Before LES MIZ, There Was LES POUPEES DE PARIS By Peter Filichia
There’s not much left at Flushing Meadows to remind us of the 1964-65 World’s Fair. Oh, there’s the Unisphere, of course, and the New York Hall of Science. But the State Pavilion hasn’t held up well and the Heliport is now a banquet facility. Starting this week, however, we have another reminder of New York’s […]
Runaways Has a New Run By Peter Filichia
This week, New York has the chance to rediscover the first musical for which a woman received not one, not two, not three but four Tony nominations. What a shame that Elizabeth Swados – tabbed in 1978 for Best Book, Best Score, Best Direction and Best Choreography for Runaways — won’t be here to see it. The […]
THE ROOMS WHERE I’D LIKE TO SEE IT ALL HAPPEN By Peter Filichia
John Verderber, one of our most promising musical theater writers, asked a terrific question on Facebook the other day. “‘The Room Where It Happens,’” he wrote, citing a ditty in Hamilton, “is on its way to becoming a famous musical theatre song. And in keeping with that theme, there’s a room where it happened that […]
June Is Indeed Busting Out All Over By Peter Filichia
If 1776 is accurate, 140 years ago this week John Adams and Benjamin Franklin took Maryland delegate Samuel Chase from Philadelphia to New Brunswick, New Jersey. The goal of the sixty-mile journey was to convince Chase that the Continental Army did indeed have what it took to win the Revolutionary War. And while they were […]
WEST SIDE STORY: There’s a Place for It By Peter Filichia
It’s still jarring to me – and it shouldn’t be. While watching Mark S. Hoebee’s excellent production of West Side Story at the Tony-winning Paper Mill Playhouse (in Millburn, NJ), I was reminded of a great Stephen Sondheim lyric that isn’t in the celebrated 1961 film. It happens during “Quintet,” one of the most exciting […]
