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Tony Frankel
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Theater Review: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX (The Old Globe in San Diego)
DESPEREAUX TIMES CALL FOR DESPEREAUX MEASURES More precious than profound, this new family musical is pure children’s theater with multilayered storytelling and plenty of songs that aid in exposition. The world premiere at The Old Globe is delightful, even if there are some flaws in the arc that keep the show from building in suspense….
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Music Review: CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS (Sean Hayes, Katia and Marielle Labí¨que & The LA Phil)
BEAUTY AND HUMOR I wonder what French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) would have thought had he known his Carnival of the Animals (Le Carnaval des Animaux) would become one of his most well-known and perhaps best-loved works. Written in 1886, it was meant to be a divertissement for his pupils to play, so the…
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Dance Review: MAYERLING (The Royal Ballet)
THE ROYAL BALLET TAKES ON ROYAL INTRIGUE Considering we couldn’t tell most characters from each other at last night’s opening of Royal Opera Ballet’s Mayerling, a good time was had by all. With Kenneth McMillan’s inventive and daring 1978 choreography, Koen Kessels’ live orchestra’s thrilling rendition of Liszt’s exquisite music (arranged and orchestrated by John…
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Theater Review: MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES (Geffen Playhouse in Westwood)
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK As with Good Boys playing across town, Mysterious Circumstances doesn’t quite give us an ending the material deserves, but hoo-boy what a ride this is. Directed by Matt Shakman with a magical meta-theatrical flourish that makes life worth living, our fever dream is based on the still-unsolved true-life death of a Sir…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: DAMES AT SEA (Sierra Madre Playhouse)
THERE IS NOTHING LIKE A DAMES When Dames at Sea opened in 1966 at the Caffe Cino, a small coffee house and performance space in New York City’s Greenwich Village that was at the heart of the early off-off Broadway movement, the show was a trifle — a campy lark into the backstage musicals of…
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Theater Review: GOOD BOYS (Pasadena Playhouse)
A GOOD GOOD BOYS COULD’VE BEEN GREAT Gay playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (contributor to Glee and Big Love) gets a revival of his drama Good Boys and True that premiered at Steppenwolf ten years ago. There is some solid stagecraft in his story about a privileged prep-school teen caught up in a sex scandal, but it’s shocking that while…
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Theater Review: MACBETH (Oregon Shakespeare)
FOUL AND FAIR Shakespeare’s Macbeth, or The Tragedy of Macbeth, is typically dated to the years immediately following the coronation of James I as King of England in 1603. James, who was also King of Scotland, believed himself to be descended from Banquo, the noble friend of Macbeth. While the play is not considered one of Shakespeare’s…
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Theater Review: CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND (Oregon Shakespeare Festival)
BAND ON THE RUN It’s impossible to grasp a monster evil like genocide as a whole, to weigh it as so many calculable, tangible acts of human failure that yield a vast vileness and a terrible waste. To hold it hard, it has to be broken down into the choices and values of flawed or…
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Theater Review: SUCKER PUNCH (Coeurage Theatre at Tiger Boxing Gym in West Hollywood)
A PUNCH IN THE GUT Raw as realism requires, good plays about boxing are more than just Rocky slugfests. Like Clifford Odets’ seminal Golden Boy, they transform an atavistic popular distraction into a metaphor for sweet success, the reward of pluck and nerve — or, as the title of Sucker Punch implies, a parable on selling your…
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Theater Review: HARVEY (Laguna Playhouse)
YOU’RE GETTING TO BE A RABBIT WITH ME Whatever happened to all the imaginary friends we had as kids? Did they all end up in some limbo where they started making friends with each other, or, like Peter Pan, did they transfer their affections to a new generation of make-believers? Anyway, they’re no longer there…
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Theater Review: ANNA IN THE TROPICS (Open Fist Theatre Company in Los Angeles)
