1,382 stories by "Tony Frankel"
IT'S THE HIGH SCHOOL SHOW THAT I WISH I WROTE IN HIGH SCHOOL The thing that looks like a high school vanity project at the Geffen Playhouse is actually a world premiere with a lot of bucks b…
I CAN ALWAYS USE MORE MEN Well, here's a national tour that isn't resting on its laurels. Somewhat tighter with impeccably glorious performances, a golden angel high above at the center of a…
CARYL ME HOME When the author is famed English playwright Caryl Churchill, theater about death and life's surmounting surrealism isn't depressing at all; it's exhilarating. The author of Clo…
AT DAY'S END Thanks to Lanie Robertson's bedrock-basic script, Wren T. Brown's dedicated staging, Karole Foreman's extraordinarily vulnerable performance, and Stephan Terry's elegant piano p…
THERE'S ARSENIC AND LACE; BUT IT DOESN'T FEEL OLD Serial murder, euthanasia, slasher psychopaths, bodies buried in a crawl space, face-lifts for people trying to change their images, the cya…
AFTER THE FLOOD Until the Flood lasts only 70 minutes. But its concentrated running time delivers a devastating drama. A ton of truth-telling now on tour at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, this 20…
YELLOW JOURNALISM, BLUE PLANET " UNCERTAIN FUTURES Propaganda has always existed. It's when people promote and publicize their agenda utilizing biased or misleading information, a perfect to…
A SHIP THAT REMAINS DOCKED Sting's musical The Last Ship has been in a shakedown cruise since it opened in Chicago six years ago. Based on last night's star-studded opening night at the Ahma…
PLENTY OF WATTAGE, EVEN WITH AN OBSCURE STORY Cirque du Soleil is back with its latest touring show, which opened last night, January 21, at Dodger Stadium. At its best, Volta provides all t…
WHAT WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME MEANS TO ME Given the barrage of nasty nightly news, I don't doubt that Americans are champing at the bit for a large slice of patriotism as they watch…
TOUCHING BUT TRAPPED IN A TIME WARP Stop Kiss was a big 1998 hit at New York's Joseph Papp Public Theater. In 2000 it arrived in Chicago in a tepid local premiere by the Naked Eye Theatre Co…
AN AMAZING INCIDENT Meet Christopher, a wannabe bloodhound who has significant social, behavioral and communication challenges; we assume the unnamed disorder is on the autism spectrum, but …
NOT A SEVEN-COURSE DINNER, BUT FILLING JUST THE SAME While on a Midwest lecture tour, arrogant and overbearing critic and radio commentator Sheridan Whiteside slips on an icy doorstep, injur…
LOST IN AUSTEN All of Jane Austen's novels are built on the same premise. A woman meets and marries an eligible man after a series of usually comic difficulties. But Austen extracts a remark…
CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SATIRE Has it really been 40 years since Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9 was first presented? The biting satire is so topical " containing cross-dressing, gay relationships…
DOESÂ GROUNDHOG DAYÂ BEAR REPEATING? At the center of San Francisco Playhouse's first regional premiere of Broadway's Groundhog Day the Musical is the brilliant, perfectly cast Ryan Drum…
NOT AS KEYED UP AS IT SHOULD BE The Geffen Playhouse has really been on a roll under the newest Artistic Director Matt Shakman. There are many more interesting scripts, and many more chances…
CYNICS UNITE These days when directors revive a classic, they have to decide whether their approach will be either to modernize the play or mount it as a period piece, true to the spirit of …
MIND YOUR MANOR Now camping through November 24 is Ravenswood Manor, a much-needed send-up of all things soap, perhaps even the one you dropped in the shower. You never know with funnyman Ju…
THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI JUST GOT MIGHTIER Do whatever you can. Take a raft, pretend you're a duke, toss pig blood around your lean-to so everyone thinks you're dead, but get to Rubicon Theatr…
A PENNY DREADFUL SAVED ISN'T ALWAYS EARNED Back in the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in merry ole England. The working class was becoming more educated and printing was …
IN TROUSERS William Finn's musical masterpiece Falsettos is a melding of two one-acts: March of the Falsettos " debatably one of the best scores of the 1980s " which opened Off-Broadwa…
50 YEARS SINCE ITS BIRTH AND JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR FINALLY RISES AGAIN Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar is given the rock concert treatment for its 50th Anniversary…
ONCE AGAIN, PLEASE Ironically, the real-life love affair between collaborators Glen Hasard, an Irish singer-songwriter, and Markéta Irglová, a Czech songwriter, fizzled after John Carney…
IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER In 1994, 5-Star Theatricals (formerly Cabrillo Music Theatre) produced its first show: Meredith Willson's The Music Man, which opened on Broadway in 1957 and bec…
