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All right, let’s admit the mistake, apologize for it, and move on. The new vinyl release of RAGTIME says on its spine “Original Soundtrack.” Some will say, “Well, what’s wrong with that?” It’s a common misconception that ANY recording of a musical is a soundtrack. No. Soundtrack albums come from movies, because films have a […]

Although I greatly admired Sanaz Toosi’s WISH YOU WERE HERE at Playwrights Horizons, I couldn’t help thinking of the 1952 musical with the same title. How it got its name is a fun story. The musical with a vivid Harold J. Rome score was based on the second-longest running play of the 1937-1938 season: “HAVING […]

Whenever May 12th approaches, I think of THE SNAKE PIT. I don’t mean an actual abyss of vipers that you might encounter on a stroll through northern India, southern China or on an Arizona desert. I’m talking about the 1948 film in which Virginia Stuart Cunningham (Olivia de Havilland) goes crazy every time May 12 […]

An irony recently occurred when I played the original cast album of A CLASS ACT. It’s ruled my apartment ever since Robert W. Schneider revived the Edward Kleban bio-musical in February and inspired me to return to it. “The Next Best Thing to Love” is one of the finest songs I’ve heard this new millennium. […]

Now we know why Stephen Sondheim answered so many letters. Remember, Sondheim said of mentor Oscar Hammerstein II, “If he’d had been a geologist, I would have become a geologist.” In that spirit, we can infer that Hammerstein’s policy of faithfully answering his mail inspired Sondheim to do the same. If there ever were any […]