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The Much Nicer Irene

The Much Nicer Irene

By Peter Filichia — I hate to see a great cast album suffer because of a hurricane. During the last two weeks of August, “Irene” became a dirty word in the northeast. But no one should take perverse revenge by neglecting the marvelous recording of the 1973 Irene. The musical revisal featured Debbie Reynolds as […]

Wednesday's Musical Is Full of Fun

Wednesday’s Musical Is Full of Fun

By Peter Filichia — These days, there are some small recording companies that occasionally record cast albums for musicals that last a week or less. But paradoxically, in the Golden Age of Broadway Musicals – roughly considered to be 1943 to 1965 — there weren’t many. You may have assumed that the first was Anyone […]

An Earnest Musical

An Earnest Musical

By Peter Filichia — If you planned to see that Broadway revival of The Importance of Being Earnest, alas, it’s too late. It closed on June 26 after 189 performances – which is the longest run that any Broadway production of Oscar Wilde’s play had had in nine tries. But you can still hear the […]

The Nervous Set – Original Broadway Cast 1959

The World’s First Beatnik Musical

By Peter Filichia — Tom Aldredge died on July 22. Fran Landesman met the same sad fate a day later. But The Nervous Set, the 1959 musical in which he performed and for which she wrote the lyrics, lives on through its original cast album. The Nervous Set has been in and out of print […]

Make Some August Holidays

Make Some August Holidays

By Peter Filichia — August is the only month in which we don’t have a true official holiday. Oh, August 11 is a big day in India and the day after is a big deal in Armenia. But for Americans, such big days as Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas occur in other months – not to […]

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.