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Tony Frankel
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Off-Broadway Theater: 2023 QUEERLY FESTIVAL (UNDER St. Marks & The Kraine Theater)
QUEERILY, WE ROLL ALONG From June 15-July 3, 2023, the 9th annual Queerly Festival hits The Kraine Theater (85 E 4th St) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl), Most performances will also be available to livestream from home. Tickets ($25 in-person; $20 streaming) are available for advance purchase at Frigid. Founded in 2014,…
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Recommended Theater: A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD (Morgan-Wixson Theatre Youth Production)
HOP INTO SPRING Friendship is among the hardest subjects to parse, but this musical based on Arnold Lobel’s “Frog and Toad” stories, considers friendship warts and all. Frog and Toad worry about each other over big things and small. They argue. They become angry. At times they fail to hear what the other is saying,…
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Theater Recommendation: WHITTIER BOULEVARD (Latino Theater Company at Los Angeles Theatre Center)
WITTIER AND WHITTIER “Let’s take a trip down Whittier Boulevard! ¡Arriba, Arriba!” sang Chicano surf-guitar band Thee Midniters in 1965. Inspired by a classic film named for a different famous boulevard, Latino Theater Company kicks off its 2023 Spring Season with an original, satirical comedy that takes its title from the 14-mile heart of East L.A….
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Theater Opening: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena)
After the roaring success of Pasadena Playhouse’s wonderful production of Sunday in the Park with George, now comes A Little Night Music, which officially opens May 1, 2023. This is the second mainstage production of the theater’s six-month-long celebration of the works and impact of Stephen Sondheim, the first major festival honoring his legacy since his passing in…
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Off-Broadway Review: SLEEP NO MORE (Punchdrunk Theatre Company at McKittrick Hotel)
SOMETHING WICKED THAT WAY GOES No plague can kill a great show. It’s back. In a rare clash of film noir, performance art, an awesome murder mystery party, and Shakespeare, Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More is the ultimate voyeuristic thrill. Audience members don Venetian masks and explore the depths of the 1930s-style McKittrick Hotel in pursuit…
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Broadway Review: GOOD NIGHT, OSCAR (Belasco)
THE BEST OSCAR GOES TO SEAN HAYES “It’d be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view.” The incomparable Oscar Levant is the subject of the hit play which opened tonight at the Belasco Theatre. If you are not that familiar with Levant, don’t fret,…
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Off-Broadway Review: WOMAN OF THE YEAR (J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company at Theater Row)
WHAT’S SO WONDERFUL? THIS REVIVAL OF WOMAN OF THE YEAR I’m jealous of New York Musical lovers. If they want to catch a rarely produced musical from the “golden age” of Broadway (the dates of “golden age” tend to blur), they have the J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company. And unlike the Los Angeles companies which…
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Broadway Review: LIFE OF PI (Gerald Schoenfeld)
HOW DO YOU CATCH A TIGER BY THE TAIL? STAGING. The eye-popping special effects of Life of Pi are reason enough to see this show, which opened this week at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Yes, there are a plethora of perfect performances, but no one should miss the elegant, effective, energizing design elements. This is…
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Broadway Review: FAT HAM (American Airlines)
WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS FAT HAM Ah, the Father/Son relationship. Tough when bad and often difficult even when pop and junior love each other. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, adapted with delightful quirkiness into Fat Ham by playwright James Ijames, the young prince is so enamored of his recently deceased father, King Hamlet, he refers to…
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Theater Review: COLONIALISM IS TERRIBLE, BUT PHỞ IS DELICIOUS (Chance Theater in Anaheim)
MANY PARTS ARE EDIBLE It’s fascinating to watch a new generation of Asian playwrights — Mike Lew, Qui Nguyen, Lauren Yee, Dipika Guha, Christopher Chen — writing about the quest for identity as it pertains to traditional upbringing, here or abroad, and current frustrations as modern Asians in America, often addressing race within a meta,…
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Theater Review: IT’S ONLY A PLAY (Theatre 40)
