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I vehemently disagree with Little Red Riding Hood. In INTO THE WOODS, the sadder-but-wiser girl decides that “Nice is different than good.” I not only take issue with her grammar – “different from” is the proper term – but also with her philosophy. At the very least, nice must be some part of good. And […]

Looking over my two recent pieces on Tom Jones, I saw that I addressed one issue but neglected to take on another. When citing that Agnes” in I DO! I DO! wore “an eighty-five-dollar hat,” I also noted that an inflation calculator said that in 2023 dollars, that chapeau wouldn’t come cheap. It’d be more […]

I have heard the future, and it is here. It happened from listening to COMPANY, SWEENEY TODD, INTO THE WOODS and ASSASSINS. You’re about to quote Katz from WOMAN OF THE YEAR and say, “So what else is new?” Yes, I’ll admit that Stephen Sondheim and his unparalleled genius in creating those four scores have […]

Although FUNNY GIRL is on Broadway no more, the revival cast album lives on to prove an important point. When musical theater enthusiasts discuss the 1964 musical, far more often than not they say that it’s Jule Styne’s best score after GYPSY. What they seldom mention are Bob Merrill’s lyrics. Semi-correction: What they almost always […]

Only once, in the entire history of the Tonys, has a Best Play been adapted into a successful Broadway musical. Now that both bookwriter-lyricist Tom Jones and composer Harvey Schmidt have been taken from us, let’s remember to give them credit for doing what other adaptors of Tony-winning plays couldn’t accomplished. Those who musicalized The […]