1,408 stories by "Tony Frankel"
INTERPLAY In the age of A Strange Loop, the hit Broadway musical about a "Big Black Queer" it seems the time is ripe for more musicals about the gay experience, but one with transgender char…
BASKETBALL BROMANCE Center Theatre Group's winning new dramady King James " a co-production with Chicago's Steppenwolf Company " is a must see for more than just rabid sports fans. Nobody wr…
STILL BANGING FOR THE BUCKS The incredibly basic concept behind Stomp, a phenom now in its third decade, remains: "Make a rhythm out of anything we can get our hands on that makes a sound…
ALICE RIPLEYTOÂ REPRISE HERÂ TONY-WINNING ROLELIVE IN PERSON JULY 1-31, 2022 Tickets are now on sale for the new, live, 60-minute immersive adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Awar…
A new play by Stephen Beresford Directed by Nicholas Hytner A co-production with The Bridge Theatre Chichester Festival Theatre, 13 " 25 June, 2022 Bridge Theatre: 1 July " 27 August, 2022 S…
AWARD WINNERS THAT STAGE AND CINEMA AGREES WITH ACROSS THE BOARD Well, well, well. Bless the 2021-2022 Drama Desk Nominating Committee. Not only were their nominations truly for achievement …
IT'S A LOT TO TAKE IN, BUT TAKE IT IN YOU MUST Fake Friends, which co-created the zany streaming event This American Wife (review), are very very bright and insightful, au couran…
GUESS WHAT PLAY WORKS Based on the screenplay of the same name, writer Todd Kreidler has updated for the stage Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Stanley Kramer's smash-hit 1967 movie by William …
BELOVED THEATER At first, we think that Beloved is about the tragic state of the internet, that a high school boy at the prestigious St. Albans in Montreal, Canada, would never be in the mes…
DON'T GET HUNG OUT BY MISSING THIS MASTERPIECE Blimey, friends, you only have two more weeks to see my favorite play on Broadway. And not only my favorite, but the best. Martin McDonough's t…
GODDAMNED MEN Four Korean teen missionaries from Los Angeles " Kyung-Hwa (Ji-Young Yoo), Samantha (Shirley Chen), Jen (Emma Galbraith), and Mimi (Erin Rae Li) " have arrived in Bangkok with …
A NEWFOUND(LAND) WAY OF LOOKING AT MUSICAL THEATER This intimate ensemble piece may only have one stand-alone song, and it may not even be the best-crafted musical or have the emotional impa…
MUSICAL THEATRE GUILD KNOWS HOW TO SUCCEED Reams can and have been written about the glories of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, a…
IT'S A LOT TO TAKE IN, BUT TAKE IT IN YOU MUST Fake Friends, which co-created the zany streaming event This American Wife (review), are very very bright and insightful, au courant about the …
HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE THEATER Some plays take time to come into their own but they're well worth a wait. Twenty-five years after its Off-Broadway debut, Paula Vogel's seminal wonder How I Le…
N-WORD, PLEASE! In six words, Samuel Beckett devours the human experience: "Birth was the death of him." This line permeates not just A Piece of Monologue (1979), but all of the master's wor…
THIS TIGER IS KING Tiger Style! at South Coast Rep is refreshing for many reasons. First, it's really funny. Playwright Mike Lew crafts his script like a super-smart teenager, mixing insight…
DID EVERYONE AT THE WALLIS NOT REALIZE THAT THE PLAY'S THE THING? One of the greatest travesties in L.A. theater history arrived at The Wallis last weekend, and I still have the emotional sc…
I NEVER MET A METAMORPHOSES I DIDN'T LIKE, BUT THIS ONE IS GREAT Critics often speak of "universal themes"Â " these are topics to which people in any place and at any time can relate. One…
THERE ARE NO WORDS It was one of those magical evenings in the theater that shall live with me forever. When Kulunka Teatro's André & Dorine appeared at the Los Angeles Theatre Cente…
Follow the Drama Desk Awards at Drama Desk and @DramaDeskAwards on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for updates 2022 DRAMA DESK NOMINATIONS: (click links for Stage and Cinema reviews) Outsta…
IF A SHOW IS CALLED DANCIN', SHOULDN'T IT BE ALL ABOUT THE DANCING? With seemingly hundreds of thousands of Bob Fosse footsteps in Dancin' " now receiving a pre-Broadway updated revival at S…
PLENTY OF RAINBOW BUT LITTLE COLOR In feminist Ntozake Shange's 1976 "choreopoem" (a term coined by the late playwright), the experiences of Black women in America are transformed into poetr…
75TH ANNUAL TONY AWARD NOMINATIONS This year's Tony nominees were announced this morning. I must say, it's difficult to argue with the majority of the noms. As usual, it seems that some of t…
SINS I FELL FOR YOU Mae West, the sage and sybarite from Brooklyn, used to say, "Let joy be unrefined," a point of view that also suits Austin McCormick, artistic director and choreographer …
