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And the Winner Wasn’t …

And the Winner Wasn’t …

A couple of weeks ago, I trumpeted the Tony-winning musicals that can be heard thanks to Masterworks Broadway. And how about Tony-LOSERS in the Best Musicals category? These have been on my mind because of – here comes some shameless self-promotion – my new book called Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks: a Very Opinionated History of […]

Alan Alda’s Entrance Music

Alan Alda’s Entrance Music

“You’re the one who chose Alan Alda’s entrance music, aren’t you?” So said many people to me after I’d hosted The 69th Annual Theatre World Awards on June 3. Whenever a presenter or awardee sauntered onto the Music Box stage, our expert pianist/musical director Jason DeBord would play a song that was associated with the […]

Add Kinky Boots to the Roster of Tony-Winners

Add Kinky Boots to the Roster of Tony-Winners

So the percentage just went from 56.92% to 57.58%. I’m talking about the number of Tony-winning Best Musicals that can be found on recordings and downloads on Masterworks Broadway. With Kinky Boots winning Best Musical (over the slightly favored Matilda), thirty-eight of the sixty-six victors can be found on this website. “Sixty-six?” you ask. “But […]

ClownAround – The Original Show Album 1972

ClownAround is Around At Last

Well, here’s a reissue of a show album that many fanatically dedicated cast album collectors never owned. ClownAround was originally recorded in 1972 by RCA Victor. But was it ever released? Some said yes, some said no. Who was right? The question surrounding the recording spurred my buddy Richard Thompson to conduct a personal odyssey […]

These Boots Are Made for Listening

These Boots Are Made for Listening

In October 1983, when Cyndi Lauper’s pop career started taking off in earnest, the current Broadway musicals had music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Cats), Jerry Herman (La Cage aux Folles), Maury Yeston (Nine) and George Gershwin (My One and Only). No one would have ever predicted that Lauper — whose then-hit “She Bop” concerned masturbation […]

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.