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Tony Frankel
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Virtual Theater: TALES OF THE CITY, THE MUSICAL (American Conservatory Theater, Broadway On Demand)
A.C.T. OFFERS ONLINE SCREENING OF ARMISTEAD MAUPIN’S TALES OF THE CITY, THE MUSICAL Filmed during its original 2011 run, this 10th Anniversary event will stream during San Francisco Pride Week on Broadway On Demand’s National Theater Network 10 years ago this month, San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) presented the much-anticipated (and very sold out) musicalization of Armistead…
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Virtual Theater Review: THE NICETIES (Manhattan Theatre Club in association with The Huntington)
I just watched Manhattan Theatre Club‘s special new adaptation of The Niceties updated for the virtual stage by playwright Eleanor Burgess. In The Niceties an ambitious young Black college student and her esteemed white professor meet over Skype to discuss a paper the college junior is writing about the American Revolution. Unfortunately, they find it hard to agree about the facts of the past…
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Album Review (Jazz): AFRIKA LOVE (Alchemy Sound Project)
A JUICY JOURNEY IN JAZZ How awesome is this?! To me, this is what fusion really means: Afrika Love, the sonically adventurous third album by Alchemy Sound Project — which formed in 2014 — takes many different styles of music and melds them together in a jazzy, grooving, funkalicious delight. I get Carl Stalling (composer…
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Streaming Service Review: MAGELLAN TV (Documentaries)
DOCUMENTARY LOVERS, HERE’S YOUR CHANNEL (and a free flick to watch) I’ve been checking out MagellanTV for a few weeks now, and I’m very impressed with the vast selection of documentaries. Even more amazing at the streaming quality. Even showing on my older TV, the images simply pop out of the screen. The content for…
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Virtual Theater Review: 2.5 MINUTE RIDE (Studio Theatre, D.C.)
KRON-OLOGY Who knew a trip to Auschwitz could be so much fun? Almost as fun as taking a roller coaster ride at Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. These two locations have been tethered together by playwright Lisa Kron into a memoir about her ailing father and the family visits to both of these…
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Virtual Theater Review: chekhovOS /an experimental game/ (Arlekin Players Theatre)
THE ILLUSION OF AGENCY Beamed to us from the Chekhov Operating System (chekhovOS), a virtual panoply that contains the great Russian playwright’s works and forlorn characters — who spout about how alternately beautiful and broken our world is — our hostess Natasha, one of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, has the audience, live on Zoom, vote on…
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Virtual Theater Review: THE LAST FIVE YEARS (ICT, Long Beach)
HIGH FIVE Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years is contextually brilliant: it is a two-character musical that starts at the end of a five year relationship for the woman, but at the beginning for the man. Her songs go backward in time and his forward. In the middle of the 85 minute, intermissionless show, they…
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Virtual Theater Review: SOMEONE ELSE’S HOUSE (Geffen)
I WANT TO SEE MORE DEAD PEOPLE Who doesn’t love a good ghost story? Jared Mezzocchi (Russian Troll Farm, my favorite theater stream of the COVID era) brings an Amityville Horror-esque, true-life tale right to your living room, courtesy of The Geffen Playhouse, which is streaming Someone Else’s House with a limited number of participants (40…
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Virtual Opera: CIRCUS DAYS AND NIGHTS (World Premiere by Philip Glass, David Henry Hwang & Tilde Björfors; Streaming LIVE)
COME JOIN THE CIRCUS AS A METAPHOR FOR LIFE It’s here! The world premiere of a new opera by Philip Glass which will take place on Malmö Opera‘s main stage with live music to a live audience and livestreamed worldwide May 29 thru June 13, 2021. Librettists David Henry Hwang and circus director Tilde Björfors…
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Theater Podcast: MAGELLANICA (Audio Drama by E.M. Lewis from Artists Repertory Theatre in Portland, OR)
Streaming for free through June 30, 2021, is Artists Repertory Theatre’s five-part, four-hour audio drama Magellanica on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Sticher, and where you find podcasts. Magellanica is about a crew of climate scientists during a 1986 “winter over” in Antarctica. Adapted by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright-in-Residence and Steinberg New Play Award winning…
