Remembering Bock and Harnick
By Peter Filichia — As October ends, let’s stop to remember a stellar Broadway songwriting team whose last two shows celebrated anniversaries this month. Forty-four years ago on Oct. 18, 1966, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s The Apple Tree opened. Forty years ago, on Oct. 19, 1970, their musical version of The Rothschilds debuted. Sad […]
Sammy’s Back and Running
By Peter Filichia — Sept. 21, 1998. The pilot episode of Will & Grace airs on NBC. Will Truman and his friends – including Jack McFarland – are playing poker. Jack is stalling, wondering if he should hold or discard. And while he wonders, he starts singing to himself. “A room without windows,” he drones. […]
October’s Party
By Peter Filichia — Quite often during the month of October, I start thinking of George Cooper’s poem “October’s Party.” You’re pardoned if you don’t know it. It was the poem I chose to memorize in seventh grade when Sister Monicella (doncha love those old nuns’ pseudonyms?) demanded that we memorize one. With “only” twenty-four […]
To Us, Drake Means Alfred Drake
By Peter Filichia — This week, let’s celebrate what would have been the 96th birthday of the Broadway musical’s quintessential leading man: Alfred Drake, who was born on Oct. 7, 1914. When Robert Viagas wrote his book I’m the Greatest Star – subtitled Broadway’s Top Musical Legends from 1900 to Today — he chose twenty […]
Before There Was Sweet Charity, There Was Sweet Irma
By Peter Filichia — Who’d expect that Irma La Douce could still be bought 50 years after she reached New York? True, Irma, who arrived here on Sept. 29, 1960, isn’t seen very often anymore. Says Mel Miller, who produced Irma La Douce at his Musicals Tonight! in 2008, “It took me 10 years to […]
