Skip to content

Blog

All American: Once upon a Time

All American: Once upon a Time, 50 Years Ago

By Peter Filichia — Broadway overtures certainly let you know early on what The Expected Hit Ballad will be. Usually, after a rousing fanfare that previews The Most Stirring Songs, everything calms down so that we can hear The Most Beautiful Song. It happens in the famed overture to Gypsy. “Small World,” which indeed turned […]

Once: Just in Time for St. Patrick's Day

Once: Just in Time for St. Patrick’s Day

By Peter Filichia – When the members of the Oscar committee first met in 2008 to discuss possible Best Song nominations for the 2007 film year, many felt that “Falling Slowly” from Once should not be nominated. After all, hadn’t it been heard in coffee houses and appeared on two albums long before the film […]

Merrick Memories

Merrick Memories

By Peter Filichia — Hundreds of record albums have been dedicated to Broadway musicals. Thousands have been sung by Broadway performers. But until October 1, 1964, there had never been a record album that had celebrated a Broadway producer. On that date, however, RCA Victor released David Merrick Presents Hits from His Broadway Hits. Now […]

A Leap Year's Look at Broadway Albums

A Leap Year’s Look at Broadway Albums

By Peter Filichia — This week, when February 29 comes into our lives, we’re most aware that we’re in a Leap Year. So let’s have a Leap Year’s look at cast albums. We must start in 1944, because American original cast albums, for all intents and purposes, didn’t come into existence until 1943. But that […]

The First Hit Broadway Musical from a Movie

The First Hit Broadway Musical from a Movie

By Peter Filichia — These days, we often hear people complain that too many Broadway musicals are made from motion pictures. Actually, the start of that trend can be traced backed to 1953, when musical versions of Nothing Sacred and Carnival in Flanders debuted. The former, renamed Hazel Flagg, was not a hit, but it […]

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.