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Tony Frankel
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Theater Review: AVENUE Q (Revolution Stage Company in Palm Springs)
AVENUE Q GETS AN A+ Avenue Q, the delightful musical comedy which affectionately lampoons Sesame Street, opened last night to a packed house at Revolution Stage Company, and it’s a non-stop, positively adorable romp which will have you floating out of the theater, but the run is short, so don’t procrastinate to get seats. Songwriters Robert…
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Recommended Film: FIREWORKS (directed by Giuseppe Fiorello)
In his directorial debut, Italian TV star Giuseppe (“Beppe”) Fiorello creates a claustrophobic context for his fine film Fireworks (Stranizza d’amuri, which translates to “Miracle of Love”), an Italian picture that will be released on January 18, 2024, on DVD and VOD. With stunning cinematography by Ramiro Civita that evokes Sicily’s sunbaked desolation from the outside…
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Highly Recommended Concert: CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT (Samueli Hall at Segerstrom)
Hooray and hallelujah! Long before her CDs Ghost Song, The Window, and Dreams and Daggers — winning three consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album after being nominated in 2014 for her WomanChild — I have always been a fan of jazz vocalist and song interpreter extraordinaire Cécile McLorin Salvant. But seeing her live…
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Highly Recommended Album: HERE WE ARE (Original Cast Recording from Concord Theatricals)
The Original Cast Recording of Here We Are, the new musical from David Ives and Stephen Sondheim, was recorded earlier this week at Power Station at BerkleeNYC and will be released by Concord Theatricals Recordings in spring 2024. And I couldn’t be happier because, if for no other reason, the long exit music was one of Sondheim’s most stellar works….
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Highly Recommended Album: DISSOLVE (Richard Nelson and the Makrokosmos Orchestra)
With the 15-piece Makrokosmos Orchestra, composer/guitarist Richard Nelson takes a big picture, broad-spectrum view of contemporary creative music. The orchestra, a New York City outpost for the Maine-based Nelson and co-leader and saxophonist Tim O’Dell, encompasses influences from modern jazz and contemporary classical music, maneuvering deftly between ambitious compositions and adventurous improvisation. Due out February 2, 2024 from Adhyâropa Records on Bandcamp…
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Off-Broadway, Broadway Openings: ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY (2024-2025 Season)
With The Refuge Plays, English, Covenant (one of my favorite plays from 2023) and more, Roundabout continues to prove itself as a template for creating the best theater in the country. The 2024-2025 Season Line-Up has been announced. individual tickets will go on sale at a later date for Roundabout Subscription Series, call 212.719.1300 or visit Roundabout/Subscribe…
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Highly Recommended Album: ACOUSTIC MICROTONAL (Easley Blackwood’s “Twelve Microtonal Etudes” Arranged by Matthew Sheeran for Woodwinds, Brass, and Strings)
Brilliant arranger Matthew Sheeran turns Easley Blackwood’s Twelve Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media (1980) into an accessible, gorgeous chamber work. Honoring the one-year anniversary of Chicago-based microtonal composer Easley Blackwood, Jr.’s death, Chicago’s Cedille Records (pronounced say-DEE) releases on Jan 19, 2024, Acoustic Microtonal, a new and unconventional acoustic presentation of Blackwood’s Twelve Microtonal Etudes for…
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Theater Review: MJ The Musical (First National Tour)
MJ WANTS TO BE STARTIN’ SOMETHIN’ – AND DOES MJ The Musical, now on its first national tour, raises the bar for the bio-musical. It far exceeds a mere revue of Michael Jackson’s iconic music and performance choreography. Set in the rehearsal hall for Jackson’s 1992 Dangerous World Tour, the story follows a documentarian from…
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Highly Recommended Off-Broadway: MAKE ME GORGEOUS! (Extension at Playhouse 46 at St. Luke’s)
A GORGEOUS SHOW! An absolutely do-not-miss show at Playhouse 46 at St. Luke‘s, Make Me Gorgeous! is the reworking of several books by Kenneth aka Kate Marlowe, who has been described as one of the gayest and most openly homosexual personalities of the late 50s and early 60s. Make Me Gorgeous! is the fabulous and incredible…
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Highly Recommended Theater: TINY LITTLE TOWN: A NEW MUSICAL (Theatre Movement Bazaar at Broadwater Theater)
In Tiny Little Town — a new Musical Comedy reimagining Ukrainian playwright Nikolai Gogol’s 19th-century satire The Government Inspector, a small town in 1970s America is thrown into chaos when its corrupt bureaucrats mistakenly identify a visiting stranger from Washington D.C. as an incognito Inspector General sent by the Federal Government to investigate their town….
