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Tony Frankel
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Los Angeles Music Review: BEETHOVEN’S NINTH & COPLAND’S “FANFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN” & “LINCOLN PORTRAIT” (Gustavo Dudamel, LA Phil)
SOOTHING, ROARING AND CHIRPING: FROM VIN SCULLY TO BEETHOVEN Of all the actors who have embodied the voice of Abraham Lincoln, the one that sticks out for me is Royal Dano, who Walt Disney personally selected as Lincoln’s voice in Disneyland’s Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln attraction; not only did Dano resemble the 16th POTUS, but…
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San Diego Theater Review: AT THE OLD PLACE (La Jolla Playhouse)
OUT OF PLACE Well, that was pointless. Entertaining to a point, but pointless. I had a feeling about two minutes into At the Old Place that something was wrong dramatically. A woman shows up to a run-down house in rural Raleigh, Virginia, and looks around with an unexpressive, almost tired, face, walks over to a…
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Los Angeles Music Review: I RISE (Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles at Disney Hall)
GIMME THAT NEW-TIME RELIGION I Rise was more than a concert. As shaped by artistic director and conductor Dr. Joseph P. Nadeau (below) it was a theatrical experience so provocative, so plaintive, so poignant, so palpable, so powerful and so profound that it devastated me. And when that happens in the arts, I’m inspired. Sadly, there were only…
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Dance Preview: THE RED SHOES (National Tour of Matthew Bourne’s Production)
MATTHEW BOURNE’S THE RED SHOES: U.S. TOUR BEGINS IN L.A. SEPTEMBER 15 Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s beloved fairy tale and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s legendary 1948 film The Red Shoes, Matthew Bourne and company (New Adventures) adapted the breathtaking story and created a theatrical ballet which took the U.K. by storm last year. After winding up its tour across…
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Los Angeles/Regional Theater Preview: THE TEMPEST (Shakespeare Orange County in Garden Grove)
ENCHANTED FORGIVENESS Shakespeare Orange County (SOC) has used local community members alongside professional actors to reinvent Shakespeare as a way to offer thoughts about inclusiveness and Southern California’s astoundingly diverse population with creative results. This way, the classical English literature combined with cultural aspects actually influences storytelling. And the community pride behind these productions is…
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Regional Theater Preview: THE GRAND TOUR (Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach)
TAKE A GRAND TOUR WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR SEAT Pageant of the Masters, now in its 83rd year, is a singularly unique entertainment that has perfected the art of tableaux vivants (“living pictures”). With world-class designers and over 600 volunteers (including actors and a research team), this elegant and classy outfit’”equal parts museum, play, concert, and lecture’”re-creates for…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: MARY POPPINS (Musical Theatre West in Long Beach)
MARY’S POPPIN’ OUT ALL OVER Not just the quintessentially “practically perfect” nanny, Mary Poppins is a kind of cosmic cure. Given the state of our disunion, we probably need to swallow helping and heaping spoonfuls of sugar. Courtesy of Musical Theatre West, Disney’s aggressively buoyant movie musicalization cavorts across the Carpenter Center stage, enchanted by director…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE CAKE (The Echo Theater Company in Atwater Village)
TRIPLE-LAYERED CAKE Thirty-something Jen (Shannon Lucio) is torn. She wants her deceased mother’s best friend, Della (Debra Jo Rupp), a talented but struggling baker, to create her wedding cake. So with her betrothed she returns from New York to her hometown in conservative North Carolina, and finds that Della is tickled pink to honor her wish’”until…
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Los Angeles Concert Review: PENTATONIX FOURTH OF JULY WITH FIREWORKS (The Hollywood Bowl)
A TONIX FOR WHAT AILS YOU The fireworks went off both on and above the Hollywood Bowl stage last weekend. After five short selections by American composers performed by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West, the entrancing and loquacious conductor Thomas Wilkins took a back seat after…
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L.A. Concert Review: THE CLIFTON’S CANTEEN (Clifton’s)
A BOOGIE-WOOGIE BLAST A one-time good-time event that will surely return next year, this sense-surrounding salute to USO shows of the WWII era was a perfect way to spend a Fourth of July holiday. Taking place on all four floors of the newly refurbished Clifton’s Republic in downtown, Clifton’s Canteen contained contagious crooning, dynamic dancing,…
