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By Peter Filichia Sure, listen to Sondheim’s “Uptown/Downtown” (cut from Follies) and you’ll be astonished by the rhymes and wordplay. Pull out E.Y. Harburg’s “When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love” (from Finian’s Rainbow) and you’ll be equally dazzled. These are the easy lyrics to admire. But what about the ones that pass by […]

A LIST OF LIST SONGS By Peter Filichia In The Mikado, KoKo sings “I’ve Got a Little List,” a song that premiered in 1885 and opened the floodgates for 130 years of “list songs” that would be written for the musical theater. I’ve got a little list, too – one that cites the list songs […]

By Peter Filichia How well I remember entering the downstairs lobby at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2000 and seeing the two signs – one of which surprised me. Oh, by then, we’d all become accustomed to “A gunshot will be heard during this performance,” but here was a new one: “Herbal cigarettes are used […]

I don’t know about you, but I tend to listen to a cast album while I’m showering and shaving. As a result, from whatever disc I choose to play, I usually hear the Overture (if there is one), a want-song from the hero and heroine, a charm song and perhaps a Big Production Number. And […]

By Peter Filichia It’s been a biography-reading month. Immediately after I finished Cy Coleman’s life story — You Fascinate Me So, courtesy of Andy Propst — I started (and finished in no time) William V. Madison’s Madeline Kahn: Being the Music – A Life. There is some overlap, for Coleman and Kahn worked together – […]