Tony Frankel

A SALUTE TO GREAT SONGS AND A GREAT CLUB Any excuse to expose selections from the Great American Songbook to a modern audience works for me. And a cabaret revue entitled A Night at the Stork Club does just that.  Playing at Hollywood’s Three Clubs for one weekend only, this accessible entertainment gives a nod to…

THE MANE EVENT Watching the Los Angeles premiere of writer/performer Benjamin Scheuer’s one-man show The Lion, directed by Sean Daniels, the element I am  most taken with is Mr. Scheuer’s radiant charisma. His earnestness, his sincerity, his spiritual and emotional investment, are penetrating as he tells his story, mostly through songs, accompanying himself on different guitars’”six…

MAKE THE YULETIDE GAY Attending GMCLA’s Holiday Spectaculars is more like a pilgrimage for me, and is a no-brainer when choosing my wintertime concerts. This year’s musical extravaganza, Holiday Spectacular: Cool Yule, plays at Glendale’s  gorgeous Alex Theatre for four performances beginning this Thursday, Dec. 15, 2016, and running through Sunday. And while there is no…

WONDERFUL WONDERFUL Never heard of the 1953 musical,  Wonderful Town? Well, certainly you’ve heard of composer Leonard Bernstein and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Even though the songs are terrific, none of them have entered the hit parade. Bernstein offers catchy melodies in tunes that range from conga to an Irish jig, and the lyrics…

EVERYBODY LOVES SHE LOVES ME I’ll be the first to admit that it may be impossible to create a bad production of the 1963 jewel-box musical She Loves Me. This perfect show, based on the 1937 play Parfumerie by Miklós László, is so resplendent, so charming, and so well-constructed that a 2011 gathering of literati…

BLACK COMEDY AND KITCHEN SINK DRAMA: A BEAUTY-FULL IRISH STEW While the horror and suspense aren’t as palpable as previous efforts of The Beauty Queen of Leenane’”Martin McDonagh’s 1996 black comedy’”the dark humor, bleakness, and romance positively boil over, making Galway’s Druid Theatre Company’s revival a recommended trip. For 20 years, 40 year-old spinster Maureen…

BOYS WILL BE BOYS Musical Theatre West’s (MTW) Reiner Reading Series begins  its 2016-17  season with a musical from the beginning of the second decade of the Broadway Musical’s Golden Age. Some say this era began with Oklahoma! in 1943, but it’s also safe to say it began in 1927, the year that  Showboat was born. The fully…

DVOŘíK & SIBELIUS  AT DISNEY HALL An LA Phil favorite, prizewinning German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser (pictured left) makes his return under the baton of exciting young Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali (pictured below) for a performance of Dvořák’s monumental and much-loved cello concerto. Also this Friday through Sunday (Nov. 11-13, 2016), Rouvali  leads the acclaimed L.A. orchestra in…

THE PHARAOH-EST OF THEM ALL Egyptian Pharaoh Akhnaten was not just provocative in his lifetime. Today, over three millennia after his reign, Egyptologists still debate theories about his life and relative importance. After his death, succeeding Pharaohs did their best to erase every trace of the man who had dared to displace the many gods…