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Tony Frankel
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Concert Preview: GREGORY PORTER AND SAVION GLOVER (with Vince Mendoza at the Hollywood Bowl)
OLDIES AND TAP: YOU’D BE NUTS TO MISS THIS CONCERT Jazz singer Gregory Porter certainly has amassed an impassioned and appreciative audience of all ages and races. But ever since double Grammy-winning composer, actor, and soul, jazz, and gospel song stylist released his latest Blue Note recording, Nat “King” Cole & Me, he cemented himself…
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Theater Preview: ANNIVERSARY! STORIES BY TOBIAS WOLFF AND GEORGE SAUNDERS (Word for Word)
WORD FOR WORD’S PERSONAL VICTORY LAP MAY BE THE BEST DEEP KISS YOU’VE EVER HAD San Francisco’s Word for Word has been transforming classic and contemporary fiction into amazing theatrical experiences by performing short stories in their entirety, preserving the authors’ language and honoring their literary intent. Now, Word for Word celebrates its 25th season…
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Film and Music Review: STAR WARS IN CONCERT (Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl)
MAY THE HORNS BE WITH YOU As difficult as it may be to tear your eyes away from the giant screen at the Hollywood Bowl, try to espy the LA Phil brass section during the climactic battle scene of Star Wars: A New Hope, which plays this week in rep with Empire Strikes Back. Bring your…
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Theater Review: BAREFOOT IN THE PARK (The Old Globe in San Diego)
THE GLOBE MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A WALK IN THE PARK Barefoot in the Park, Neil Simon’s second Broadway hit after Come Blow Your Horn, played a staggering 1,530 performances in its initial run, winning a Tony Award for director Mike Nichols. It’s somewhat inconceivable that a play this frothy, containing less pathos than Simon’s…
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Theater Review: ANNIE (Hollywood Bowl)
SHE’S BA-A-A-ACK For those who think the sun won’t come up until 2020, here comes another Annie, that 1977 optimistic spitfire of a musical — based on the Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie — which insists that simply thinking about a brighter tomorrow will perk you right up. Although a national tour just wrapped…
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Music Review: AUGUSTIN HADELICH & STÉPHANE DENÈVE (LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl)
BOLÉRO GETS A PERFECT 10 It’s always fascinating to come for a headliner and be completely bowled over by another part of the program. The draw was Augustin Hadelich, one of the world’s greatest violinists, performing Sibelius’s only Violin Concerto at the Hollywood Bowl. I have seen the Juilliard-trained Hadelich on five occasions, and each…
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Theater Review: DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE (The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre)
ITCHING TO BE SWITCHING ROLES Burt Grinstead and Anna Stromberg’s take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde switches between comedic farce and serious scenes just as slickly as Jekyll, the affable, handsome physician, becomes Hyde, a maniacal, marauding murderer. Blessedly not as silly and madcap as the stage…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES (Sierra Madre Playhouse)
PUMP GETS YOU PUMPED This invigorating, modest little 1980 musical was nominated for both a Tony and Drama Desk Award for Best Musical in 1982. It may seem commonplace now thanks to John Doyle’s reinterpretation of Sondheim (for one), but this is one of the first musicals where the actors not only sing but also…
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CD Review: JOHN WILLIAMS: A LIFE IN MUSIC (London Symphony Orchestra)
CLASSIC THEMES REVISITED In a childhood home largely devoid of classical music, it was Walt Disney’s Fantasia and film composer extraordinaire John Williams that got me hooked, as they say, on the classics. It was over forty years ago that Williams recorded Star Wars with the London Symphony Orchestra, which of course made me gnaw…
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Music Review: SEAL and CORINNE BAILEY RAE (Hollywood Bowl)
HIS STANDARDS SEAL THE DEAL I was stunned at how many Bowl patrons were arriving during Corinne Bailey Rae’s set at the Hollywood Bowl last Wednesday. I get that Seal was the main attraction, but this soulstress — with her enchanting and seductive vocal whirls — has proved herself to be one of the most…
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Theater Review: CRY IT OUT (Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles)
