At Frankie J’s on Broadway, dinner-theater audiences will find neither buffet lines nor aging icons singing “Some Enchanted Evening.” In chef and comedian Frank Janisch’s newest production, Frankie J Supperstar, the dinner is the theater: restaurant patrons get an up close look at the preparation of the meal they’re eating while Janisch delivers jokes and cooking tips and waitstaff in white robes twirl between the tables in a lighthearted parody of Jesus Christ Superstar.
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A 1986 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Janish has run restaurants in Chicago (his hometown), Atlanta, and Miami, and was a regular guest on the Food Network’s Ready…Set…Cook! But in 1994, after an Atlanta colleague pointed out his comedic gifts, he enrolled in a seminar taught by ImprovOlympic’s Charna Halpern. One month later, needing a break from the restaurant grind, he returned to Chicago and joined the ImprovOlympic staff as a bartender. Within six months, he was the company’s CFO and director of operations, positions he held for six years.
The show opens with servers crooning, as they cross the dining room in formation, “Frankie J / Supperstar / Are you the chef that they say you are?” After the opening serenade, a (fire resistant) canvas curtain is pulled back to reveal the kitchen and Janisch in full chef’s regalia, wielding knife and spatula. A video feed and monitors placed throughout the room let the audience watch the slicing and dicing up close. During the 90-minute show, Janisch brings volunteers from the audience into the kitchen to help with each of the four courses and keeps up a running off-the-cuff patter. During the meal, the waiters break into a variety of Jesus- and food-themed numbers: “Food, Glorious Food”; Joan Osborne’s “What if God Was One of Us?”; Brewer and Shipley’s “One Toke Over the Line.”
