REMEMBERING REDHEAD By Peter Filichia
Let’s take a look at the first 10 years of Best Musical Tony winners and see how many Broadway revivals they’ve had: All right, KISMET is a bit of a cheat, for when it was returned in 1978, it was retitled TIMBUKTU. But, despite the title change, it was pretty much business (and KISMET) as […]
THE GROUNDHOG DAY GROUPIE By Peter Filichia
That lyric from FOLLIES – “Thank-you-for-the-present-but-what’s-wrong-with-it-stuff?” – will never be heard in the home of Cheryl Solimini and Martin Farawell. For Cheryl’s birthday in 2017, Martin bought two tickets to GROUNDHOG DAY: THE MUSICAL. Both had seen the original film and liked it. However, since 2009, they had been great fans of songwriter Tim Minchin’s […]
PLAYNG THE PALACE By Peter Filichia
Stewart F. Lane will bring back memories to many, as well as important history to others. His It Happened at the Palace is a coffee table book that will keep you up even if you don’t drink any coffee. Lane is celebrating the theater that he’s co-owned since 1980 – nearly seven decades after it […]
ALL SHOOK UP OVER ELVIS PRESLEY’S 90TH By Peter Filichia
Elvis famously sang “Oh, well, a-bless my soul, but what’s wrong with me?” but I’ll instead say, “Oh, well, a-bless my soul, but what’s wrong with them?” Two weeks ago at Graceland, a celebration was held for what would have been – gulp! – Presley’s 90th birthday. Concerts as well as conversations with some of […]
URINETOWN IS READY TO TAKE SOME ENCORES!
With URINETOWN soon returning to the theatrical horizon (thanks to Encores!), memories from the past quarter-century are flooding back. Memory One: Late 1998. I walk into the office of an artistic director of a highly regarded theater company. He starts talking without as much as a “Hello.” “You think it’s easy being an artistic director?” he snarls, holding a bound copy of a script he’s grasping from the bottom. He’s slowly waving it […]
