productions at the McCadden Place Theatre) by Tony Frankel

A VERY GOOD GRIEF This funny but disturbing update of Charles M. Schultz’s Peanuts comic strip first arrived at the Blank Theatre, after which Worst First Kiss Productions wisely util…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:41PM
Saturday, June 17, 2017

San Diego Theater Review: THE SPITFIRE GRILL (North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach) by Tony Frankel

GRILLED TO PERFECTION North Coast Rep’s rendition of James Valcq and Fred Alley’s simple musical The Spitfire Grill demonstrates two things: the redemptive power of acceptance, forgivene…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:03PM
Friday, June 16, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: A SOLDIER’S PLAY (Sacred Fools Theater) by Tony Frankel

THE WAR WITHIN THE WAR As sturdily written and swiftly moving as it was in 1982, Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play remains an enduring testament to the home front battles that African-Am…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:05PM
Wednesday, June 14, 2017

CD Review: CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (Original Broadway Cast) by Tony Frankel

FREE WILLY Imagine if cast recordings from the fifties and sixties recorded out-of-town tryouts, then changed material, then recorded the Broadway production, then changed material, then op…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:53PM
Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: FUCK TINDER: A LOVE STORY (Sacred Fools Theatre in Hollywood) by Tony Frankel

IT’S LIKE REAL LIFE, BUT BETTER About a decade ago, I was having a miserable time dating. The age of electronica was firmly in place, and chat rooms, lengthy bios, and requested cock s…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:42PM
Monday, June 12, 2017

Los Angeles Cabaret Review: BLACK & WHITE IN PARIS: A CABARET MUSICAL (Stage 12 at Sunset Las Palmas Studios) by Tony Frankel

OOH-LA-LA Where am I? Is this a dream? Just when you thought cabaret in Los Angeles was on life support comes this bar of gold at the Hollywood Fringe. Do not miss this extravaganza of refr…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:08PM

Los Angeles Theater Review: ANDY: THE RED-NOSED WARHOLA (La-La Land Gallery) by Tony Frankel

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT A WARHOL If you thought Pop Artist Andy Warhol only referenced and defined mass culture and consumerism through replicated images of Campbell’s soup cans and Mari…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:18PM
Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: RED FLAGS (Capital W at the Hollywood Fringe Festival) by Tony Frankel

FLAGGED DOWN Who hasn’t walked away from some bad dates thinking, “Jesus, that was like being in a play.” Well, now Capital W — a theater company that offers unconve…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:22AM
Thursday, June 1, 2017

Los Angeles Concert Preview: BROADWAY: THE GOLDEN AGE (Michael Feinstein, Liza Minnelli, Storm Large & the Pasadena POPS) by Tony Frankel

 MICHAEL FEINSTEIN! LIZA MINNELLI! STORM LARGE! JOEL GREY! BROADWAY! No one can argue that Michael Feinstein—charismatic, appealing, boyish, excited, and eager to please—has singlehande…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:46PM

San Diego Theater Preview: THE IMAGINARY INVALID (Fiasco Theater at The Old Globe) by Tony Frankel

AN IMAGINARY IMAGINARY Back in March, Roundabout Theatre announced their plans for 2017. After collaborating with Fiasco Theater on their acclaimed paired-down production of Into the Woods …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:53PM
Sunday, May 28, 2017

Los Angeles Music Preview: LUX AETERNA 20TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT (Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall) by Tony Frankel

SHINE ON, ETERNAL LIGHT In just twenty years of existence, Morten Lauridsen’s gorgeous choral masterwork Lux Aeterna has become one of the most performed works worldwide. Under direction …

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:39PM
Friday, May 26, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: BATTLEFIELD (Peter Brook’s production at The Wallis in Beverly Hills) by Tony Frankel

SNOB HIT Well, that was boring. Of all the people on the planet who should understand the difference between theater and an underwhelming fringe entry (low cost and well-meaning with no set…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:58PM
Monday, May 22, 2017

Los Angeles Theater Review: LUCKY STIFF (Actors Co-op in Hollywood) by Tony Frankel

A LIMP STIFF Before composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens were, well, the Flaherty and Ahrens who created Once on This Island, Ragtime, Suessical, et al., they were a young up…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:58AM
Saturday, May 20, 2017

Theater Review: JERSEY BOYS (2017-18 National Tour) by Tony Frankel

JERSEY CASH COW Jersey Boys, the terrific 2004 jukebox musical inspired by the story of pop sensation Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons, is one of the greatest triumphs in Broadway histor…

SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:54AM