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Here’s betting that people enjoy Dear World at the York Theater Company’s Musicals in Mufti this weekend much more than audiences did in 1969. Not just because it has a fine leading lady in Tyne Daly. After all, the original production had no less than Angela Lansbury, who, two years earlier, had won a Best […]

Would you really be surprised to learn that such a sweetie as Florence Henderson was born on Valentine’s Day? She would have been seventy-three this week, but, alas, Henderson died on Thursday, Nov. 24th – just three days beyond the fifty-second anniversary of her recording of Fanny’s original cast album. That made me recall the […]

You’re pardoned if you’ve never known it, but since 1983, February 11th has been celebrated as National Inventors’ Day. Those who have been aware of the mini-holiday have honored such geniuses as Charles Babbage (who invented the computer), Karl Benz (the automobile), Willis Carrier (air-conditioner) and Hyman Kirsch (diet soda). Most honor Thomas Edison for […]

I couldn’t believe my good fortune. In a used bookstore, I found The Great Adventure for a mere seven dollars. Don’t recognize the title? It’s Arnold Bennett’s 1913 play which inspired the 1968 Broadway musical Darling of the Day. Last Friday, Jan. 27th marked the forty-ninth anniversary of its opening. Two Broadway blue-chippers wrote the […]

I take issue with something Jerry Herman once told me. “Until I wrote ‘If He Walked into My Life’ for Mame,” he said, “I had never written a ballad that I would call ‘classy.’” But what about “Let’s Not Waste a Moment” from Milk and Honey? I’d say that one’s pretty classy. The Tony committee […]