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Tony Frankel
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CD Review: FIVE (Tony Banks)
GIMME FIVE Tony Banks gathers no moss. At 68, the co-founder of Genesis is releasing yet another album, his tenth outside of the band. After a successful career as songwriter, singer, film scorer, and multi-instrumentalist (most especially on keyboards), Banks turned to orchestral compositions. His third, released in February 2018, is labelled “classical” but the…
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CD Review: BRUCKNER SYMPHONY V (Altomonte Orchester St. Florian; Remy Ballot, conductor)
FEELS FIVE TIMES AS LONG It’s no doubt coincidental that the fifth recording in a series of Bruckner Symphonies conducted live by Rémy Ballot is of the Fifth. If you haven’t yet heard the previous four – the Third, Eighth, Ninth, and Sixth – get ready for a shock. Recorded in August 2017 at St….
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Music Review: SEMYON BYCHKOV, LABÉQUE SISTERS, & THE LA PHIL (Ravel, Bruch and Dvořák)
LABÉQUE TO THE DRAWING BOARD Forty years since they made their U.S. debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, French sisters  Katia & Marielle Labèque returned for a program that seriously needed to rethink its programming. After the duo’s take on Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite for four hands (1908), the French pianists — led by Marielle’s husband,…
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Theater Review: THE IMMIGRANT (Sierra Madre Playhouse in Los Angeles)
BLENDING BANANAS AND BORSCHT Mark Harelik’s 1985 play The Immigrant is based on the story of his grandparents, Haskell and Leah Gorehlik, immigrants from Russia who settled in the tiny central-Texas town of Hamilton in 1909, and were the only Jews there. Haskell has arrived in America to escape the pogroms; now, he must gather…
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Theater Review: BELLEVILLE (Pasadena Playhouse)
SPLITSVILLE Five years after its world premiere, L.A. is just now getting Amy Herzog’s disturbing domestic thriller. Both praised and not, the controversy with this one-act has been more over the playwright’s construction — Herzog writes herself into a corner — than the subject matter. Was it worth the wait? For the first hour and a…
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Theater Review: THE BABY DANCE: MIXED (Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura)
AN UPDATED BABY IS STILL CAPTIVATING THEATER For all its melodrama, Jane Anderson’s The Baby Dance has always been one of my favorite plays since I first saw it at Pasadena Playhouse in 1990. Revisiting the show again at Actors Co-op years later only cemented my sentiments. A poor couple living in a Louisiana trailer…
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Theater Review: HONEYMOON IN VEGAS (Musical Theatre Guild in Los Angeles)
A HONEYMOON IN GLENDALE More fun than walking away a few bucks ahead from a black jack table, this pell-mell, silly-sweet, old-fashioned musical comedy (ya know, gangsters, lovers, Elvis impersonators, a curse) just couldn’t find an audience when it landed on Broadway in 2015. But that’s why we have Musical Theatre Guild, which takes rarely…
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Cabaret Preview: UNPLUGGED WITH SUSAN EGAN (Pasadena Conservatory of Music)
EAGER FOR EGAN It was sheer luck that I’ve been able to see Broadway Baby Susan Egan in over 10 shows since the mid-1980s. From intimate stages (Babes at the Matrix; Hello, Again at the Blank) to national tours (Bye Bye Birdie as Kim) to Broadway (Thoroughly Modern Millie and as the original Belle in…
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Cabaret Preview: CHITA RIVERA and SETH RUDETSKY (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
WEST SIDE GLORY It’s a relief that Chita Rivera, one of the last great holdovers from the Golden Age of Broadway is still performing today, and you’ll get only one-night — Thursday May 10, 2018 at The Wallis in Beverly Hills — to see her as she reminisces and sings songs from her Broadway shows…
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Theater Review: BLUES IN THE NIGHT (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
A BLUES REVUE A female-centric revue from 1980, Sheldon Epp’s Blues in the Night celebrates the melancholic but often very humorous songs of black American folk origin. The blues as we know them today developed in the rural southern US toward the end of the 19th century, finding a wider audience in the 1940s as…
