IF/THEN – RIGHT NOW
By Peter Filichia So many of us who are crying out for original musicals are doubly grateful for If/Then – because it gives us two of them. Bookwriter-lyricist Brian Yorkey doesn’t limit himself to a single story when dealing with Elizabeth (Idina Menzel). Just as A Little Night Music has often been called […]
How Now, Marlyn Mason?
By Peter Filichia On Friday, May 16, when the Dow Jones average hit 16,491, I interviewed the woman who’d hundreds of times said that the Dow had hit 1,000. She was lying. But that was Marlyn Mason’s job in How Now, Dow Jones. She was Kate, “The Voice of Dow Jones” who went […]
Allegro: Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Our Town
By Peter Filichia Even a splendid production of Allegro, such as the one that Tom Wojtunik is delivering right now at The Astoria Performing Arts Center, reveals a show that really should be heard and not seen. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first failure has a terrific score. Many of us suspected as much in the latter […]
Androcles at Last!
By Peter Filichia Do I hear a waltz? Of course I do. Isn’t Androcles and the Lion by Richard Rodgers? And getting a song in three-quarter time is a given in any of the legendary composer’s scores. Here in this 1967 TV musical, the waltz is the first song, just as it was in Jumbo, […]
Irma La Douce: All Talking! All Singing!
By Peter Filichia ”So I see they went and made a musical out of Irma La Douce.” That will be the reaction from some when they hear that Encores! is presenting Irma La Douce from May 7-11 at City Center. Ho-hum, another new musical based on yet another movie – in this case, the one […]
