Skip to content

Blog

Return with Ed Ames to Broadway

Return with Ed Ames to Broadway

By Peter Filichia   During his long career, Ed Ames only made two appearances on Broadway. In 1962, he took over for Jerry Orbach as Paul the puppeteer in Carnival; then in 1963, he originated the role of Chief Bromden, the tortured soul who became the title character of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. […]

The Overtures Is About to Miss

The Overtures Is About to Miss

By Peter Filichia   I once asked Charles Strouse if he expected that “Baby, Talk to Me” would be Bye Bye Birdie’s big hit.   After all, it was the first featured song in the overture, placed and played with such authority that it seemed to say “This is the one, folks. This is the […]

Cabaret’s Sui Generis Cast Album

Cabaret’s Sui Generis Cast Album

Most of the hundreds of original cast albums have of course been recorded in studios. A few have been recorded live, such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s Porgy & Bess, the British Moby Dick and Catch My Soul. And then there was Mummenschanz, a mime show where a listener ONLY heard the audience response. (Seriously: nothing else.) […]

In Praise of Anita Gillette

In Praise of Anita Gillette

By Peter Filichia   What a nice event at the Spiral Theatre Studio last Wednesday night. At Richard Skipper Celebrates, a chat-series helmed by the eponymous raconteur, the ever-charming Anita Gillette was the subject.   Granted, most Americans may remember Gillette from her 20,000 appearances on The $20,000 Pyramid and other game shows. Daytime mavens […]

Original (Bullets over) Broadway Cast Album

Original (Bullets over) Broadway Cast Album

By Peter Filichia   All right, most of us don’t like the semi-recent phenomenon of “jukebox musicals.” And yet, we must admit that far more often than not such shows spur entertaining original cast albums. Maintaining this tradition is Bullets over Broadway.   Woody Allen’s 1994 film – which insisted that a true artist will […]

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.