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CD Review: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR LIVE IN CONCERT (Original Television Soundtrack)
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR RISES AGAIN, BUT ONLY PARTIALLY TO THE HEAVENS Not nearly as powerful and raw as it could have been, NBC’s live telecast “event” of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar – more music video than Broadway-style production – nonetheless has some admirable qualities — with one glaring pitfall. Astoundingly…
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Theater Review: SOUTH PACIFIC (La Mirada Theatre)
NO MUSICAL IS AN ISLAND Whenever it’s revived, it’s hard to imagine a more necessary musical than this 1949 Pulitzer Prize winner. 72 years after the Japanese surrender, it remains a healing tribute to resilience in adversity and tolerance in the thick of war. Consummate showmen, Rodgers and Hammerstein knew just why Americans need to…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: AMERYKA (Critical Mass Performance Group at the Kirk Douglas in Culver City)
O, BEAUTYFUL AMERYKA After a successful run in 2016, Ameryka has arrived for a short run at the Kirk Douglas Theatre as part of CTG’s Block Party. It’s a testament to writer/director Nancy Keystone and her collaborative Critical Mass Performance Group that at 160 minutes (with intermission) their informative and spectacularly theatrical production never loses…
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Theater Review: THE MADRES (Skylight Theatre in L.A.)
STAGING A DIRTY WAR It’s 1979 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where people are disappearing right off the street. The so-called “Dirty War” waged by the military Junta against its own people is in full-swing. Josefina (Denise Blasor), a staunch homemaker in her 60s, and Carolina (Arianna Ortiz), her militant daughter, are searching for “Caro’s” pregnant daughter…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: A SHAKESPEARE JUBILEE (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
JUBILATION! It promises to be one of the most enchanting nights of theater in a long time. On Saturday April 28 at 8:00, some of London and Hollywood’s greatest names will gather at The Wallis in Beverly Hills to revive the Shakespeare Jubilee with excerpts from some of Shakespeare’s greatest hits. But don’t just expect…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: GROUNDLINGS ROYAL WEDDING (The Groundlings Theatre)
A ROYAL TREAT For almost 40 years, The Groundlings has proved itself to be one of the premiere comedy troupes in the nation, creating more stars than the Big Bang (and creating more Big Bangs than stars; have you ever been backstage during a performance?) Performers showcase material that arises from improvisation workshops; their weekly…
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Music Preview: JEREMY DENK, PIANO (The Wallis)
DENK FOR THE MEMORIES His academic lucidity, enchanted virtuosity and musical acumen make him one of the most exciting and accomplished pianists of our age. Now, Jeremy Denk is coming to The Wallis in Beverly Hills for a one-night only recital this Wednesday, April 25, at 7:30. This is a rare opportunity to see this…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: DUDAMEL CONDUCTS BERNSTEIN & BEETHOVEN (LA Phil)
D AND B AND B Our city’s philharmonic will be going on tour next week to the Eastern seaboard (Boston, D.C. and New York), and then overseas to Barbican Hall, London, and the Paris Philharmonie. They are bringing some dazzling programs which include music from last week’s barn burner of a line-up — the Shostakovitch…
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Music and Dance Preview: TAO: DRUM HEART (International Tour)
TAIKO ME AWAY Ever since man could bang a stick on a rock, percussion has been a way for humans to express themselves. From the battlefield to the theater to your teenager’s bedroom, percussion has evolved from communicative and ritualistic purposes into an art form. We take for granted the use of percussion — primitive,…
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CD Review: HELLO AGAIN (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
HELLO AGAIN HELLO AGAIN Hello Again is Michael John LaChiusa’s 1993 musical adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s play about sexual intricacies (Der Reigen and, in French, La Ronde), which has itself been adapted dozens of times on stage (David Hare’s The Blue Room) and screen (360) since its scandalous censor-banning beginnings in 1897. The basic premise consists of…
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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