1,396 stories by "Tony Frankel"
FRIED, STEWED OR BROILED, THIS FISH WILL NEVER TASTE GOOD So here’s what baffles me: A show which is middling at best is suddenly showing up at regional, community and high school thea…
DANCE DELIRIUM As jukebox musicals go, the rags-to-riches bio On Your Feet! definitely earns its exclamation point. No question, the upbeat tunes, with their irresistible Cuban-fusi…
THE MONTALBÃN MIXES MOVIES, MINGLING AND MERRY MASTICATING Always fun, outdoor cinema hits the summer ether like the smell of fresh cut grass and smoked meat (or is that fresh cut meat an…
BETTER THAN FAIR As musical revivals went from a few nostalgic productions in the 1970s to the ubiquity of resurrections we see today — both from the Golden Age (Porter, Rodgers and Ha…
SWEETER THE SECOND TIME AROUND It's like kicking a puppy dog to dislike Charity Hope Valentine. Charity is the heroine of the 1966 musical Sweet Charity — a strange amalgam of high hop…
ALL TOO HUMAN Stephen Karam's remarkable Tony-winning play The Humans — which is winding up its national tour at the Ahmanson with members of the Broadway production — …
DON’T LET THIS PARADE PASS YOU BY With no intentions of reviewing, I attended 3-D Theatricals’ astounding rendition of Parade, bookwriter Alfred Uhry and composer/lyricist Jas…
ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH Eugene O'Neill twice turned his troubled youth into all-absorbing drama. His family first appeared as a happy tangle of eccentric loved ones in Ah, Wilderness!, a h…
ON CONFORMING AND CHRIST Ah, what better fodder for drama is there than the dysfunctional American family? You know the ingredients: accusations hurled back and forth by the walking wounded;…
BREAKING DOWN FENCES An American requiem, an oratorio, and a choral masterpiece elegantly and movingly performed, Considering Matthew Shepard, which closes tonight at the Ford Amphitheatre, …
FLY TO THIS NEST Boy oh boy, if you like immersive theater, than check yourself into the madhouse over in Burbank. When the rebellious, charismatic and playful Randle McMurphy gets reassigne…
SORRY TO BURST YOUR BABBLE In this unfortunate world premiere, the winsome cast begins with angry pessimistic post-millennial Benji (Will Choi), an Asian-American comic book artist whose bos…
PIRATES STEALS YOUR HEART Music Theater Works just unleashed 140 minutes of undiluted ecstasy and hilarious nonsense, and the lucky location is Northwestern University's Cahn Auditorium in E…
LULA’S BACK IN TOWN The Ford Theatres presents Lula Washington Dance Theatre (LWDT) on Friday, June 8 at 8:30pm, as part of its IGNITE @ the FORD! series. For this joyous evening of da…
COME TO THIS CABARET Aside from the fact that it will sell out quickly, there are a number of reasons to rush out and get tickets for Celebration Theatre’s revival of Cabaret. First…
WHILE HARDLY REVELATIONAL, A REVVED-UP REVIVAL BECOMES RELATABLE It’s a miracle. After seeing the original 2005 musical adaption, it seemed that nothing could fix this show. But the…
CELEBRATING BROADWAY ROYALTY When I tell you that the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the revue covering Harold Prince’s oeuvre mostly works, it’s an enormous compliment. For…
NO SHY VIOLET Based on The Ugliest Pilgrim, a short story by Doris Betts, Violet — with book and lyrics by Brian Crawley and music by Jeanine Tesori — takes place in 1964 and fol…
FILLING THE VOID IN L.A. THEATER Neither my friend nor I were looking forward to this play — I mean, good grief, when I heard that it was about a couple of “fools” going on…
BLENDING BANANAS AND BORSCHT Mark Harelik's 1985 play The Immigrant is based on the story of his grandparents, Haskell and Leah Gorehlik, immigrants from Russia who settled in the tiny centr…
SPLITSVILLE Five years after its world premiere, L.A. is just now getting Amy Herzog’s disturbing domestic thriller. Both praised and not, the controversy with this one-act has been…
AN UPDATED BABY IS STILL CAPTIVATING THEATER For all its melodrama, Jane Anderson's The Baby Dance has always been one of my favorite plays since I first saw it at Pasadena Playhouse in 1990…
A HONEYMOON IN GLENDALE More fun than walking away a few bucks ahead from a black jack table, this pell-mell, silly-sweet, old-fashioned musical comedy (ya know, gangsters, lovers, Elvis imp…
EAGER FOR EGAN It was sheer luck that I've been able to see Broadway Baby Susan Egan in over 10 shows since the mid-1980s. From intimate stages (Babes at the Matrix; Hello, Again at the Blan…
WEST SIDE GLORY It's a relief that Chita Rivera, one of the last great holdovers from the Golden Age of Broadway is still performing today, and you'll get only one-night — Thursday May…
