Broadway’s First Jukebox Musical
By Peter Filichia — You’re in the middle of holiday shopping. You want to get something nice for that couple next door and their toddler. But you don’t have much do-re-mi. For the adults, get the original cast album of Do Re Mi. The musical that opened nearly 51 years ago at the St. James […]
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 […]
