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Tony Frankel
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Los Angeles Theater Review: TWIST YOUR DICKENS (Kirk Douglas Theatre)
SECOND CITY OFFERS A LUMP OF COAL * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Scene 1’”INTERIOR OF SPOOGE AND FARLEY’S CRITIC HOUSE (EVERWHEEZER SPOOGE, an irascible, irritated editor-in-chief and theater critic, is hunched over his laptop in his impoverished surroundings, trying to finish a review of Twist…
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Los Angeles Concert Review: LOS ANGELES MASTER CHORALE (Walt Disney Concert Hall)
LAMC SHINES IN A HISTORICALLY INFORMED PERFORMANCE OF MONTEVERDI’S VESPERS OF 1610 After Los Angeles Master Chorale’s (LAMC) astoundingly successful performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Blessed Virgin (commonly known as the Vespers of 1610, having been published in that year), I felt the same rejuvenation and relaxation that would follow a luxuriant all-day…
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Theater Review: INTIMATE APPAREL (Pasadena Playhouse)
BEST TO LOOK AT THE QUILT AS A WHOLE, NOT THE INDIVIDUAL ELEMENTS Intimate Apparel is a delicate but persuasive play about Esther (Vanessa Williams), a gifted black seamstress in 1905 who begins a series of missives with George (David St. Louis), a strapping, fetching, and younger Caribbean man working on the Panama Canal. The…
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Los Angeles Theater Feature: GATZ (REDCAT)
GREAT F. SCOTT! REDCAT’S GOT GATZ A phenomenon is arriving at the Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theatre (REDCAT) this week in Los Angeles. I promise that once its 9-performance run is over on December 9, the buzz about Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz will have seismically traveled to your doorstep, and you will kick…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: CONEY ISLAND CHRISTMAS (Geffen Playhouse)
CHRISTMAS ISLAND With the superfluity of Christmas-themed theater descending upon America like a Biblical plague, there is one play which is opening this week that has intrigued and even excited me for both personal and critical motives: Donald Margulies’ world premiere, Coney Island Christmas, commissioned by and playing at the Geffen Playhouse. This will be…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: CALL ME MADAM (Musical Theatre Guild)
CALL ME SLACKJAWED It’s amazing what critics and audiences alike are willing to forgive when they’re in the presence of a true star. Regardless of some bouncy and hummable Irving Berlin tunes in Call Me Madam, the book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse is basically a dog. Based on Perle Mesta, the millionairess political…
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Chicago Music Review: CHICAGO YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS’ FALL CONCERT (Symphony Center, Orchestra Hall)
AN OCCASION WHERE YOUTH IS NOT WASTED ON THE YOUNG The Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO) consists of more than 100 musicians. They’ve received an international reputation as a premier orchestral ensemble, and recently performed at the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah Country Club. At their Fall Concert in Orchestra Hall, the youth performers file to their chairs…
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San Francisco Opera Review: TOSCA (SF Opera)
AN OPENING NIGHT SURPRISE It’s one of those instances that may just be talked about in the San Francisco opera circle for years to come. In Act One of Puccini’s Tosca (1900) at San Francisco Opera, we were treated to the glorious and beautiful strains of Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu, and although she grew in…
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Bay Area Theater Review: THE WHITE SNAKE (Berkeley Repertory Theatre)
A DREAMY BEDTIME STORY Theater critics often speak of “universal themes” in the theater’”these are topics to which people in any place and at any time can relate. One of the main reasons that Greek literature, Aesop’s Fables, Shakespeare, and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, to name a few, retain their appeal is that people from varied backgrounds…
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San Francisco Theater Review: ANOTHER WAY HOME (Magic Theatre)
THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHER WAY When Anna Ziegler’s world premiere play Another Way Home began, it seemed that the thrust of the play would revolve around Joey (Daniel Petzold), a 17-year-old spending the summer as a Counselor-in-Training at Camp Kickapoo in Maine. When his Jewish, upper middle-class parents Philip (Mark Pinter) and Lillian (Kim…
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San Francisco Nightclub Review: LADY RIZO (Rrazz Room)