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Highly Recommended Concerts: CELEBRITY SERIES OF BOSTON (January 11 – March 17, 2024)
Hands down, one of the greatest selections of Celebrity Concerts in the country, the Celebrity Series of Boston should be the envy of any arts programming organization. This striking, diverse collection is a wonder, and tickets are now on sale for performances January 11 – March 17, 2024. (Tickets for March 19 onward go on…
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Highly Recommended Theater: SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (A Noise Within in Pasadena)
Diabolical comedy, stunning terror, razor-sharp wit and extraordinary, soaring music. A Noise Within presents Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the dark, brooding, yet sharply comic story of love, revenge and meat pies by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler that has become a modern classic. Opening on February 17, 2024 with co-artistic director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott at the helm, performances will continue at the company’s…
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Highly Recommended Film: ALL OF US STRANGERS (directed by Andrew Haigh; score by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch)
Inspired by the novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, writer/director Andrew Haigh plummets us into a world of a ghost-story fantasy romance filled with secrets. memory, regret, mourning, and love as few films do. Constantly surprising and emotional, it’s refreshing to have a movie with a gay couple at the center, yet it’s not about being…
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Highly Recommended Theater: DAVID DEAN BOTTRELL: THE DEATH OF ME YET (Rogue Machine at Matrix Theatre)
David Dean Bottrell returns to Rogue Machine on January 10, 2024 with his latest critically acclaimed, recently off-Broadway solo show, David Dean Bottrell: The Death of Me Yet. An uplifting evening about biting the dust. Bottrell, a versatile actor and accomplished storyteller, is set to grace the stage once more with an enthralling one-man show…
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Highly Recommended Broadway: UNCLE VANYA (Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont)
Running invisible endurance feats, the characters of Anton Chekhov expose what Henry David Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation.” When the good doctor’s creations, compassionately but uncompromisingly presented, break loose from boredom and emotional paralysis, it’s only to crash into unrequited love. Like T.S. Eliot’s forlorn J. Alfred Prufrock, they measure out their lives in…
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Recommended Theater: CHILDREN OF EDEN IN CONCERT (Manhattan Concert Productions, David Geffen Hall)
For one night only on February 18, 2024, Manhattan Concert Productions (MCP) will present the next installment of its Broadway Series: The beloved musical Children of Eden. Broadway veterans Tony Yazbeck (stage director) and Kimberly Grigsby (music director) will lead the chorus of over 350 singers from across the United States, a star-studded cast and…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE JERUSALEM SYNDROME (The York Theatre Company)
PRAY FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSICAL COMEDY Silly with an uncompelling story and no logical momentum, the new musical The Jerusalem Syndrome by York Theatre is surprisingly entertaining, but that’s due to the boffo cast and some bouncy Catskill revue-type songs. But it could have been so much more. Chandler Sinks and Company I say…
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Dance Review: DANCING WITH GLASS: THE PIANO ETUDES (Joyce Theatre)
GLASSING WITH DANCE It was a packed house at The Joyce last Friday for a new program, Dancing with Glass: The Piano Etudes. What’s the buzz? Well, surely it was that both Justin Peck and Lucinda Childs were each offering their own dance interpretations of a Philip Glass etude. The other featured choreographers are Chanon…
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Broadway Review: HARMONY (Barrymore Theatre)
HARMONY IS A MUST-SEE I absolutely recommend Harmony, which made a transfer from Off-Broadway to Broadway after being tinkered with for years. Composer Barry Manilow and librettist/lyricist Bruce Sussman’s entertaining, surprisingly melancholic new musical depicts the real-life story of the all-male singing ensemble, the Comedian Harmonists. With buttery, close harmonies, an excellent cast, and Warren Carlyle‘s fluid…
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Broadway Review: MONTY PYTHON’S SPAMALOT (St. James)
NOT DEAD YET, BUT CLOSE Another revival of the sometimes sassily sophomoric Spamalot, or rather Monty Python’s Spamalot, slammed onto Broadway with a hot-to-trot, eager-beaver and carnivorously comic production filled with Python’s “take no prisoners” spoofery, where every gag, sight or sound is grist for a very silly mill, especially that flying cow. Michael Urie,…
Off-Broadway Review: THE MAIDS (St. Ann’s Warehouse / Brooklyn)
by Gregory Fletcher | May 27, 2026
in New York, TheaterTheater Review: AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (TimeLine Theatre / Chicago)
by Croydon Fernandes | May 27, 2026
in Chicago, TheaterTheater Review: LE BAL (Trap Door Theatre / Chicago)
by Croydon Fernandes | May 26, 2026
in Chicago, Theater
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