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Ninety-Five Easy Ways to Lose a Man?

Ninety-Five Easy Ways to Lose a Man?

By Peter Filichia   In Wonderful Town, Rosalind Russell played Ruth Sherwood, a bright if not dazzlingly attractive woman who decries her bad luck with the opposite sex. (You can hear her do it on the 1958 soundtrack of the TV broadcast.)   Ruth does admit, however, that many of her problems are of her […]

Celebrating a Fiddler on the Roof Milestone

Celebrating a Fiddler on the Roof Milestone

By Peter Filichia   If you’re reading this on Tuesday, September 23, it’s the fiftieth anniversary of the day in 1964 that Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Jerome Robbins, Harold Prince and dozens of others opened the six different newspapers that New York then had and read the critics’ reviews of their new show […]

IT”S THE LITTLE THINGS

IT”S THE LITTLE THINGS

By Peter Filichia   “It’s the little things, the little things” Elaine Stritch insisted in Company. And she was right — little things do mean a lot. That’s especially true of those little things we hear on cast albums.   In fact, why not start my little list with Stritch and Company? During “Side by […]

A Second Look at Pins and Needles

A Second Look at Pins and Needles

By Peter Filichia   Last week, I used the excuse of “National Sewing Month” to introduce you to Pins and Needles.   Hey, whatever it takes. The 1962 studio cast album of Pins and Needles, which commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the famous revue,is among the musical theater recordings that I most cherish.   Thus […]

Pins and Needles: That Other Barbra Streisand Album

Pins and Needles: That Other Barbra Streisand Album

By Peter Filichia   September is National Sewing Month, so this would seem to be as good a time as any to honor people who work with pins and needles.   It’s also a good chance to celebrate the musical and studio cast recording of Pins and Needles, too. Harold Rome, its composer-lyricist, had to […]

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.