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Tony Frankel
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Los Angeles Theater Review: AMERICAN NIGHT: THE BALLAD OF JUAN JOSÉ (Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City)
AMERICAN NIGHT SUCKS, BUT IT SWALLOWS Juan José, a Mexican cop sick of being on-the-take, has crossed the border in search of citizenship, leaving his pregnant wife behind. Panicking over flash cards while studying for his U.S. citizenship exam, Juan falls asleep and the rest of this 90 minute, intermissionless, astoundingly uneven cavalcade of skits,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE COLOR PURPLE (Celebration Theatre in Hollywood)
HATE THE MUSICAL, BUT LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THE PRODUCTION Whether you love or hate the musical version of The Color Purple, no one, and I mean no one, can or will deny that this is one of the finest productions ever staged in a small theater in Los Angeles. Director Michael Matthews has taken a…
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San Diego Theater Feature: PARADE (Cygnet Theatre)
A PARADE IS COMING TO TOWN In the NY Times, Christopher Isherwood stated that while the authors of Parade deserve credit for their fidelity to history and their ambition to probe a painful chapter in the American past, the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched in Georgia in 1915 for…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE LARAMIE PROJECT: TEN YEARS LATER (Redtwist Theatre)
WHAT A DIFFERENCE TEN YEARS MAKE The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later tells the story of Matthew Shepard and how it affected those involved a decade after his 1998 murder. As with its point of origin The Laramie Project (also running concurrently as staged readings) disparate denizens of this infamous town in Wyoming have been…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE SEAGULL (Antaeus Theatre Company in North Hollywood)
A GROUNDED SEAGULL In Chekhov’s The Seagull, the young, angst-ridden writer Tréplev maintains that “What we need are new forms! We need new forms, and if we can’t have them, then we’re better off with no theater at all.” Yet when Chekhov wrote this line in 1895, he was referring not to the interpretation of…
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Regional/National Tour Dance Feature: ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER (Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa)
ALVIN AILEY – REMEMBER HIS NAME AIDS wreaked havoc on the theater world in all of its incarnations, and the crushing effects of its devastation remain with us today. So many ingenious creators were robbed from us that imagining the works that may have been instigates an unspeakable grief so vast that, at times, it seems best…
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National Tour/Nightclub Review: MARíA VOLONTÉ (Blue Tango National Tour)
THE DARK STREETS OF PASSION The voluptuous Argentine singer María Volonté glided elegantly onto the stage at The Rrazz Room, caressed her guitar as with a lover, and had me at, “Are you ready to be dragged into the world of passion?” Music historians may debate the origins of tango music, but no one will…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THREE YEAR SWIM CLUB (East West Players in Los Angeles)
THREE YEAR SWIM CLUB SWIMS UP STREAM Ever since mankind began telling tales, the “overcoming adversity” story has remained ever-popular. From cave wall pictures depicting a hunter’s prowess over the Woolley Mammoth to David overpowering Goliath to calculus teacher Jaime Escalante’s efforts with underprivileged students, these stories are meant to inspire. The heroes, most often…
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Chicago Theater Review: TOO MUCH LIGHT MAKES THE BABY GO BLIND (The Neo-Futurarists)
A BLUEPRINT FOR ACTIVISM The Occupy Wall Street movement would do well to take a tip from the longest running show in Chicago, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (TML). The event may take place every week indoors at the Neo-Futurarium — above a funeral home in the Andersonville neighborhood — but it…
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San Diego Theater Review: NEXT FALL (Diversionary Theatre)
IT’S THE SCRIPT THAT TAKES A FALL The main thing missing from Next Fall, Geoffrey Nauffts’ play about a gay couple with disparate religious beliefs, is credibility. No matter how much the playwright attempts to tackle some very serious modern issues – religion, gay rights, family values – it is difficult to take the play…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: MAN OF LA MANCHA (Musical Theatre West in Long Beach)
TO STAGE AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM Now in its 60th season, Musical Theatre West (MTW) is currently reviving Man of La Mancha with the astronomical performance of Davis Gaines as its driving force. Technically, the estimable company has never been better, producing sights and sounds the likes of which one would only expect from a Broadway show….
