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Tony Frankel
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Theater Review: HUGHIE / KRAPP’S LAST TAPE (Geffen Playhouse)
BEAUTIFUL DESPAIR BY A MASTER THESPIAN The river of lost souls can be found in Westwood, and your magnificent tour guide is Brian Dennehy. In this coupling of one-acts by Eugene O’Neill and Samuel Beckett, Dennehy supplies the concentrated crux of regret by embodying how time shreds our delusions. At the same time, with brilliant…
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Music & Theater Review: THE TEMPEST (LA Phil and The Old Globe at Disney Hall in Los Angeles)
TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT An ill wind hit Disney Hall last weekend with this collaboration between LA Phil’s Guest Conductor Susanna Målkki and Old Globe Theatre’s Artisitic Director Barry Edelstein. Pairing edited versions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Jean Sibelius’s incidental music is a great idea, but the waste of talent and energy and money was…
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Dance Review: DON QUIXOTE (Mikhailovsky Ballet)
DANCING AT WINDMILLS It’s surprising for those who have never seen this ballet before, but Don Quixote isn’t really about that legendary knight who is forever battling evil and seeking his Dulcinea. In fact, the Don is only an ancillary character in the ballet, which centers around two young Spanish lovers, Kitri and Basilio, who…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: VALLEY OF THE HEART (Mark Taper Forum)
VALLEY OF THE HEART ON ITS SLEEVE Captivating stagecraft and a winning, although not always authentic, cast fuel this epic tale of war-time love. But the riveting aspects of a relationship between two American citizens — one Mexican, one Japanese — are diluted when didacticism dictates drama. Writer/director Luis Valdez has his heart in the…
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CD Review: LET THERE BE CELLO (2Cellos)
CELLO, I MUST BE GOING A little bit Celtic, a little bit rock and roll, a little bit classical, a little bit world music, and a lotta schmaltz and you get the idea behind 2Cellos, the duo of youthful, sexy Croatians Luka Š ulić and Stjepan Hauser. who put their skillful playing behind revamps and remakes…
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CD Review: SIX EVOLUTIONS: BACH CELLO SUITES (Yo-Yo Ma)
YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH Last night at The Wallis Performing Arts Center in Beverly Hills, I was privileged to witness MacArthur “Genius” Alisa Weilerstein (A-LEE-sah WYE-ler-steen) perform all six of Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites. It felt almost surreal to do this after driving through horrendous L.A. traffic listening to updates on the mass murder in…
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CD Review: LOVE IS HERE TO STAY: TONY BENNETT & DIANA KRALL (Verve and Columbia)
PLEASE TELL ME LOVE ISN’T HERE TO STAY Jazz-light comes a callin’ with Tony Bennett and Diana Krall’s latest effort, 12 tracks of George Gershwin tunes that have been playing the hit parade since they were written in the 20s and 30s. The majority have lyrics by brother Ira, and many were introduced by Fred…
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Music Review: JONI 75: A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION LIVE (Various Artists at the Chandler in Los Angeles)
SOMETHING SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE FOR THIS BORDERLINE CONCERT A blindingly colossal line-up of some of music’s greatest stars offered their interpretation of Joni Mitchell songs last night in Los Angeles. With names including James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Norah Jones, Seal, Chaka Khan, and Joni’s fellow Canadians Diana Krall and Rufus Wainwright, the excitement was palpable from the sold-out crowd…
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CD Review: DESTINATION RACHMANINOV — DEPARTURE (Daniil Trifonov, pianist; The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin)
TAKE THIS DEPARTURE All it took was one live performance from Daniil Trifonov (dan-EEL TREE-fon-ov) to resoundingly validate for me why he is the current Big Thing of the piano world. The Liszt-like master’s rendition of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (followed by a jaw-dropping encore…
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Opera Review: SATYAGRAHA (LA Opera)
A NONVIOLENT REVIEW What is it about Philip Glass’s operas that have completely captivated me? You would think that all of that minimalism — the spellbinding reiterating arpeggios, unhurried modulations and almost uniform orchestrations — would bore me to tears. Perhaps there’s something mathematical or perfectly in harmony with nature (or in nature with the…
