Skip to content

Blog

Going Forward from A to Z

Going Forward from A to Z

By Peter Filichia   Musical theater writers have many goals, but there’s one for which they always aim.   Write a song that will advance the action.   There are plenty of wonderful songs that do just that, but these are the songs the general public is least likely to hear. Even in the Golden […]

On the London Town

On the London Town

By Peter Filichia   If I had a chance to run into Leonard Bernstein wherever he is now, I’d ask him to forgive me.   I just – for the first time ever – heard the Original London Cast album of On the Town that was recorded in 1963. And I vastly prefer how musical […]

Side Show – Original Cast Recording 1997

THE ORIGINAL SIDE SHOW

By Peter Filichia   What a good season for Bill Russell! He’s just seen one of his musicals return to off-Broadway — Pageant, now at the Davenport Theatre on West 45th – and come October, Side Show makes its return to Broadway.   In June the musical that Russell wrote with Henry (Dreamgirls) Krieger opened […]

1776: IT’S A MASTERPIECE, I SAY

By Peter Filichia   Remember, 1776 is first and foremost an entertainment. What was not on the minds of its bookwriter Peter Stone or its composer-lyricist Sherman Edwards was 100% historical accuracy.   For one thing, the 1969 Tony-winning hit shows us fourteen people putting their John Hancocks on the Declaration of Independence (and that […]

LESLIE UGGAMS – FROM TONY TO GYPSY

LESLIE UGGAMS – FROM TONY TO GYPSY

By Peter Filichia   There are plenty of raised eyebrows at Connecticut Repertory Theatre as soon as many theatergoers hear the first note of the overture.   Long-time fans of Gypsy – and who isn’t? – are startled to hear a shortened version of what many consider to be the greatest of all Broadway overtures. […]

Peter Filichia is the theater critic emeritus for the Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey and News 12 New Jersey.

He is a columnist each Friday for www.mtishows.com and www.kritzerland.com.

Filichia is the author of Let’s Put on a Musical, now in its third printing; Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit of the Season / The Biggest Flop of the Season and Broadway Musical MVPs 1960-2010: The Most Valuable Players of the Last 50 Seasons. His new book, Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks will be published in May, 2013 by St. Martin’s Press.

He has been a columnist for Playbill, Theater.com, Theatermania and Theater Week.

Before joining the Theatre World Awards in 1996 as host and head of the selection committee, Filichia served four terms as president of the Drama Desk. He has served on an assessment panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, and is currently critic-in-residence for the University of Cincinnati-Conservatory of Music and the musical theater judge for the ASCAP Awards program.