MAME: The End-of-the-Year Musical By Peter Filichia
Spent the last week of December listening to Mame. I always do, and not because of “We Need a Little Christmas,” fun though it is. But the final week of December is when Mame Dennis is most accurate when she sings in her opening song (“It’s Today”) “And though it’s far from the first of […]
The Rise and Rise of Legs Diamond By Peter Filichia
They couldn’t wait for the thirtieth anniversary so they made certain that they saw each just before the twenty-ninth. From the way that they performed the solid Legs Diamond score at two reunion concerts at Feinstein’s/54 Below, you would have never guessed that the musical that had debuted on Dec. 26, 1988 had been a […]
COME FOLLOW THE BAND – AND BARNUM By Peter Filichia
So does Hugh Jackman’s appearing as The Greatest Showman in the current movie musical remind you of a Broadway show? Yes, me too: Barnum, the 1980 hit musical that spent twenty-five months at the St. James Theatre. Both properties do indeed concern Phineas T. Barnum (1810-1891) who was famous for saying “There Is a Sucker […]
WOMAN OF THE YEAR – 1981 AND 2017 by Peter Filichia
In 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor became first female justice on the Supreme Court. As a result, many news organizations named her “Woman of the Year.” With apologies to Justice O’Connor, those of us who follow Broadway will always insist that 1981’s Woman of the Year was Lauren Bacall – especially after she’d won a Tony […]
How’s How Now, Dow Jones Now? By Peter Filichia
There have been many Broadway musicals that had state-of-the-art topicality when they were originally written. Call Me Madam in 1950 offered a thinly veiled Ambassador Perle Mesta. Happy Hunting told of goings-on around Grace Kelly’s 1956 wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco. In 1960, Bye Bye Birdie dealt with the military’s drafting of a rock […]
