1,382 stories by "Tony Frankel"
THE MINUTES WILL LEAVE YOU SLACK-JAWED AND SPEECHLESS Superbly civic, the vast council chamber created by set designer David Zinn reeks of rectitude. Filling the stage at Studio 54 is a coff…
PUT YOURSELF IN HARMONY'S WAY I can't remember the last time I have been so entranced with a new musical. And while Harmony may be having its New York premiere in the Off-Broadway house that…
DOWN IN HARLEM Following the quirky, audacious Slave Play (see review) " the first show of Center Theatre Group's season at The Taper " the company has done a complete 180 with their product…
AILEY IS ALWAYS AÂ REVELATION(S) Bringing with them three complete programs of dazzling dance, this 2022 edition showcases Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's (AAADT) vital verve, remindi…
After the acclaimed, record-setting run at Arizona's Phoenix Theater Company, ¡Americano!, a new American musical, is now playing a 12-week limited engagement through June 19, 2022 at New…
A PLAY THAT'S A RIOT WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO RIOT While loading items into my trunk after shopping at a Fortune 500 store recently, I realized that an item had gone unchecked by the cashier. M…
THE MINUTES FINALLY GETS ITS TIME Steppenwolf's production of The Minutes by Tracy Letts, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, will resume performances at Studio 54 on Broadway two years af…
WITH TWO WINNERS OUT OF THREE WORKS, ABT'S PROGRAM STILL SOARS AT SEGERSTROM Bursting with happiness, joy and beauty, The American Ballet Theater opened its program last night at Segerstrom …
THANKS TO SONDHEIM'S SONGS, THIS MUSICAL WILL NEVER DIE The cast is quite terrific with some extraordinary standouts in East West Players' revival of Assassins, but it is Snehal Desai's awes…
MORE LIKE POWER PLAY THAN SLAVE PLAY Boy, if you want audacious theater " even one with higgledy-piggledy results " than I've got one for you: Slave Play, which opened last week at the Mark …
A ROOM OF THEIR OWN Actors Co-op is reviving Scott McPherson's extraordinary play Marvin's Room. While it has always been one of my favorite plays, it's a daunting choice for any company. Th…
BRINGING BACK BYRNE Talking Heads superstar David Byrne re-opened his acclaimed rock spectacle American Utopia last September 17 at Broadway's St. James Theatre after the pandemic shutdow…
WHAT WILL YOU TALK ABOUT? Red high-heeled shoes? Professional drag queens? Repetitive pop music? Overcoming homophobia? Yeah, the new-ish musical Everybody's Talking About Jaime sounds a lot…
NEW PLAY BY BERNARDO CUBRÃA COMES TO THE ROAD The Road Theatre Company returns to live performances with three plays performing in repertory, beginning and re-opening with the world premi…
The Bay Area Premiere of Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery " the winner of the 2020 Obie Award for Playwriting, Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play, and a Pulitzer Finalist "…
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD GOES ON HIATUS Aaron Sorkin's To Kill a Mockingbird, the best play I've seen on Broadway in years " and the most successful American play in Broadway history "…
BROADWAY HOTSPOT THE GREEN ROOM 42 CELEBRATES 5 YEARS WITH JUDY KUHN AND ALEXANDRA SILBER ON VALENTINE'S DAY The outstanding venue Green Room 42, which I had the pleasure of getting to know …
Relevant. Absorbing. Intense. Thought-provoking. Riveting. Ambitious. This is powerful theatre that plumbs the depths. It does not allow you to breathe. It's rewards are rich and will stay w…
J.M. BARRIE'S MARY ROSE BECOMES WORLD PREMIERE MUSICAL Black Button Eyes Productions concludes its 2021-22 season with Mary Rose, a world premiere musical adapted from the same-titled play b…
HELLO, BIRDIE! THE FILM BYE BYE BIRDIE PLAYS AT THE MONTALBAN IN L.A. ON JANUARY 13; ANN-MARGRET AND BOBBY RYDELL TO APPEAR IN PERSON Cinelounge Theatres and Cleopatra Records will present a…
SLOW TO DIE, OR FAST TO LIVE? The setting is the story in The Children, Fountain Theatre's L.A. premiere. Set designer Andrew Hammer depicts a hand-me-down yet tidy seaside cottage …
A BEAT OFF You may have never heard of the musical Head Over Heels, but this screwy mash-up of Sir Philip Sidney's sixteenth-century poem Arcadia and the songs of the iconic 1980s' female ro…
THANKFULLY, WE'RE STILL SEARCHING Is there life after Lily Tomlin? The Shed, the cool new space for theater and art in Hudson Yards, is about to prove that question with a resounding "yes". …
CHANGEÂ IS NOW We hear that that the only thing constant is change, yet we struggle against change, we fight against change, and some are even willing to succumb to the unyielding stress o…
THE THEATER IS RICHER DUE TO POOR CLARE Every once in a while, a bright shiny play comes along that absolutely restores my faith in theater as a place to be entertained, enthralled, and enli…