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Regional Theater Review: THE SOUND OF MUSIC (3-D Theatricals at Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton)
3-D THEATRICALS MAKES QUITE A SOUND The 70MM, Panavision aerial shot of Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and entourage trekking over the border into Switzerland in The Sound of Music (1965) may be impressive, but it pales in comparison to the final moments of 3-D Theatrical’s revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1959 audience pleaser. On a…
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San Diego Theater Review: THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES (San Diego Musical Theatre)
THEY’RE BA-A-A-A-A-CK Here’s the story: we are at the 1958 Springfield High School senior prom, and the entertainment isn’t coming because the leader of The Crooning Crab Cakes got busted for smoking around the girls’ lockers. Fortunately, there is a replacement four-girl group named The Marvelous Wonderettes who belt and rock sophisticated harmonies as they humorously grapple with adolescent…
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Bay Area Theater Review: JESUS IN INDIA (Magic Theatre in San Francisco)
THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD 18 year-old Jesus of Nazareth has heard some distressing news from his sucky carpenter of a father, so he bails Galilee with his whiny, Girl, Interrupted-like friend, Abigail, who’s, like, way in love with Jesus. They arrive in India where Jesus is ready to party. Like, suck on a hookah….
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Bay Area Theater Review: A STEADY RAIN (Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley)
MIST OPPORTUNITY I was troubled after the opening of the West Coast Premiere of Chicago playwright Keith Huff’s A Steady Rain at Marin Theatre Company. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this play belongs in a tiny, storefront theatre, if anywhere at all. The dubious construction of the script made it feel like a tele-play:…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: ART (The Pasadena Playhouse)
ART OR NOT, IT’S A FUN PLAY Yasmina Reza’s oft-produced Art (English translation by Christopher Hampton) may be singularly responsible for the current plethora of new plays today billed as “Ninety Minutes No Intermission.” The story, about three long-time friends who are at odds over a painting one of them has bought, is splendidly simple…
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Bay Area Theater Review: BODY AWARENESS (Aurora Theatre in Berkeley)
PLAYWRIGHT AWARENESS With three produced plays under her belt, Annie Baker is quickly becoming THE playwright to watch in the American Theatrical landscape. Her first play, Body Awareness (originally staged Off-Broadway by the Atlantic Theater Company in 2008), is currently receiving a marvelous rendering at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, and has been rightfully praised…
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San Diego Theater Review: THE RECOMMENDATION (The Old Globe)
WHEN RECOMMENDATIONS DON’T TURN OUT AS HOPED FOR Aaron Feldman, the charismatic, bright, and privileged protagonist of Jonathan Caren’s promising but highly unwieldy new play The Recommendation, reminds me of an old college chum. My friend wasn’t just privileged, he was over-privileged. While I worked three jobs to support myself through college, his parents kept…
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San Diego Theater Review: A BEHANDING IN SPOKANE (Cygnet Theatre)
THE SHOW ABOUT THE HAND THAT GIVES YOU THE FINGER I get a thrill when I think of the tourists who are milling about Old Town in San Diego. Exhausted from tchotchke shopping and sugary treats, they decide to take in a play at the incredibly lovely Cygnet Theatre. Most of these unsuspecting travelers have…
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Regional Theater Review: DIVIDING THE ESTATE (Old Globe Theatre in San Diego)
THE FEATS OF THE FOOTES America is preoccupied with an unstable economy, tax increases, oil profiteering, cash deficiencies, and the plummeting worth of real estate. Yet history does indeed repeat itself, for these were the same issues facing Americans in the Reagan years, and Dividing the Estate, which takes place in 1987 Texas, will reverberate…
Off-Broadway Review: THE MAIDS (St. Ann’s Warehouse / Brooklyn)
by Gregory Fletcher | May 27, 2026
in New York, TheaterTheater Review: AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE (TimeLine Theatre / Chicago)
by Croydon Fernandes | May 27, 2026
in Chicago, TheaterTheater Review: LE BAL (Trap Door Theatre / Chicago)
by Croydon Fernandes | May 26, 2026
in Chicago, Theater
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