SUGGESTIONS FOR MR. SHELDRAKE By Peter Filichia
“The Music Man – what else?” So says Jeffrey Sheldrake in the 1960 Oscar-winning Best Picture The Apartment. The quip comes after he’s just handed over his theater tickets to Chuck Baxter, who then asked what Broadway show he’d be seeing. In 1959, fifty-eight years ago this week, on September 12th right here in front […]
Looking over a Possible “Hey, Look Me Over!” By Peter Filichia
Will Encores! ever do Wildcat? The 1960 musical is most famous for bringing Lucille Ball to Broadway, but it should also be remembered for its marvelous score. This was the initial collaboration for composer Cy Coleman and lyricist Carolyn Leigh – and the first time that each had a show in which every song was […]
Living Here Is Very Much Like Chop Suey By Peter Filichia
Given that August 29th is “National Chop Suey Day,” whom do we thank for inventing this succulent dish that has graced many a Column A and Column B? Should it be Qing Dynasty premier Li Hongzhang’s chef, who whipped it up during their visit to America in the late 1800s? A 19th century Chinese chef […]
HAL PRINCE: HE HAD SO MANY HIT SHOWS, THEY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO USE By Peter Filichia
Cabaret; Company; Damn Yankees; Evita; Fiddler on the Roof; Flora, the Red Menace; Follies; A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum; It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Superman; Kiss of the Spider Woman; A Little Night Music; Merrily We Roll Along; On the Twentieth Century; The Pajama Game; Parade; […]
REMEMBERING BARBARA COOK By Peter Filichia
We knew this day was coming for a while. On March 28, 2016, Barbara Cook announced – only sixteen days before she was to start performances of Barbara Cook: Then and Now at New World Stages – that she was “postponing indefinitely.” The official explanation was that finishing her memoir had taken a lot out […]