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Virtual Theater Review: THIS AMERICAN WIFE (FourthWall Theatrical, in association with Fake Friends and Jeremy O. Harris)
AS AMERICAN AS LEMON CHICKEN PIE [On the phone.] Girrrrrrrrrrrrrrrl! Wazzup? So, listen, I saw the craziest thing the other night. No, not THAT thing. That’s old news. No, it’s this kinda performance art meets theater meets improv meets homage to reality TV meets virtual streaming meets post-irony meets me gulping down a martini. Hold…
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Virtual Theater: NOT A GENUINE BLACK MAN (The Marsh)
I’ve known about Brian Copland’s work for years, but didn’t get a chance to see the Bay Area performer until the virtual presentation of his solo show The Jewelry Box, easily one of the most effective one-man shows I have ever seen. (See my review here.) On June 19 (Juneteenth) The Marsh will offer a…
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Los Angeles Theater: 54th SEASON AT THE AHMANSON THEATRE (Center Theatre Group)
CENTER THEATRE GROUP’S 54th SEASON AT THE AHMANSON THEATRE TO BEGIN NOVEMBER 30, 2021 Ahmanson Theatre Will Have Been Dark For 20 Months While it’s a shame that Diane Paulus’s new revision of 1776 will have to visit the Ahmanson another season, things look to go into full swing in November, which begins the seven-production…
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Theater: THE COMPLETE SONDHEIM @ 90 ROUNDTABLE (Porchlight Music Theatre)
CELEBRATING SONDHEIM While we were all prepared to celebrate Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday in 2020, and all of his accomplishments up until then, along comes COVID, which not only shut down Broadway (including the revival of Company, which had pandemic insurance, if you can believe that!), but also halted all of those Sondheim parties and…
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CD Review: NINETEEN MOVEMENTS FOR UNACCOMPANIED CELLO (Scott Ordway, composer; Arlen Hlusko, cello)
UNACCOMPANIED CELLO BECOMES THE BEST COMPANY OF ALL It’s a sunny Sunday morning in Los Angeles. Spring is in full swing: the birds are chirping insanely as a lovely breeze wafts in from the window, bringing with it a scent of night-blooming jasmine’s sweet perfume. Then I put in a new CD (released May 27,…
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Broadway Podcast: WE GOT ANNIE: ANN REINKING (1949–2020) (The Fabulous Invalid)
Broadway’s podcast, The Fabulous Invalid, has released a fabulous episode, a thoroughly entertaining tribute celebrating Broadway and dance legend Ann Reinking in We Got Annie: Ann Reinking (1949 – 2020). Listen for free HERE. Co-hosts Jamie DuMont and Robert Russo continue their season-long theme of their “favorite things” by paying tribute to the singular life and work of Broadway…
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Jazz Album Pick of the Week: MENDÒ (Alex Cuba)
WELL, FUNK ME HARD Just one listen, and this Latin-flavored funk jazz party had me hooked. “Again, again!” my party-depleted inner child screamed. “Mendó,” as performer, arranger, producer, composer, instrumentalist, Cuban Canadian Alex Cuba writes, “is the substance of the soul.” And this produced-during-pandemic soulfest proves that. Afro-Cuban, Flamenco, pile-driving big band — it’s a…
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Virtual Theater Review: THE LAST MATCH (Writers Theatre)
SERVE. SET. MATCH. WINNER. Finally! A virtual theater production that actually feels like I’m in a theater. Not only that, but Writers’ production of Anna Ziegler’s The Last Match is intuitively directed as theater-as-cinema by Keira Fromm, and ferociously acted by a perfectly cast pile-driving ensemble. Here’s more proof for the world to see how…
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Theater Review: GOODS (Artemisia Theatre in Chicago)
GOODS AND READY Family. Waste. Refugees. Class. Climate Change. All these and more fly off today’s headlines, but like a genie in a magic lamp, playwright Lauren Ferebee has fit them all — and more — inside a tiny capsule moving through the universe, where two American women have been collecting space trash for twenty…
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Album Review: FLOR (Gretchen Parlato)
I KNOW SHE’S WONDERFUL OK, she’s a fellow native Los Angelino. Her grandfather played trumpet in the Kay Kyser band. She is breezy and fresh sounding like a Portuguese chanteuse in Rio, and evokes an earthy woodwind in an African-esque chant. And if that’s not magic enough, she got the one and only Gerald Clayton…
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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