HAMMERSTEIN AND SONDHEIM: YESTERDAY ISN’T GONE By Peter Filichia
I asked the question last week, and I’ll ask it again. Have you ever noticed that Stephen Sondheim wound up writing new and edgier versions of the musicals that his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, wrote with Richard Rodgers? Last week, I compared what the two did with a famous fairy tale: Hammerstein’s CINDERELLA and Sondheim’s […]
TWO FAIRY TALES: HAMMERSTEIN’S AND SONDHEIM’S By Peter Filichia
The front cover of Christopher Anderson’s 1983 book Father: The Figure and the Force says: Father. He was once the most important man in your life. He still is. On the other hand, Sigmund Freud said that aboy does not become a man until he kills his father – or at least replaces him. That […]
PURLIE’S BACK AND RAHWAY’S GOT IT By Peter Filichia
It was heard so many times last season as people were leaving the revival of PURLIE VICTORIOUS. “Now I’d like to see the musical version!” And now they can. PURLIE, the 1970 musical adapted from Ossie Davis’ 1961 play, will run March 6-23 at the American Theater Group in Rahway, New Jersey. This comes courtesy […]
MANY KINDS OF KIND SONGS By Peter Filichia
Why must there be an expiration date on something so important? February 10th through the 16th is the official “Random Acts of Kindness Week.” But why stop there, when we could have a “Random Acts of Kindness Month, Year, Decade, Century and Millennium”? And why limit it to “Kindness”? There are plenty of synonyms that […]
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 […]