HAS TOLSTOY EVER BEEN SO HOT? In his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Anna in the Tropics, Nilo Cruz created the role of striking, velvet-voiced, Cuban Lothario Juan Julian, a lector who is hired to read books to the workers in a 1929 Tampa cigar factory — it alleviates tedium, inadvertently educates them, and, in this case, causes…
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Theater Preview: THE LAST FIVE YEARS (After Hours Theatre Company in West Hollywood)
A PERFECT FIT 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, Cathy, but at the beginning for the man, Jaime. Her songs go backward in time and his forward. They meet in the middle of the…
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Theater Review: BRONCO BILLY – THE MUSICAL (World Premiere at Skylight Theatre)
BILLY BOY OH BOY Meet Billy, an ex-con sharpshooter who is living his American Dream in 1979. This optimistic showman, romantic, and visionary has encouraged a fraternity of castaways — a Native American and his wife, a car thief, an ex-nurse, an erstwhile bank teller — to join him as entertainers in a troupe about…
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Music Review: MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO. 8 (Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil)
AN EIGHT OUT OF TEN About his Symphony No. 8 Gustav Mahler wrote to Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, known for pioneering and mastering Mahler’s works: “I have just finished my Eighth Symphony — the most magnificent of anything I have yet written. The work is so unique in terms of content and form that it…
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CD Review: DONNA VOCE (Anna Shelest, Piano)
DONNA BELLA Anna Shelest, a New Yorker born in the Ukraine, has not only won me over with her astoundingly dexterous and emotive pianism, but has truly proved herself a whiz at programming her albums. Even if her newest CD, Donna Voce, was not a collection of piano solos by female composers who deserve as…
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Music Review: DUDAMEL & LANG LANG (LA Phil)
BACK TO BUSINESS Star pianist Lang Lang overcame his left-hand injury — the tendonitis that caused him to hand off four of five scheduled Beethoven Concertos with the LA Phil this month. His limited schedule has allowed for quicker recovery time, but it also allowed four other pianists from around the globe to show off…
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Theater Review: AS YOU LIKE IT (Oregon Shakespeare)
AS YOU LIKE IT, OR DON’T These are strange times we’re living in, and political correctness makes strange bedfellows. For years now, Oregon Shakespeare Festival has been a leader of inclusionary casting — meaning actors who have been looked over in the past will be readily accommodated regardless of physical disabilities, age, race, sex, deafness…
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Theater Review: FIDDLER ON THE ROOF (Tour)
AS RELEVANT AND CELEBRATORY AS EVER, FIDDLER GETS A POWERFUL REVIVAL It takes a musical to make a village: At nearly three hours, this very replete revival, which plays the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa through May 17, takes its time — but not ours. Fiddler on the Roof, the beloved 1964 musical, richly rewards…
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Music Review: SALONEN’S STRAVINSKY: MYTHS (Los Angeles Philharmonic)
BORE-PHEUS AND EURYD-ENNUI When we think of Stravinsky’s music, contemplative, encompassing beauty isn’t what pops into mind. Yet that’s what we get in the very rarely performed ballets, Orpheus (1947) and Perséphone (1934). As part of LA Phil’s erstwhile Music Director’s series, Salonen’s Stravinsky, Esa-Pekka Salonen continues his salute of (mostly) lesser played works by…
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Theater Preview: DIE, MOMMIE, DIE! (Los Angeles Theatre Works at UCLA)
SHE’S BA-A-A-CK AND SHE’S FA-A-A-ABULOUS Charles Busch’s play Die, Mommie, Die! is equal parts Greek comic-tragedy and Hollywood kitsch — a melodramatic campy cult classic in the vein of 1960s gothic horror films such as Hush:Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I saw the very first production at the Coast Playhouse back in 1999 starring the cabaret and…
Theater Review: ST. NICHOLAS (Black Button Eyes / City Lit / Chicago)
by Croydon Fernandes | July 3, 2026
in Chicago, TheaterFAST PAYOUT CASINOS USA 2026 — 5 BEST INSTANT WITHDRAWAL CASINOS RANKED
by Michael Carr | July 3, 2026
in ExtrasTheater Review: MEN OF SOUL (Black Ensemble Theater / Chicago)
by Mitchell Oldham | July 1, 2026
in Chicago, Theater
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