Chicago Reaches Its Majority By Peter Filichia
If a musical were a person, the revival of Chicago would now be old enough to drink in all fifty states. Precisely twenty-one years have passed since the revival of the Kander-Ebb-Fosse 1975 masterpiece opened its second Broadway run: three months at the Richard Rodgers, six years at the Shubert and then to the Ambassador […]
Urinetown Redux By Peter Filichia
Why have so many years passed since I played the cast album of Urinetown? Back in 2001, I had the disc on my CD player at a non-stop clip that threatened the claim that these silver slivers never wear out. T.S. (Cats) Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons; I was […]
The Lonny Price of Fame By Peter Filichia
Last week while I was attending the 29th annual Festival of New Musicals at New World Stages, a certain program bio caught my eye. The single white sheet for Prom Queen – which details Marc Hall’s struggles to take his boyfriend to The Big Dance at his Catholic School – provided information on its director […]
BUT SOMETIMES YOU’RE LOCKED INTO RHYMES By Peter Filichia
Last week we talked about lyricists who, when they needed a rhyme to fill out a line, might well have changed or invented a character’s name to match it. Really, were Drake and Mrs. Pugh the names of the butler and housekeeper that bookwriter Thomas Meehan had already written into Annie before Martin Charnin wrote, […]
WHAT’S IN A NAME? WHAT’S IN A RHYME? By Peter Filichia
On October 3rd, I listened to Annie to celebrate a 41st anniversary. For on that date in 1976 I saw the closing performance of the tryout at the Goodspeed Opera House. I was 100% certain that I wasn’t seeing the last of this Meehan-Strouse-Charnin musical. A show that I’d expected to have no heart possessed […]
