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OPERATION MINCEMEAT’S OUTSTANDING-O’S By Peter Filichia

Understand that in this tally, we’re not counting curtain calls. But indeed, last month in London during a Saturday matinee of OPERATION MINCEMEAT, I saw not one, not two, but three standing ovations greet a trio of numbers. Well, this show is a smash-hit of epic proportions. It’s often been dubbed “the best reviewed musical […]

THE OUTSIDERS’ INSIDERS by Peter Filichia

Although it’s a book that’s sold 20 million copies in 30 languages in the last 57 years, Danya Taymor had never encountered it. “I read the musical before I read the book,” said the director of THE OUTSIDERS. This admission was revealed last week when deft Broadway World contributor Richie Ridge hosted four 2023-2024 Tony […]

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PLANNING YOUR THEATRICAL SUMMER By Peter Filichia

So, which type of cast album listener are you? Before you see a musical, do you play the show’s recording and learn the score down to every hemidemisemiquaver? Or do you avoid the album because you want to be taken by surprise and discover the score in the theater? What about a musical that you’re […]

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CABARET: PERFECTLY MARVELOUS By Peter Filichia

Only ten days after it had opened, its original cast album was already in stores. Frankly, the first-ever pressing of CABARET would have arrived even earlier had the musical not opened on a Sunday. Back in the ‘60s, casts routinely recorded their albums on the first Sunday after opening. In those days, Sunday matinees were […]

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A COMPLICATED WOMAN WHO LOVED GOLDEN AGE MUSICALS By Peter Filichia

Although the new musical trying out Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre is called A COMPLICATED WOMAN, it could just as easily be titled A COMPLICATED MAN. That sounds complicated, too, doesn’t it? The explanation, though, is that the baby born to the Kenleys in 1906 had both male and female organs. Says Jeff Calhoun, who’s directing […]

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.