IT’S ONLY A FLOP There’s a glaring contradiction in It’s Only a Play: Written by the usually crafty Terrence McNally, a 20-time Broadway playwright, this two-act love letter to Broadway theater and its “plays of fools” ’” depicted in full fratricidal frenzy at an opening night party ’” utterly mocks its message. The joke is on…
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Theater Review: MENSTRUATION: A PERIOD PIECE (Big Little Theatre Company at the L.A. LGBT Center)
I CAN’T GET THAT TASTE OUT OF MY MOUTH Get ready for a show that is all vagina and no vulva. This bloody awful musical by Big Little Theater Company is of the women, by the women and for the women, especially lesbians — there are lesbians on stage, in the audience, and behind the…
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Theater Review: GRIEF: A ONE MAN SHITSHOW (Theatre Row’s Studio Theatre, Off-Broadway)
WHERE’S THE GRIEF? A LOT OF GOOD SHIT, BUT WE NEED MORE SHOW Grief. It almost seems to come on a daily basis. You hear people grieve over politics, a lost job, a breakup, the weather — grieving which, in many ways, manifests itself in complaining (misery loves company, yes?). As Colin Campbell tells us…
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Music Review: TCHAIKOVSKY AND SIBELIUS (LA Phil; Conductor Dalia Stasevska, Violinist Randall Goosby)
STASEVSKA, STASEVSKA, STASEVSKA There is much good news about this morning’s program with the LA Phil. Let me start with the most important. Dalia Stasevska, a 38-year-old Kyiv-born musician who lives in Finland, was the Guest Conductor (she is now the Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic). Say that Ukrainian last name over and…
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Cabaret Recommendation: MUSIC AT THE ODYSSEY (Celebrating Rodgers and Hammerstein and Cole Porter)
IT’S DE-LOVELY As I suspected, this Friday’s Music at the Odyssey show celebrating Rodgers and Hammerstein, George Gershwin and Cole Porter has sold out. And with good reason. The previous show, all Sondheim, was one of the most delightful cabarets I’ve ever seen. The bounteous talent was top-notch, the musicians breezy, and the space intimate. And…
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Theater Review: THE HUMAN COMEDY (Actors Co-op)
HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN There is a world premiere now playing at Actors Co-op in Hollywood that is both ambitious and successful. The Human Comedy, set in the fictional California town of Ithaca in the San Joaquin Valley (think Fresno area), was first written as an MGM screenplay by Armenian-American William Saroyan, who was also…
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Theater Review: LET ME IN (Theatre 68 Arts Complex)
LET ME IN, OR GET ME OUT? In writer/director Brynn Thayer‘s Let Me In, now running at the newly and spiffily remodeled Theatre 68 Arts Complex in North Hollywood, actor Jorge Garcia of Lost fame gives a moving, funny, and incredibly nuanced performance as a New York cop on the day of his retirement. Mr….
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Opera Preview: PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE (LA Opera)
THE CRASH OF SYMBOLISM As part of its 2022-23 season, LA Opera is presenting Debussy’s one-of-a-kind enigmatic masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande in its entirety, conducted by Music Director James Conlon at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion The production, which originated at Scottish Opera, was created by the internationally acclaimed director David McVicar. Tickets for performances March 25 through…
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Theater Review: THE LONELY FEW (World Premiere Musical at the Geffen Playhouse in L.A.)
COME FOR THE SCORE, LEAVE FOR THE BOOK Prior to Geffen Playhouse’s world premiere musical The Lonely Few, a pair of orange ear-plugs in ironically loud cellophane is offered to patrons, indicating a loud show will soon be upon us. We enter the amazingly transformed Audrey Skirball Kennis black-box theater, which now has patrons seated…
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Recommended Concert: PIANO QUARTET MILANO (The Music Guild, St Alban’s Church, Westwood)
The Music Guild presents Piano Quartet Milano on Monday April 3, 2023 at 8pm. The concert takes place in the beautiful, intimate and sonically sound St Alban’s Church. ========== Program (scroll down for details): Handel/Halvorsen: Passacaglia in G Minor, Op. 20 Faure: Piano Quartet No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 15 Brahms: Piano Quartet No….
Theater Review: MEN OF SOUL (Black Ensemble Theater / Chicago)
by Mitchell Oldham | July 1, 2026
in Chicago, TheaterWHY A BOX OFFICE HIT CAN STILL LOSE MONEY
by Leslie Rosenberg | July 1, 2026
in Extras, FilmTheater Preview: PROOF (El Portal Theatre / North Hollywood)
by pwsadmin | June 30, 2026
in Los Angeles, Theater
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