1,382 stories by "Tony Frankel"
WHAT DO YOU HAVE A TASTE FOR? Six weeks before the opening of Sacred Fools' cannibal play, one of Stage and Cinema's writers (to whom I will assign the alias "Ethel") asked if she could revi…
WATER IS THE GIFT OF LIFE Water by the Spoonful is the second play in Quiara Alegria Hudes' "Elliot Cycle," three stand-alone plays written over an eight-year period. Elliot, A Soldier's Fug…
DON'T PASS ONÂ PASSION When first I saw Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Passion on Broadway in 1994, it was clear that this shattering new work was like nothing that had come before. I…
THE DROWSY CHAPERONE OPENS AT THE NORRIS Before American Musical Theater was reinvented by Oklahoma! in 1943, musical comedies were constructed piecemeal"a comic star here, a songwriting tea…
GET SOME TALE In 1918, Igor Stravinsky and Swiss writer Ferdinand Ramuz wrote L’Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) a short theatrical work meant to be "read, played, and dan…
UNBEREAVABLE Bekah Brunstetter's Be a Good Little Widow is awash with structural issues (ambiguous timeline, disconnected scenes), trite themes and relationships, and a refusal to penetrate …
WHICH GAME IS ON? With the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival set to begin in June, I decided to check out Fathers at a Game. I was curious to see why this 50-minute three-hander was being bille…
YOU'RE THE TOP, GIRLS For the most part, Joyce, a working class Englishwoman in Ipswich is not a sympathetic or likeable person: She is annoyed by her 16-year-old daughter Angie (who admitte…
TAYLOR-MADE When a visiting dance company plays Los Angeles, it usually offers pieces which cover both the old and the new. And so it is with Paul Taylor, who presented last weekend at the C…
EVERYTHING NEEDS A RETOUCH 30-year-old Jess is a mess. A New York-based dotcom genius, Jess is fraught with low self-esteem, making her an overweight, smelly, anti-social, stressed-out, aggr…
INVENTIVE MEMORY PLAY COULD USE JUST A BIT MORE MAGIC Inspired by the work of Johanna Cooper"a broadcaster who was commonly drawn to Jewish tales"Nicola Behrman, David Kersnar, Abbie Phillip…
IS THERE A SHOW DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? There is a method of political activism called a "zap." Basically, zaps are militant but non-violent face-to-face confrontations with persons in position…
HAVING A “‘S WONDERFUL” TIME It should come as no surprise that the song catalog of George and Ira Gershwin"according to Los Angeles Times"generates about $8 million a year…
I CAN'T CAVE ENOUGH In 1917, Kentucky cave explorer Floyd Collins discovered Crystal Cave. Located in the same area as Mammoth Cave"the longest cave system known in the world"the site operat…
A WITLESS TWILIGHT Noël Coward referred to his final play, A Song at Twilight, as his "swan song." The last installment of his Suite in Three Keys (a trio of plays set in the same hotel s…
THE FUTURE LOOKS BLIGHT While there are a few missteps in both playwriting and direction, ion theatre's presentation of two one-acts definitely held my attention. The only similarities betwe…
COME JOIN THE CIRCA Brisbane-based Circa creates circus that moves the heart, mind and soul. The company discovers, cultivates and presents works and experiences from the living heart of cir…
THE ACTUAL CITY OF DETROIT HAS FEWER PROBLEMS THAN THIS PRODUCTION After watching San Diego REP's production of Lisa D'Amour's Detroit, most audience members will be dumbstruck that this bla…
LBO MAKES A KLINGHOFFER YOU CAN'T REFUSE The big story this weekend isn't the appearance of John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer. Since its arrival in 1991, the opera has been encircled by c…
I LOVE LUCIA Lucia di Lammermoor, Gaetano Donizetti's darkly romantic tale of honor, betrayal, loss and madness, opens this Saturday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and plays through April …
SHAKESOPHRENIC, OR SCHIZSPEARE American director Barry Edelstein knows his Shakespeare. Before being appointed Artistic Director of the Old Globe 16 months ago, he was Director of the Shakes…
INTRIGUE? I'M GLAD YOU MASKED The poster of San Diego Opera's production of Verdi's A Masked Ball claims "Based on a True Story." This is not hyperbole. When their production opens on Saturd…
BASKETBALL MUSICAL IS ONE BIG PENALTY You wanna know how great the Chance Theater is? They actually made it a palatable experience to sit through one of the most half-baked and frivolous new…
REFLECTIONS ON L.A. DANCE PROJECT The uneven and uninspiring effort presented by L.A. Dance Project last night isn't bad news; it just means that this nascent company needs to hone its visio…
THE BLOOMING OF A BUDD IN L.A. Based on Herman Melville's classic American tale, adapted into a libretto by English novelist E.M. Forster and writer Eric Crozier, Billy Budd tells the …
