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Did you know that April is National Leftovers Month? I would have mentioned it sometime during the actual month, but, as faithful readers can attest, I spent all of April by commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of FOLLIES. Still, I have some leftover thoughts from April that I’ll tell as we segue into May. Did you […]

The day before FOLLIES closed its Boston tryout, an important decision was made. It would seem to have been a no-brainer, but the person who made the ruling on March 20, 1971 certainly was known for his extraordinary brain: Harold Prince, the smartest producer of his era and arguably the most intelligent director of musicals […]

Seven trucks. That’s how many were needed to accommodate the ornate sets and costumes that made their way from New York to Boston a half-century ago. They were required for FOLLIES’ pre-Broadway tryout at the Colonial Theatre. There the new musical would experience “four intense weeks,” as Ted Chapin described them in his magnificent 2003 […]

The first four words in Ted Chapin’s EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE haven’t aged well. However, in his remarkable history of FOLLIES from pre-production to closing night, Chapin isn’t responsible for the now-obsolete start of the sentence. Frank Rich is. In the foreword of the 2003 book, Rich wrote “More than three decades after its premiere, FOLLIES […]

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 […]