1,448 stories by "Peter Filichia"
Starting Tuesday, Mary Testa will be at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, reading newspapers and solving each puzzle in them.
How fitting that a production of "Spring Awakening" will arrive in New Jersey soon after spring has awakened around the state.
By Peter Filichia
How well I remember the early morning of Friday, March 15, 2002.
I had to go out-of-town, and my friend Ken Bloom had volunteered to drive me to the airport, even though …
By Peter Filichia --
If you can get to the always excellent Transport Group's current production of Hello, Again, so much the better. But if you cannot, there's always the excellent origina…
By Peter Filichia
It's been 38 years now since A Little Night Music opened and Fredrik told Desiree, "You must meet my wife." Indeed we did, in one of Stephen Sondheim's most fetching waltz…
By Peter Filichia --
Spent Presidents Day thinking about presidents who've shown up in musicals.
Recall that Lola sang, "You've seen the sign that says, 'George Washington once slept here…
By Peter Filichia --
Most long-time football fans don't realize it, but they know a song from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
How can this be? The musical version of James Thurber's sho…
By Peter Filichia "
Fifty years ago, Camelot was in the middle of its six-week reign as The #1 Record Album in the land.
Not The #1 Musical Theater Record Album in the land. The #1 Record…
By Peter Filichia --
So this is the week we celebrate Groundhog Day, which has taken on a new and different meaning ever since that Bill Murray movie debuted in 1993. In case you've missed…
Once The Small World of Charity was announced in early 1965, all Broadway was looking forward to this new Bob Fosse musical that would star Gwen Verdon. But there was never anything small …
By Peter Filichia --
Since MasterworksBroadway and Arkiv have made concerted efforts to re-release a number of stage recordings of yore, I've found that my friends have been most looking f…
By Peter Filichia --
It's one of the worst-kept secrets of musical theater. Many a song that was written for one musical wound up dropped " but some time later wound up in another show.
I…
Nice tribute to Jerry Herman at the Kennedy Center Awards last week. While the composer-lyricist sat in a box above the action, an all-star cast performed three songs from La Cage aux Folles…
By Peter Filichia --
Many a musical theater writer has found that following a smash hit with another is difficult if not impossible. So after Cole Porter had the biggest success of his ca…
By Peter Filichia --
Fifty years ago this week, Wildcat opened with one of the most beloved stars of the era: Lucille Ball. Composer Cy Coleman and lyricist Carolyn Leigh certainly gave h…
By Peter Filichia " Might you indulge me in a personal story? It's Tuesday, Nov. 9, 1965 around 5 p.m., and I'm returning home from school -- but not before I stop at Harvard University's "C…
By Peter Filichia --
It may be the song that many people most dread during the holiday season: "The Twelve Days of Christmas." For one thing, the song is certainly is longer than "Rumson C…
By Peter Filichia -- Thanksgiving is upon us, so let's get in a thankful mood.
Here's hoping that you indeed have a great deal for which to be thankful: health, relatives, friends, a job y…
Oh, the drums go bang, and the cymbals clang, and the horns...
He doesn’t have a stove; only a hot plate. But here’s betting that he has...
By Peter Filichia --
Long before one play by George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion) became a musical (My Fair Lady in 1956), there was another: GBS's 1894 play Arms and the Man became the Oscar S…
By Peter Filichia --
Everyone I know who got the recently released Arkiv CD of What Makes Sammy Run? has said the same thing to me: "What an overture!"
Yes, it is, and for three good re…
