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By Peter Filichia A great big Broadway show’s overture starts with a majestic flourish that indicates that something important is going to happen. That’s followed by the snazziest tune in the score before the tempo slows down and the Big Ballad comes in. And yet, that third component doesn’t happen in the new #MWBVault release, Woman […]

Oh, Pinocchio! By Peter Filichia “This is a book that deserves attention” says Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump of Richard A. Lertzman and William J. Birnes’ The Life and Times of Mickey Rooney.  But Simon & Schuster isn’t bringing it out until October 20. So while we’re waiting, we can get a Mickey Rooney fix […]

By Peter Filichia Just spent a delightful week at The College of Wooster (Ohio) where Ohio Light Opera presented three operettas and four musicals. The latter category included one of 1926’s biggest hits: Oh, Kay!   It has a book by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, but much more significantly, music by George Gershwin and […]

By Peter Filichia After I’d finished a recent lecture to a group of young musical theater students, one of them approached me and said “I’ve got a question. In ‘Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love’ in A Chorus Line, when that singer says that he was ‘Locked in the bathroom with Peyton Place,’ do you […]

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 […]