SHRINK RAP By Peter Filichia
Do psychiatrists really take off the entire month of August? Judith Rossner certainly substantiated this belief in her novel – called, naturally enough, AUGUST. However, a 2010 Wall Street Journal article said a psychiatrist’s skipping 31 consecutive midsummer days had become a thing of the past. That’s good news for our 21st-century musical theater characters, […]
Getting into INTO THE WOODS Again By Peter Filichia
As a certain Witch sings, “Don’t you know what’s out there in the world?” Sure! There’s a new production of INTO THE WOODS at Broadway’s St. James Theatre. Can it really be 35 years since composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim and bookwriter James Lapine debuted their new musical (and eventually won Tonys for it)? That question came […]
IF YOU ONLY KNOW THE MOVIE MUSICAL… By Peter Filichia
It happened again this week. I met Marie, who lives in Alaska – Alaska, Pennsylvania – who’s been reading me since the days of THEATER WEEK. During lunch, my first question was, “So, how did you get interested in musicals?” Once again, the answer was one I receive from people who live in such places […]
WEILL AWAY THE HOURS By Peter Filichia
In case you don’t know it, here’s your chance to be in the know about a unique Broadway composer. Twice a year, The Kurt Weill Foundation publishes a Kurt Weill Newsletter. Frankly, “Newsletter” is a misnomer; this is a mini-magazine of 24 pages that’s printed on decent paper stock whose pages are dotted with many […]
MY TAKE ON TAKE ME ALONG By Peter Filichia
Yes, we like that, on every July 4, Turner Classic Movies shows a film of a Broadway musical that concludes on that date. But the situation would be even better if it could also broadcast a Broadway musical that starts on that date. For in addition to 1776, in a more perfect union, TCM would […]
