Tony Frankel

MEMPHIS SOARS The most entertaining musical of the year is not a great musical. Here is  a show  with a predictable, synthetic feeling book and  19 songs  which only  emulate the music of the 1950s  (they sound  more like cover versions of the great anthems of the period than great Broadway tunes).  But director/choreographer Edgar Godineaux, in the tradition of Fosse, is that…

BRING ON THE TEARS Orlande de Lassus, Europe’s most famous musician during his lifetime, created nothing finer than the Lagrime di San Pietro, (Tears of St. Peter) a collection of twenty spiritual madrigals and one motet. A cycle of intense reflections on the sorrows of St Peter following his denial of Christ, it was assembled…

“DEATH DEFYING DANCES” DEBUTS BODYTRAFFIC, the contemporary dance outfit headquartered right here in Los Angeles, has smartly scheduled three performances of its upcoming showcase of exciting new works–including a preview and a World Premiere–at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica.  The last two times I saw this exciting company at the Broad, patrons were turned away…

STILL SEARCHING Is there life after Lily Tomlin? Producer Jon Imparato is attempting to find out: under his auspices, the Los Angeles LGBT Center is reviving The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Written for Tomlin, who won the 1986 Best Actress Tony for the original production, Jane Wagner’s one-woman  play, which she…

O’HARA  SALON Broadway icon Kelli O’Hara ventured far west  of the Great White Way Friday night to perform Broadway favorites and a few originals to  a  well-sold house  at Valley Performing Arts Center, which is not only beautiful and glamorous, but has  the finest sound of any concert hall I’ve attended. This captivating creature proved her timelessness by never resorting to…

WHAT I DID FORSYTHE LOVE The Music Center begins its 2016-17 dance season this Friday, October 21, 2016, with Celebrate Forsythe, a remarkable evening devoted to the works of  William Forsythe. Equally special is that three separate ballet companies will each perform in the program. For more than 45 years, the innovative Forsythe has been  broadening the  world…

DEFICIENT DRAMA DILUTES DELUSION In 2011, writer/director Jon Braver created Delusion, a new kind of haunted house. In the ensuing years (except last year, 2015, which was dark), with a different tale presented annually, Braver has brought Los Angeles a much-celebrated high-end Halloween attraction that is so popular that it now sells out before opening…

REVEALING THE SOURCE There’s so much  buzz about The Source, which opens at REDCAT next week, that an extra performance has been added (the show runs Oct.19-23, 2016). The most fascinating aspect of its popularity is that people I know who are attending are curious about something: What is this show really about? The Source, which  premiered…

DUDAMEL AND BELL MORE THAN WELL Drop your plans this weekend and get to Disney Hall to  witness conductor Gustavo Dudamel leading  the Los Angeles Philharmonic in an astoundingly satisfying program. Fortunately, last night’s performance  (which I’m happy to say was full to the brim with patrons),  began a weekend of four performances through Oct.16. The draw here must…

THE STRINGS THAT BIND At first, the geometric shape dangling from thin cables in the fly loft appears simply as an “X”. Manipulated by slightly concealed upstage puppeteers, this creation–made up of thin green slats connected by small o-rings–morphs like a piece of paper manipulated by an origami artist. Soon, it will become an  animated, continually…

YO-YO MA JOINS LACO FOR ONE-NIGHT ONLY EVENT When classical music is performed correctly–a joyous amalgamation of proficiency and interpretation–it’s actually very difficult to put words on our experience. It’s best to  just wants to sit back and be swallowed up by the dreamy music.  As Jeffrey Kahane departs Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO)–the 2016-17 season is…

WHAT A WORLD 1969. The final year in what was one of the most turbulent decades in American history. The battle between counterculture dissidents and the corporate establishment could melt lead, and in the middle the blood was drained from the ideal Ozzie and Harriet family and the U.S. was headed to a most uncertain…

TO SIR MA’AM WITH LOVE It’s an irresistible setting seen in many successful films and plays: When an underdog teacher shapes her troubled teenaged students, she is rewarded by bucking a system that all but excludes the seemingly hopeless youth. Chicago playwright Philip Dawkins (The Homosexuals, Failure: A Love Story) gives the genre a refreshing…

DIAMOND LI’L Musical Theatre West’s Reiner Reading Series wraps up its amazing season with a musical from smack dab in the middle of Broadway’s golden age.  Given the terrific score (music by Gene De Paul, and lyrics by Johnny Mercer) and deliciously satiric book (Norman Panama and Melvin Frank), it’s no surprise that Li’l Abner brought…

BRINGING BERNSTEIN TO LIFE Older spectators will remember Leonard Bernstein not just as a conductor, composer, and pianist, but as one of the most vivid personalities and astonishingly effective communicators in the history of American classical music. His life may have ended on notes of regret and frustration, but he was a one-of-a-kind phenomenon, and…