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WILL THE PROM HAVE A TITLE TUNE? By Peter Filichia

Now, right here on Masterworks Broadway, you can listen to “Dance with You (Emma’s Version)” from THE PROM. The song comes from the new musical that starts previews on Oct. 23. It opens on Nov. 15 at the Longacre Theatre, where we hope it’ll have a long run. So we do know the name of […]

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BROADWAY TO MAIN STREET – THE ROAD MUCH TRAVELED By Peter Filichia

Last week, I mentioned that august musical theater scholar Laurence Maslon had written a terrific new book: BROADWAY TO MAIN STREET: HOW SHOW TUNES ENCHANTED AMERICA (Oxford University Press, $34.95) Let me count the ways it is indeed terrific. Although most of the tome centers on original cast albums, Maslon takes us back to the […]

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A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND ALBUMS By Peter Filichia

For decades, people haven’t believed me. Now, thanks to what Laurence Maslon included on page 220 of his terrific new book BROADWAY TO MAIN STREET: HOW SHOW TUNES ENCHANTED AMERICA (Oxford University Press, $34.95), everyone can see that I haven’t been fibbing all these years. My story goes back to the morning of January 29, […]

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HOORAY FOR IRVING BERLIN! — AND HERSHEY FELDER By Peter Filichia

It comes late in YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN. Lucy Van Pelt simply sneaks up behind the Beethoven-obsessed Schroeder and taps him on the shoulder. Once he turns around, she says “Hooray for Irving Berlin!” and runs off before he can say anything (or stone her). Hooray for Hershey Felder, the pianist-actor who wrote […]

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NOEL COWARD’S SWEET POTATO – Sort Of By Peter Filichia

Fifty years ago this week, it began previews without a record company having signed on to do the original Broadway cast album. And considering that NOEL COWARD’S SWEET POTATO lasted all of forty-four performances, no company was willing to step up to the plate after the fact. Clive Barnes, then the powerful critic of the […]

Peter Filichia is the theater critic emeritus for the Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey and News 12 New Jersey.

He is a columnist each Friday for www.mtishows.com and www.kritzerland.com.

Filichia is the author of Let’s Put on a Musical, now in its third printing; Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit of the Season / The Biggest Flop of the Season and Broadway Musical MVPs 1960-2010: The Most Valuable Players of the Last 50 Seasons. His new book, Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks will be published in May, 2013 by St. Martin’s Press.

He has been a columnist for Playbill, Theater.com, Theatermania and Theater Week.

Before joining the Theatre World Awards in 1996 as host and head of the selection committee, Filichia served four terms as president of the Drama Desk. He has served on an assessment panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, and is currently critic-in-residence for the University of Cincinnati-Conservatory of Music and the musical theater judge for the ASCAP Awards program.