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Here she is, boys! Here she is, world! Here’s Lane Bradbury! She hasn’t made a Broadway appearance in fifty-three years, but many musical theatre aficionados immediately recognize her name. Bradbury was, after all, the original Dainty June in Gypsy. On the (absolutely great) original cast album, she can be heard in “If Momma Was Married” […]

As we celebrate Independence Day, let’s cite a musical that mentions the famous date albeit in one of Broadway’s most anti-government shows. But there it is in “Going Down” in Hair: “Forgive me if I don’t cry; it’s like the Fourth of July.” The context? Teenager Berger feels that this is his personal Independence Day […]

Don’t misunderstand. The songs I’m about to cite here are all musical theater songs that I dearly love. Out of context, that is. However, whenever I look at the shows for which they were written, I always think that they’ve been put in the wrong places. This again occurred to me last month when I […]

Ron Fassler undoubtedly agrees with John Rushton, the little tyke who insists, “Gee, it’s neat to be a newsboy,” in Working. For many of his early teenage years – roughly late 1967 to early 1973 – Fassler did that same job. Rushton never told us how he spent his earnings, but Fassler has: he attended […]

As events would have it, I heard Sammy Davis, Jr.’s recording of “The Candy Man” long before I saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Listen here. I enjoyed the Anthony Newley-Leslie Bricusse song along with much of America. Despite the music industry’s rock orientation, the easy-listenin’ ditty became a number-one hit. It also got Davis […]