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Published Work

Theatre Publications:

“The Decline Of Spengler” (New Directions 48, New York)
“A Tour Of The City” (Tanam Press, New York)

Three of Frank’s radio plays were produced for theatre:

“A Tour of the City” by Theatre Anima in Montreal, Canada, translated into French, which included performers from Cirque du Soleil.
“Rent-a-Family” by Stages Trilingual Theatre in Los Angeles.
“Jerry’s World Onstage” by Infernal Bridegroom Productions, Houston, Texas.

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.

Reviews of Joe’s Work

"Joe Frank is an original whose work has helped form some of the most eccentric, dark and interesting parts of public radio's personality. "

Terry Gross, Fresh Air

"[Joe Frank] is one of the great, original radio performers. He's created a sound and style for himself - a complete aesthetic that's entirely his own. I first heard him when I was 19 and it changed everything for me. His work demonstrated the intensity and emotion that the medium is capable of; ingenious…fantastic."

Ira Glass, This American Life

"Radio's Prince of Darkness Rules the Freeways. [Frank is] alternately dark, bizarre and very funny - but always hard to turn off."

The Wall Street Journal

"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 perfect Joe Frank experience is driving down an unfamiliar highway alone at night. You turn on your radio and are greeted by a lush, resonant voice that lulls you into a seemingly simple tale of love: a man at an airport saying goodbye to his wife over the phone, which abruptly turns into a vision of betrayal, alienation and death - often from obscure disease - all brought about by some profound personal failing, which is redeemed at the last moment by a nearly transcendent moment of joy."

Salon

"Frank has created a series of dead-pan radio monologues so sharp and intelligent that during the quiet bits you can almost hear God taking notes."

The UK Guardian

"[Frank] travels in the emotional landscape of Bergman and Fellini; there's a tension and sense of mystery halfway between Kafka and Chandler... and a satiric edge worthy of Firesign Theatre and Woody Allen... No one else in radio is doing what Frank does."

The Washington Post

"Although commonly categorized as radio drama, Frank's work bears very little resemblance to the stagy artifice of plays performed over air. Frank wanders deeply into the unconscious, producing Dionysian stories with a fairy-tale intensity whose effect is often funny, disturbing and deeply memorable."

Salon

"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

"The world of Joe Frank is a wildly entertaining surrealistic universe...hilarious, unsettling, zany, powerful, moving and perhaps the most unique, inventive and effective use of radio since Orson Welles convinced much of America there was a War of the Worlds."

The L.A. Weekly

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