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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 […]

Boston was right. Eighty-two years ago this week – on Sept. 30, 1935 – Porgy and Bess opened to raves at the city’s Colonial Theatre. Eighty-two years ago next week – on Oct. 10, 1935 – Porgy and Bess opened to very mixed reviews at Broadway’s Alvin Theatre. The story of a man without the […]

You enter the theater to see a musical without knowing the score – and then discover songs you Love at First Hear. With a revival, thanks to your previous spins of the original or studio cast album, you know the score inside out before you enter the theater. You can tell what songs are coming […]

I’ll offer half-hearted congratulations to Cara Mund, the first Miss North Dakota to become Miss America. My reservation? As part of the pageant’s Talent Competition, she didn’t sing a song from a Broadway musical. So with me, Mund’s name is Mud. To be fair, Mund was brave in defying the advice given by “Pageant Center,” […]

“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 […]