LADY OF THE LICK She bills herself as an Entertainer, Dream Maker, Chanteuse, and Superstar, but Lady Rizo can be called so much more. With her new show, Autumn in San Francisco, the dynamic diva blew into the City by the Bay with all the subtlety of Hurricane Sandy during Autumn in New York. This…
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Los Angeles Concert Preview: RAíšL ESPARZA SINGS SONDHEIM (Valley Performing Arts Center)
BEING ALIVE IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT When the senseless Leap of Faith had its out of town tryout at the Ahmanson before its crash-and-burn on Broadway, there was only one thing which made sense: the pyrotechnic performer Raúl Esparza. This magnetic talent made evident that he could sing the listings from a phone book and make…
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San Francisco Theater Review: WILDER TIMES (Aurora Theatre)
FAR FROM WILD Thornton Wilder, especially as a playwright, looks to the commonality of all people to demonstrate the value in appreciating life, especially when the death of a loved one is involved. Although Wilder’s best-known work is Our Town, his many short plays contain the same theme. But staging Wilder can be tricky. In order…
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New York Cabaret Preview: TAPS, TUNES AND TALL TALES (Tommy Tune at Feinstein’s)
FEINSTEIN’S AT LOEWS REGENCY PRESENTS THE NEW YORK SOLO DEBUT OF NINE TIME TONY AWARD-WINNING BROADWAY LEGEND TOMMY TUNE In his review of A Day in Hollywood – A Night in the Ukraine (1980), New York Times’ critic Mel Gussow called director/choreographer Tommy Tune “The toe-tapping heir to Busby Berkeley. What his predecessor did with…
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San Francisco Theater Review: BEACH BLANKET BABYLON (Club Fagazi)
THE HAT’S JUST KEEP ON COMIN’ Billed as the world’s longest running musical revue, Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon is a flamboyant, frivolous, and frothy burlesque that takes a jab at popular culture with super-talented performers as oversized caricatures, many of whom wear Babylon’s signature oversized headdresses and fabulously garish costumes. There is an ever-changing…
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Los Angeles Theater and Film Review: WRECK-IT RALPH (Directed by Rich Moore)
AN IMAGINATIVE STORY AND SPECTACULAR VISUALS MAKE UP FOR CALCULATED FAMILIARITY It’s quite an accomplishment for Disney that the multitude of elements in Wreck-It Ralph don’t collapse in on themselves. It’s fast-paced and stunning visuals abound, 190 distinct characters are introduced (some familiar from video games), Shrek-like topical references thrive, and $165 million worth of…
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Los Angeles/Regional Theater Review: HOW TO WRITE A NEW BOOK FOR THE BIBLE (South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa)
HOW TO LAUGH AND CRY AND BE UNMOVED AT THE SAME TIME Playwright Bill Cain, after discovering his mother, Mary, had six months to live, moved into the family home in Syracuse, New York. Like any good writer, Cain kept a diary during that trying time. His notes became the basis for How to Write…
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San Francisco Theater Preview: STRINDBERG CYCLE: THE CHAMBER PLAYS IN REP (Cutting Ball Theater)
AN AUGUST PROJECT In many ways, playwright August Strindberg’s influence in the theater has been far more significant than his public reception. While theater historians and scholars speak of Strindberg (1849-1912) with the fervency normally associated with Shakespeare, only five of his over sixty plays are produced with any kind of regularity: The Father, Miss…
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San Francisco Cabaret Preview: TAPS, TUNES AND TALL TALES (Tommy Tune at the Fairmont)
NINE TIME TONY AWARD WINNER TOMMY TUNE RETURNS TO THE VENETIAN ROOM In his review of A Day in Hollywood – A Night in the Ukraine (1980), New York Times’ critic Mel Gussow called director/choreographer Tommy Tune “The toe-tapping heir to Busby Berkeley. What his predecessor did with 50 dancing girls and a sound stage,…
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San Francisco Theater Preview: CARMELINA (42nd Street Moon)
THAT’S AMORE I hope San Franciscans actually know how advantaged they are to have a company like 42nd Street Moon, which presents fully staged productions of rarely-seen musicals. While I am grateful for Musical Theatre Guild’s concert-style, one-time only productions in Los Angeles, rare is the theater company willing to dust off an old American…
Theater Review: MEN OF SOUL (Black Ensemble Theater / Chicago)
by Mitchell Oldham | July 1, 2026
in Chicago, TheaterWHY A BOX OFFICE HIT CAN STILL LOSE MONEY
by Leslie Rosenberg | July 1, 2026
in Extras, FilmTheater Preview: PROOF (El Portal Theatre / North Hollywood)
by pwsadmin | June 30, 2026
in Los Angeles, Theater
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