Tony Frankel

HERE COMES MR. JORDAN Have you ever been to a sultry party that has the oppressive feel of a languid, humid day in the Deep South, only to have the energy shift dramatically when a raconteur blows in like a refreshing breeze off the Gulf Coast? Usually, it is someone who can recount their adventures…

THE VALUE IN SIMPLICITY The purposefully simplistic proceedings of David Cromer’s production of Our Town may seem bold and innovative to some, especially to those weaned on Broadway spectacles. Yet, the gloriously unassuming presentation now on at the Broad Stage is actually a spot-on realization of Thornton Wilder’s vision of his famous 1938 play. Indeed,…

OWNING HER INNER KVETCH In Michael Wex’s treatise Born to Kvetch, he asserts that Kvetching (complaining) is not only a pastime for Jews – it’s a way of life. Kvetching can be applied indifferently to contentment or displeasure: it is a way of knowing, a means of apprehension that sees the world through cataract-colored glasses….

BLACK COMEDY AND KITCHEN SINK DRAMA: AN IRISH STEW While the horror and suspense merely simmer in The Beauty Queen of Leenane – Martin McDonagh’s 1996 black comedy – the dark humor, bleakness, and romance positively boil over, making The Production Company’s revival a recommended trip. For 20 years, 40 year-old spinster Maureen (Ferrell Marshall)…

UNAPPRECIATED MASTERPIECE OR ABJECT FAILURE? Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein began the Golden Era of Broadway with two musicals that reimagined the previous form of musical comedies – a cluster of songs packaged together by a plot – by using songs to heighten and embellish a striking narrative. After creating Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945),…

AN ERROR IN COMEDY One of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, The Comedy of Errors, is also his shortest and most farcical. In fact, while scholars argue over the classification of other Bard works, there is no denying that this play belongs to the category of Comedies: the tale of two sets of separated twins is not…

GET SOME FANNY There are many reasons to see the revival of Harold Rome’s 1954 musical Fanny at the Alex Theatre, but you only have one shot. Musical Theatre Guild (MTG), an Equity company of the finest musical theatre talent in, well, anywhere, will present this captivating Marcel Pagnol story on Monday, November 14 at…

SITTING VIGIL FOR THE CENTER THEATRE GROUP, OR LIVING ON BORROWED THEATER Vigil, which was first done in Canada in 1995, is an oft-produced play, having been translated into 19 languages. At the same time that Malcolm Gets was appearing in an Off-Broadway production in 2009, A.C.T. in San Francisco was planning their 2010 outing,…

FALL FLAT My extreme reluctance to recommend Next Fall should not necessarily deter you from seeing it. Stay with me here. Geoffrey Nauffts’ Tony-nominated play, which concerns a gay couple with polarized religious beliefs, is a hybrid of Steel Magnolias (Southern quips and medical melodrama), Manhattan (the neurotic, atheistic, hypochondriac New Yorker who lands a…

MANAGEABLE HAIR Say what you will about Musical Theatre West’s fluffy season selections, including Winter Wonderettes, Forbidden Broadway and Spamalot, this company continues to collect an astounding assemblage of artists equal to that of Broadway (in fact, many have performed on the Great White Way). But wouldn’t it be great to see this great talent…

A BIGGER NOISE NEEDS TO BE MADE WITHIN A Noise Within (ANW), one of the nation’s leading classical repertory theatre companies, has done the unimaginable: after 19 seasons in a Masonic building in Glendale, they not only amassed enough donations to build a permanent home in Pasadena, but they started their 20th season without a…