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Theater Review: BABY EYES (Playwrights Arena)
IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME In 2011, Playwrights Horizon Artistic Director Jon Lawrence Rivera staged Donald Jolly’s bonded, which explored the restrictiveness of gays based on their situation, namely slavery in 1820s’ Virginia. That work-in-progress was made more than palatable with witty, poetic dialogue and a tantalizing tale. Now comes a tale of repressed homosexuality,…
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Theater Review: SEôOR PLUMMER’S FINAL FIESTA (Rogue Artists Ensemble in West Hollywood)
IMAGINATIVE PHANTASMAGORIA DOESN’T PLUMB THE DEPTHS OF PLUMMER’S HISTORY One of the most bemusing, bewildering affairs in recent memory, Seí±or Plummer’s Final Fiesta is an incredibly imaginative, immersive, interactive outing suffocated by convoluted storytelling and juvenile acting. While it’s rated “PG-13” the entire shebang of snippets — aided by puppets and wide-eyed, Disney-esque narrators —…
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Music Preview: MENDELSSOHN & SIBELIUS STRING QUARTETS (LA Phil at Disney Hall)
CHAMBER MUSIC WITH THE LA PHIL: MENDELSSOHN & SIBELIUS STRING QUARTETS Sibelius’s String Quartet in D minor, Op. 56 (1908-1909) is one of his most mature, significant, and inspirational chamber works. Indeed, it’s the only substantial chamber work he produced after the turn of the century. He wrote it in between the Third and Fourth…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE WOMAN IN BLACK (Pasadena Playhouse)
CREEPY FUN, BUT NOT AS BLACK AS IT COULD BE Pasadena Playhouse’s production of The Woman in Black is a delicious, handcrafted thriller of the classic style, at once dingy and disturbing. Based on Susan Hill’s 1983 faux-Gothic novel, the slight ghost story follows Mr. Kipps, a British junior solicitor hired to sort out the estate…
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Theater Review: VIETGONE (East West Players)
GOING, GOING, VIETGONE Prior to last night’s L.A. premiere of Vietgone, the actor playing playwright Qui Nguyen tells us that his 2015 play is about his parents (“who this play is absolutely not about”), who met and fell in love in 1975 in an Arkansas relocation camp for Vietnamese refugees, jokingly adding that we were…
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CD Review: BLUES DIALOGUES: MUSIC BY BLACK COMPOSERS (Rachel Barton Pine, violin)
AN ALLURING, STYLISH ASSORTMENT OF WORKS DRENCHED IN THE TIMELESS STYLE OF THE BLUES I was lucky enough to see violinist Rachel Barton Pine in Los Angeles twice last year with both the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Pasadena Symphony, performing Mozart and Vivaldi. Adroit, sophisticated, vigorous, sensitive and profound only begin to scratch the surface…
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Theater Review: DEAR EVAN HANSEN (National Tour)
A SHOW FOR FOREVER That songwriters and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul — critical darlings for La La Land (film), Dogfight (Off-Broadway), and A Christmas Story (Broadway) — are in effect the Rodgers and Hammerstein of this generation is as alarming as climate change. At least their true colors as creators of whitewashed pop and unintelligent lyrics…
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Music & Dance Preview: ROMEO AND JULIET (LA Phil and L.A. Dance Project at Disney Hall)
A WHOLE NEW DANCE PROJECT WITH LA PHIL Romeo and Juliet is probably Prokofiev’s best dramatic work (I say “probably” because “hearing” the duck being eaten by the wolf in Peter and the Wolf nearly traumatized my childhood). Arguably, it’s his best orchestral work. Positively, it’s his most lyrical, emotional, and deeply moving work. Yet…
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CD Review: BEETHOVEN VIOLIN SONATAS NOS. 6, 7 & 8 (Andrew Wan and Charles Richard-Hamelin)
BEETHOVEN’S VIOLIN SONATAS, OP. 30: SONATA THING WRONG HERE Beethoven composed his Sonatas for Violin and Piano, Op. 30 in 1801-02, completing most of the work between March and May of 1802. Dedicated to Czar Alexander I of Russia, the three sonatas — A major, C minor and G major — were developed during a…
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Music Preview: ALISA WEILERSTEIN: COMPLETE BACH CELLO SUITES (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
WEILERSTEIN TO WOW AT THE WALLIS I had been following Alisa Weilerstein for over a decade, but until a few years ago it was only on recordings and YouTube. Having seen her perform live three times since I can assert that the phenomenal American cellist has attracted attention worldwide because her playing combines a natural…
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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