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Joe
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"...Joe Frank is an invaluable warrior who stands in defense of our fears, our vanities and our forever-eroding sense of ourselves. He transforms the everyday banality of the human comedy into an inspired weirdness that feeds on pathos and irony, and feels a lot like revelation. Sartre would have called it nausea; Frank makes it art."
Spin Magazine
"I came upon Joe Frank's work by accident a number of years ago while driving to my home in the Napa Valley late at night. I couldn't believe the originality and sheer brilliance of what I was hearing. From that moment on I became a dedicated Joe Frank fan."
Francis Ford Coppola
"[Joe Frank is] the most imaginative, literate monologist in radio today... If a microphone could capture the nether recesses of the modern psyche, it would sound like Frank's absurd comical excursions: Radio Vertigo."
The Village Voice
"Frank wanders deeply into the unconscious, producing Dionysian stories with a fairy-tale intensity whose effect is often funny, disturbing and deeply memorable."
Salon Magazine
"The very first national public radio show that I worked on was Joe Frank's. I think I was influenced in a huge way ... Before I saw Joe put together a show, I had never thought about radio as a place where you could tell a certain kind of story."
Ira Glass, This American Life
"He can be funny, poignant, serious and off the wall-sometimes within the framework of the same piece. Unique is one word to describe it. Brilliant is another."
The Los Angeles Times
"A strange, different, wondrously offbeat, frequently hilarious, altogether brilliant piece of work... There's never been anything quite like it... Joe Frank is an audio Fellini."
The LA Weekly
"Frank's monologues...explore scenes that are so squeamishly personal, so harrowingly intimate, that listening to them is akin to reading the journal of a close friend and discovering things you'd rather not have known."
LA Style Magazine
"Mixing bizarre monologues, multi-sequenced dramatic vignettes and mock-solemn critiques, [Joe Frank's work] is both sophisticated and surreal. A sizable cult has been growing around Frank...a rare radio talent."
The Village Voice

About Joe

Long-time favorites with public radio audiences, Joe Frank's programs are sometimes dark, sometimes absurdist, sometimes solo recitations, sometimes ensemble pieces performed and/or improvised by actors, sometimes voices of real people heard in real situations - whether man-in-the-street interviews or phone conversations with lovers or strangers.

All or just one of these within the span of a single hour can comprise a Joe Frank show, always presented as multi-layered soundscapes intermixed with hypnotic, rhythmic music. Tackling philosophical or spiritual questions, the programs are real and surreal timeless explorations of life, death, alienation, faith and love.

Radio and other Works

Frank's radio work spans more than 20 years. He began in 1977 at WBAI, Pacifica's New York station, and later served as co-anchor of National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" in 1978. He produced and developed four radio program series for KCRW and National Public Radio: "Work in Progress," "In the Dark," "Somewhere Out There," and "The Other Side."

Frank has published two plays:
"The Decline Of Spengler" (New Directions 48, New York)
"A Tour Of The City" (Tanam Press, New York)

Short films based on Joe Frank programs:
Playboy's "Inside Out" series: "The Hitchhiker," "The Perfect Woman," and "Jilted Lover." Joe wrote and also starred in these features.
"Memories," directed by Paul Rachman, featured Larry Block, Ryan Cutrona and Joe Frank.

Joe Frank is also the author of "The Queen of Puerto Rico and Other Stories," a collection of short stories based on his radio work published in 1993 by William Morrow.

Theatre productions and Live Performances

Two of Frank's radio plays were produced for theatre:
"A Tour of the City" by Theatre Anima in Montreal, Canada, which included performers from Cirque du Soleil
"Rent-a-Family" by Stages Trilingual Theatre in Los Angeles

Frank appeared in five sold-out one-man shows:
"Joe Frank: in Performance" at UCLA's Wadsworth Theatre (two performances)
"Joe Frank at the Viper Room" in Hollywood, California
"Joe Frank Live" a three-month, twice-extended sold-out series of one-man shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
"Joe Frank at the Marc Taper Auditorium" Los Angeles, California

In May 2003, Joe Frank appeared in a one-man show entitled "One Night Stand" at South Coast Repertory.

Awards