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The sustained roar that came from my soul is one I’d never before heard emerge from my body. And despite the passage of more than thirty-five years, I’ve never heard anything like it since. It happened at Avery Fisher Hall on Sept. 6, 1985 after FOLLIES ON CONCERT had played the first of its two […]

Three million, seven hundred and ten thousand. That’s how many entries Google has for Stephen Sondheim. With that much interest in Broadway’s greatest composer-lyricist, THE STEPHEN SONDHEIM ENCYCLOPEDIA had to be written. Rick Pender’s 636-page tome will be released mid-April from Rowman & Littlefield. It’s just another honor for the man who’s received more awards […]

Lauren M. Gunderson went through life like the rest of us, never knowing about Jeannette Rankin. But she’s become the bookwriter of the musical JEANNETTE, whose concept album is available through Masterworks Broadway. Gunderson first heard of Rankin through Ari Afsar – “an incredible singer-songwriter-performer,” she says. (In fact, Afsar played Eliza in the Chicago […]

If an event hadn’t happened eighty-nine years earlier – on March 15, 1862, to be precise – we wouldn’t have one of Broadway’s much-praised and oft-revived musicals. On that date, Anna and Louis Leonowens arrived in Siam. Because she did make the trip, we’ll soon be celebrating the seventieth anniversary of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s THE […]

Matthew Gurren and James Campodonico have a point. They’ve written a musical called WHAT DO CRITICS KNOW? which I fondly remember from a presentation. It came to mind while I was perusing Anthony Slide’s SELECTED THEATRE CRITICISM, VOLUME 3, 1931-1950. I don’t own Volumes One and Two, and have no idea if there were ever […]