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When you get the newly released Original Cast Album of WEST SIDE STORY on vinyl (available exclusively at Barnes & Noble), pretend you’re getting this recording in 1957 as tens of thousands did. The packaging on the new issue has the same front jacket showing Larry Kert as Tony and Carol Lawrence as Maria running […]

In December, I, along with thousands of others, gave a great deal of thought to the late, great Rebecca Luker. But for the last couple of decades, I’ve always thought about her each January. For on the January 19th, 1999, I was in the bowels of the Martin Beck Theatre doing a story on Bobby […]

“The blues help you to get out of bed in the morning. This’d be an empty world without the blues.” So says the title character of MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM, August Wilson’s first Broadway play – but certainly not his last. The 1984 classic is now a film available on Netflix. If you agree that […]

Here’s a challenge for musical theater mavens who can identify a song from a mere line (“J. Edgar Hoover owes him one”), phrase (“the motion of the ocean”) or even a word (“Danube-y”). What song contains the lyrics “We ain’t braggin’ – we’re gonna coat that wood!”? Frankly, one doesn’t even have to know the […]

Mem’ries are lighting the corners of my mind. I’ve been returning to way-back-when thanks to the vinyl copy of the famed and legendary soundtrack of WEST SIDE STORY. Simple aging has taken its toll on the original copy I’ve had since the Kennedy Administration. My gatefold cover has lost its fire-engine-red luster. Its edges have […]