Martin Charnin’s Legacy By Peter Filichia
Broadway will never forget Martin Charnin, for he had the idea of making a musical about Little Orphan Annie. When recruiting a librettist, he believed a humor writer who’d never had experience with musicals could do it. Thomas Meehan not only won a Tony for the book of ANNIE, but also eventually captured the same […]
PROMENADE: NOW THAT’S OFF-BROADWAY By Peter Filichia
Here’s a musical that Moliere and Eugene Ionesco might have loved. It’s also one that Kurt Weill could have written had he lived nineteen years longer and had moved off-Broadway. Its song “The Clothes Make the Man” is a title worthy of Weill’s longtime collaborator Bertolt Brecht. Such is the world of PROMENADE, which is […]
SARDI’S: OUR INFORMAL BROADWAY MUSEUM By Peter Filichia
We heard last month that some time in 2020 there’ll be a Museum of Broadway in Times Square. Good! Wonderful! Terrific! But in the meantime, let’s not overlook the Broadway Museum that’s been around for almost a hundred years. Sardi’s. Well, the number of caricatures on its walls probably does outnumber the artifacts in many […]
THE SOUND OF GOD-KNOWS-WHAT By Peter Filichia
So what does this sentence remind you of? “She spread out her arms and spun in circle after circle, her face toward the sun, her short hair ruffling in the light breeze, a radiant smile plastered on her face.” Julie Andrews in THE SOUND OF MUSIC, right? Yes – but these specific words come from […]
42ND STREET COMES TO YOUR STREET by Peter Filichia
You’ve either been enjoying the original cast album of 42nd STREET for a while – or you still have that pleasure in your future. Whatever the case, you’ll now have a chance to enhance your 42nd STREET experience by catching The Broadway HD broadcast of the recent London revival. You can stream it (as well […]