WE NEVER STOP CRYING IT OUT The term “cry it out” refers to the practice of letting babies bawl until their fit subsides without parents coddling and mollifying them; assumedly this causes the child to become more self-sufficient later in life. In Molly Smith Metzler’s persuasive west coast premiere, three adult women find themselves in…
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Event Preview: MOVIE NIGHTS AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL (Great Films Live in Concert)
MOVIES AND FILM SCORES THAT WILL BOWL YOU OVER You want something out of this world? Something you can really chomp on? Something that will sound even better on another inspection? Something that’s completely magic? Well, grease up your lederhosen, because here comes Movie Nights at the Hollywood Bowl, 2018. Because of his indelible film…
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Music Review: VíKINGUR ÒLAFSSON (Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto with Thomas Adí¨s and the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl)
BOWL OVER BEETHOVEN Last night at the Hollywood Bowl started off with a bang. British composer and guest conducter  Thomas Adès began an evening of “Beethoven Masterpieces” — with Iceland’s VÃÂkingur Ólafsson offering the Second Piano Concerto — with a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” that was decidedly awesome: more rhythmic and decisive than any I…
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Theater Review: BIG FISH (Chance Theater)
FRIED, STEWED OR BROILED, THIS FISH WILL NEVER TASTE GOOD So here’s what baffles me: A show which is middling at best is suddenly showing up at regional, community and high school theaters with alarming regularity around the country. Well, maybe not so alarming. The show was, after all, on Broadway. Musical Theatre West in…
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Theater Review: ON YOUR FEET (National Tour)
DANCE DELIRIUM As jukebox musicals go, the rags-to-riches bio On Your Feet! definitely earns its exclamation point. No question, the upbeat tunes, with their irresistible Cuban-fusion street beat, would justify this 2015 tribute to the flashdance fervor of Gloria and Emilio Estefan and their Miami Sound Machine. But their lives warrant a work too: Alexander Dinelaris’s predictable and…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: THE SUMMER OF LOVE (Michael Feinstein Sings the Hits of the ’60s with the Pasadena POPS at the Arboretum)
FEINSTEIN & THE SUMMER OF LOVE: COME ON BABY, LIGHT MY FIRE Of all the Michael Feinstein Pasadena POPS concerts so far, my favorites were his solo presentations of both Gershwin and the two Frank Sinatra concerts, celebrating Ol’ Blue Eyes’ 100th birthday. That’s because Feinstein handed over the conductor’s baton to Larry Blank, who…
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Music Preview: BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV (Rachmoninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the LA Phil and Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl)
DO NOT MISS BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL THIS WEEK Pianist Behzod Abduraimov is coming to the Hollywood Bowl this Thursday, July 12, 2018, so prepare yourself for one of the world’s greatest pianists. In fact, the in-demand, rightfully popular 27-year-old Uzbek pianist, who was born in Tashkent in 1990 just before the collapse…
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Opera Review: LA GAZETTA (Pacific Opera Project)
Extra! Extra! Read all about it! — Unearthed Rossini opera about newspaper ad hits L.A. after sitting around doing practically nothing for 200 years. Los Angeles — Detectives are trying to determine why one of the greatest opera composers of all time seemingly tossed his delightful but very very silly work La Gazzetta to the back…
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San Francisco Theater Preview: SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE (SF Playhouse)
A SUNDAY TO REMEMBER Rare is the opportunity to witness a production of a Stephen Sondheim musical, let alone an illustrious production of this revered composer/lyricist. His 1984 Sunday in the Park with George, with book by James Lapine, grows in profundity as it ages, and in the right hands can be transformational. Thus, a trip…
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Los Angeles Film Review: THE 2018 MONTALBíN SUMMER MOVIE SERIES (The Montalbán Theatre)
THE MONTALBíN MIXES MOVIES, MINGLING AND MERRY MASTICATING Always fun, outdoor cinema hits the summer ether like the smell of fresh cut grass and smoked meat (or is that fresh cut meat and smoked grass?). There’s nothing quite like a balmy evening under the stars to experience that collective joy of watching a movie. 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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