The All-Star Musical
By Peter Filichia – In my recent book Broadway Musical MVPs, 1960-2010, I gave awards that baseball annually bestows but theater doesn’t: Most Valuable Player, Comeback Player of the Year and Reliever of the Year, among others. I also thought about what the ultimate “All-Star Game” would be. True, every year there’s at least one […]
I Hear Bells
By Peter Filichia — What musical gave its leading character the best opening song as well as the best closing song? For men, the answer is probably My Fair Lady, as Rex Harrison got to sing “Why Can’t the English?” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” For women? I’d say Bells Are Ringing, which […]
The Big Bajour
By Peter Filichia — Forty-seven years ago this week, musical theater enthusiasts added a new word to their foreign-language vocabulary. They’d already learned “L’chaim!” from Fiddler on the Roof, “Dis-Donc” from Irma La Douce, “Moritat” from The Threepenny Opera, “Rahadlakum” from Kismet, “Abbondanza” from The Most Happy Fella, “Preludium” from The Sound of Music and […]
A Perfect Ten for Blackbirds and Shuffle Along
By Peter Filichia — The birth of any innovation makes for some growing pains. That too was the case with the so-called long-playing record when it came into existence in the late ‘40s. At first, two different sizes – ten-inch and twelve-inch — played at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. Because classical records and original […]
Three Cheers for Two by Two
By Peter Filichia – It was to be The Big Show of the season. For decades, “The New Richard Rodgers musical” always was. But Two by Two was going to be The REALLY BIG Show of 1970-1971 because Danny Kaye was coming back to Broadway. Although he had visited with a one-man show in each […]
