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A Tale of Two Finians

A Tale of Two Finians

By Peter Filichia Not often does a musical run 12 performances and get a cast album. But that’s what happened to a show that RCA Victor recorded 50 years ago this week: The 1960 revival of Finian’s Rainbow. Actually, the production could be said to have run a little longer than that – 28 performances, […]

Guest Blog: Mining the Catalogue - How Show Tunes Take Center Stage

Guest Blog: Mining the Catalogue – How Show Tunes Take Center Stage

By David Foil Talk to any of us who work at MasterworksBroadway.com, and one of the first things you’ll hear about is the “catalogue” – how unique it is, how definitive it is, how huge it is. And it is all of those things. The more you read our blogs and become acquainted with Masterworks […]

If at First You Don't Succeed on Broadway ...

If at First You Don’t Succeed on Broadway …

by Peter Filichia Forty-five years ago this week, a composer-lyricist team new to Broadway were terribly worried. The previous Tuesday, their musical had opened to decidedly mixed reviews. Their score was said not to “have zing” (Chapman, News) and that it didn’t “ring much” (Kerr, Herald-Tribune). While Taubman in the Times said, “The songs provide […]

Recovering the Original

Recovering the Original

by Peter Filichia That the original cast album of Peter Pan was reissued last week was cause for celebration for those who missed the Mary Martin vehicle the first time around. But for most collectors, the most delicious words associated with the reissue were “Cover has been changed to reflect the original 1954 LP cover.” […]

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.