Tony Frankel

TRYING TO MAKE LIFE BETTER AT ANY COSTCO Head north to the small town of Lewiston, Idaho, and you’ll discover how the town got its name. One of the town’s main attractions is the Lewis and Clark Discovery Center. Located along the banks of the Snake River, the center chronicles the journey of 19th-century explorers…

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED Take a look at the highly decorated diorama just before you go upstairs to the Henry Murray Theatre for one of the most exciting world premieres you will ever see. It’s a miniature school room with one open text book about statistics and others involving math problems. Notice the circles….

TRIUMPH OF THE WILL I love how the press notes for A Noise Within‘s stupendous revival of Thornton Wilder‘s The Skin of Our Teeth  noted a quote from original director Elia Kazan: “I overheard one couple talking as they left the theater. ‘What’s it all about?’ the man complained to his wife. ‘Why, George,’ she said,…

A MUSICAL THAT’S TOO CIVIL TO RESONATE Union soldier Jeffrey N. Davis (no relation to President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis), is on the hunt for his best friend, Albert Cashier, a fellow soldier in the the 95th Illinois Infantry. Following a skirmish, the brave sharpshooter Cashier stayed behind to place a…

THE DOUBLE V GETS A DOUBLE D It’s a shame that Carole Eglash–Kosoff’s  period drama The Double V is such a lackluster, overwritten, repetitive piece of didacticism. The story is one which should be told. It concerns the The Pittsburgh Courier, which served the large Black population based there. In 1942, they receive a letter from…

Dido of Idaho, now playing at Atwater Village, is yet more proof that Echo Theater Company really knows how to pick bold original scripts. And usually they have a heart of darkness coated with offbeat humor. Abby Rosebrock‘s latest one-act is no exception   The essence concerns Nora (the always fascinating Alana Dietze), a young woman…

ALL SCRIPTS SHOULD BE THIS GROWN UP One of the most riveting and original pieces of theater I have ever seen, The Grown-Ups is now playing outdoors around a campfire near you. Funny, spooky, and sometimes purposefully enigmatic, I simply can’t stop thinking about it, along with all of those psychological Easter Eggs in Skylar…

CHICKEN STORIES IS A FOWL BALL! There are more than 8 billion people on the earth. But did you know that there are more chickens on the planet than human beings? And you know that we’re not talking as pets. Costco alone sells more than 75 million roasted chickens every year. But what of fried…