Urinetown Redux By Peter Filichia
Why have so many years passed since I played the cast album of Urinetown? Back in 2001, I had the disc on my CD player at a non-stop clip that threatened the claim that these silver slivers never wear out. T.S. (Cats) Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons; I was […]
The Lonny Price of Fame By Peter Filichia
Last week while I was attending the 29th annual Festival of New Musicals at New World Stages, a certain program bio caught my eye. The single white sheet for Prom Queen – which details Marc Hall’s struggles to take his boyfriend to The Big Dance at his Catholic School – provided information on its director […]
BUT SOMETIMES YOU’RE LOCKED INTO RHYMES By Peter Filichia
Last week we talked about lyricists who, when they needed a rhyme to fill out a line, might well have changed or invented a character’s name to match it. Really, were Drake and Mrs. Pugh the names of the butler and housekeeper that bookwriter Thomas Meehan had already written into Annie before Martin Charnin wrote, […]
WHAT’S IN A NAME? WHAT’S IN A RHYME? By Peter Filichia
On October 3rd, I listened to Annie to celebrate a 41st anniversary. For on that date in 1976 I saw the closing performance of the tryout at the Goodspeed Opera House. I was 100% certain that I wasn’t seeing the last of this Meehan-Strouse-Charnin musical. A show that I’d expected to have no heart possessed […]
When Pigs Fly: We Can Hear It, Anyway By Peter Filichia
What a shame. So many of us were looking forward to the upcoming off-Broadway revival of When Pigs Fly at Stage 42. Last week we learned that it wasn’t going to happen. It was the victim of the reason most shows cancel their announced premieres: The Almighty Dollar. There weren’t nearly enough of them. The […]
