PAINT YOUR WAGON – ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES By Peter Filichia
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 […]
WEST SIDE STORY’S SOUNDTRACK RETURNS TO VINYL By Peter Filichia
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 […]
REMEMBERING ANN REINKING By Peter Filichia
The date: August 27, 1977. The place: The theater then known as the 46th Street and now called the Richard Rodgers. The show: CHICAGO. Some might assume that this is the same CHICAGO whose marquee still graces the Ambassador on 49th Street. Hasn’t it been around forever? No, this was the original production that had […]
AN INVITATION TO ANOTHER PROM By Peter Filichia
There aren’t many people who are able to make the claim that Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin can. In fewer than two years, this composer-and-lyricist team has been able to boast of having both an original cast album and a soundtrack album of the same show. THE PROM, which opened at the Longacre in November, […]
SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR CAPTAIN HOOK By Peter Filichia
Sixty years ago this week, one of the most anticipated events in the history of television took place: PETER PAN in color. The first two broadcasts of the musical version of the James M. Barrie classic in 1955 and 1956 had to settle for black and white. But by 1960, color TV had made its […]
