Kenneth Frankel; Regional Theater Director

Kenneth Frankel, a respected director of regional theater who also found success on Broadway, has died at the age of 56.

Frankel died Thursday at his Los Angeles home of a brain tumor, said his wife, Donna Isaacson, casting executive at 20th Century Fox.

The director won an Obie award for his work on the off-Broadway production of Simon Gray’s “Quartermaine’s Terms” at Playhouse 91 in 1984.

Frankel first made his mark in New York theater in 1973, when he directed “When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?” Among his other 40 stage productions was Harold Pinter’s “Old Times,” starring Anthony Hopkins, Marsha Mason and Jane Alexander.

Predominantly based at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn., Frankel directed plays at regional theaters around the country including the Pasadena Playhouse. He was artistic director of the Dallas Shakespeare Festival for six years and served on the National Endowment for the Arts theater panel.

Although the Long Wharf sent several plays on to Broadway, Frankel never saw that as a major goal.

“We don’t think in those terms, only whether the play is good for our theater and our audience and whether we’re excited about doing it,” he said in 1984. “Producers may be coming to see it, but we can’t let that blur our intentions. Any more is just frosting on the cake.”

His own reputation enabled him to move permanently to Broadway and off-Broadway, but he stuck with regional theater. “I want to be able to look back on my life,” he once commented, “and say, ‘This is where the work was done.’ ”

Frankel also did some directing for television, including “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” “Doogie Howser, M.D.” and the 1992 television special “I Remember You.”

Born in Ohio, he graduated from Northwestern University and earned the Tyrone Guthrie Fellowship to work with Guthrie at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis.

In addition to his wife, Frankel is survived by his daughter, Hanna, of Los Angeles; and by his father and stepmother, Elmer and Peggy; two brothers, Douglas and Thomas; and a sister, Alice Haas, all of Cleveland.

The family has asked that memorial donations be made to the Manhattan Theatre Co., 113 43rd St. 8th Floor, New York, NY 10036.

A funeral service is scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday at Temple Isaiah, 10345 W. Pico Blvd.