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By Peter Filichia “As a very young man,” says John Bolton, “I’d already decided that I just had to have every original cast album that had ever been made.” Well, which of us can’t relate to that? So at one point in the ‘70s, the Rochester, New York native went into his local record store […]

By Peter Filichia “Regardless of what I have done, seen, and enjoyed, I think of myself as a dancer. It is the essence of my work ethic, my values, and my balance in life.” If you didn’t read the subject line that told you this article would center on Shirley MacLaine, you probably wouldn’t guess […]

By Peter Filichia I’m not the only one who celebrated Alan Jay Lerner 97th birthday on August 31st. Dozens of others went on Facebook to honor the bookwriter/lyricist of My Fair Lady, Camelot, Gigi, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever — and a few other musicals. More than one Facebooker recounted the story of […]

By Peter Filichia If he’d never done Company, few of us Broadway-centric types would have given much thought to the death of 84-year-old Dean Jones last week. But in 1970, the actor just happened to find himself in one of the great legendary musicals of the twentieth century. Jones had the leading role of Bobby, the […]

By Peter Filichia We’re continuing to celebrate what would have been Alan Jay Lerner’s 97th birthday on August 31. Let’s hope that he would have regarded this column as a present. Last week, we talked about Brigadoon, Lerner’s first hit that had received raves from all nine (!) newspaper critics. Robert Coleman in the Mirror called it […]