Tony Frankel

SCREWBALL MUSICAL HEAVEN When it opened on Broadway in 1978, On the Twentieth Century achieved the impossible. Cy Coleman’s clever score’”a beautiful pastiche of turn-of-the-century operetta and silent film scores with some added jazz and musical comedy bounce’”collided on the tracks with Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s delectably chewy lyrics and screwball script, resulting in…

THE CITY COMES ALIVE The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is about to begin a new era under the leadership of its new Artistic Director Paul Crewes. Right out of the gate is a production of  novelist, essayist and playwright Anthony Giardina’s The City of Conversation, which premiered at Lincoln Center last year. While…

MAKE SOMEONE SOMEWHAT HAPPY At the risk of repeating myself — oh, wait — I am repeating myself, but it bears repeating. I wrote about the great Coco Peru when she appeared in Miss Coco Peru: She’s Got Balls  at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s Renberg Theatre. Now, this remarkable entertainer who seamlessly blends the…

NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION 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…

FINDING THE HEARTBEAT OF FIDDLER “To Life” indeed. There’s a ton of it, not to mention heartbreak and wisdom, in the 1964 Stein/Harnick/Bock musical triumph, Fiddler on the Roof, now receiving a worthy production at the Norris. For all the shenanigans that can come with  professional community theater (a little  mugging, a few line flubs, some weak…

KISS OFF A backstage comedy with  more personalities than Sybil, Sarah Ruhl’s preposterous — and in some ways pretentious — 2011 play was apparently given a boffo treatment at Playwrights Horizon, San Francisco Playhouse, The Guthrie, and more. But not at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, where Stage Kiss  had its World Premiere, and certainly not at the Geffen,…

MURRAY PERAHIA IN RECITAL AT DISNEY HALL Murray Perahia is the rare concert pianist so popular and profound that his performances cannot be confined to a standard recital hall. That’s to be expected of a pianist who has consistently engaged with music that’s greater than any one performer, and who combines a joyous, lucid virtuosity…

DO NOT MISS  BEHZOD ABDURAIMOV AT DISNEY HALL THIS WEEKEND I am happy to say my instincts were correct: When pianist Behzod Abduraimov appeared in his Disney Hall debut as a last-minute replacement in 2014, I knew he  was the real thing. They don’t appear often, these  fresh-to-the-scene soloists who completely enrapture ’” those who combine the old-school…

INDEED I DUBIN He wrote the lyrics to the songs that kept the world singing through some of the darkest times in human history: The Great Depression and WWII. But as with most songwriters who aren’t named Gershwin, Porter, Berlin or Rodgers & Hammerstein, this man, who passed at the age of 53,  has been forgotten…

NOISE WILL BE NOISE Two vastly different programs offered by LA Phil this week confirm that “contemporary” music doesn’t sound modern — that is, “new.” For me, both Brad Lubman’s Tangents and John Adams’s Scheherezade.2 fall squarely into “noise,” and I’ve heard it all before. As a reviewer, I have tried  to create a critical and…

FAR MORE EDENIC THAN I  EXPECTED You would think that if Stephen Schwartz (composer/lyricist of Pippin and Wicked)  wrote a musical with John Caird (adapter of Les Misérables  and Candide), we would have seen a production of it — or at least heard of it. But shows that haven’t played Broadway rarely make it into the public consciousness….

NUNBEARABLE Deloris, a   pushy, smart-alecky, malopropism-spouting black woman, is disguised as a nun as she awaits a court date to squeal against her gangster boyfriend. Her background as a nightclub entertainer makes her perfect to convert a convent of silly oddball sisters into a kick-ass choir — one which turns a cash-strapped church into a…

THERE WILL BE BUZZ ABOUT THIS PLAY, BUT IT’S ALL STING AND NO HONEY As honey bees gather pollen and nectar for their survival, they pollinate crops such as cranberries, melons and broccoli. “A World Without Bees,” Time’s cover story in August of 2013, brought to light a frightening occurrence: In recent years, there have…