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Los Angeles Cabaret Review: HELLO AGAIN! THE SONGS OF ALLAN SHERMAN (Linden Waddell at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre)
MY DAUGHTER, THE CABARET SINGER This year’s Hollywood Fringe Festival has given me new hope for the art of cabaret: Black and White in Paris offered standards dripping in style; Psychosical deliciously revived oft-heard songs by casting singers as denizens of a loony bin; and now comes Hello Again!, Linden Waddell’s spot-on salute to arguably America’s greatest song…
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San Diego Theater Review: AIDA (Moonlight Stage Productions in Vista)
AIDA GETS THE AID IT NEEDS There are two beautiful reincarnations with Moonlight’s production of Aida, a 2000 Disney outing that never would have seen the light of day were it not for the celebrity and history of both composer Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice. The first is part of the musical’s plot: The…
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Los Angeles Event Review: SING-A-LONG SOUND OF MUSIC (Hollywood Bowl)
THE HOLLYWOOD HILLS ARE ALIVE What do you get when you cross one of the most popular movies of all time with 17,000 Angelenos dressed up as nuns, telegram delivery boys, cuckoo clocks, and brown paper packages tied up with string–all of whom set off party poppers, wave fake edelweiss, and sing along with a…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: DOG SEES GOD: CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE BLOCKHEAD (Worst First Kiss Productions at the McCadden Place Theatre)
A VERY GOOD GRIEF This funny but disturbing update of Charles M. Schultz’s Peanuts comic strip first arrived at the Blank Theatre, after which Worst First Kiss Productions wisely utilized the Hollywood Fringe Festival to create a six-performance extension. I certainly hope there are more performances to come, for Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead contained…
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San Diego Theater Review: THE SPITFIRE GRILL (North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach)
GRILLED TO PERFECTION North Coast Rep’s rendition of James Valcq and Fred Alley’s simple musical The Spitfire Grill demonstrates two things: the redemptive power of acceptance, forgiveness and love; and just how a magnificent company can turn a problematic piece into a powerhouse of a revival. Released from prison, Percy (Aurora Florence) seeks a new life in Gilead, Wisconsin, a…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: A SOLDIER’S PLAY (Sacred Fools Theater)
THE WAR WITHIN THE WAR As sturdily written and swiftly moving as it was in 1982, Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play remains an enduring testament to the home front battles that African-American soldiers fought during World War II, within their ranks as well as with white comrades in arms. It’s a kind of upfront, downhome…
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CD Review: CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (Original Broadway Cast)
FREE WILLY Imagine if cast recordings from the fifties and sixties recorded out-of-town tryouts, then changed material, then recorded the Broadway production, then changed material, then opened in London, then… well, you get the picture, or rather the sound. It gets frustrating these days when a show like Charlie and the Charlie Factory, which opened 4/23/17…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: FUCK TINDER: A LOVE STORY (Sacred Fools Theatre in Hollywood)
IT’S LIKE REAL LIFE, BUT BETTER About a decade ago, I was having a miserable time dating. The age of electronica was firmly in place, and chat rooms, lengthy bios, and requested cock shots were making me ill, and the cost-benefit was low to say the least. To quote Rodney Dangerfield, I gave up dating…
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Los Angeles Cabaret Review: BLACK & WHITE IN PARIS: A CABARET MUSICAL (Stage 12 at Sunset Las Palmas Studios)
OOH-LA-LA Where am I? Is this a dream? Just when you thought cabaret in Los Angeles was on life support comes this bar of gold at the Hollywood Fringe. Do not miss this extravaganza of refreshingly distinctive singers and dancers, the likes of which will not be around again soon. Inspired by the black-and-white photography of…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: ANDY: THE RED-NOSED WARHOLA (La-La Land Gallery)
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT A WARHOL If you thought Pop Artist Andy Warhol only referenced and defined mass culture and consumerism through replicated images of Campbell’s soup cans and Marilyn Monroe, think again. Standing among Paddy Chayefsky as one of the most prescient mavens regarding culture and television, Warhol was a prolific writer’”and talker: In 1976,…
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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