Broadway’s Three B’s By Peter Filichia
As I went to meet my friend Donald Tesione for lunch, I didn’t realize that he was just a few steps behind me and ready to catch up just before I entered the restaurant. As a result, he’d overheard me whistling “The Three Bs’,” because just before I left my apartment, I’d been listening to […]
70, GIRLS, 70 HAS REACHED MIDDLE AGE By Peter Filichia
No, the recent production of 70, Girls, 70 at HB Studios will never be the definitive one. A group of well-meaning seniors who take class at the famed acting school did their best in conveying John Kander’s music, Fred Ebb’s lyrics, and the book that Ebb and Norman L. Martin fashioned after Joe (Cabaret) Masteroff […]
Meet Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical By Peter Filichia
If your taste in show music runs to Rodgers and Hammerstein as well as Stephen Sondheim, you’ll find that Polkadots is a good cast album for your young children, nieces and nephews. If your taste in show music runs to Rodgers and Hammerstein as well as Stephen Sondheim, you’ll find that Polkadots is a good […]
My Apologies to Wright and Forrest By Peter Filichia
In 1999 — literally the 70th anniversary of Robert Wright’s meeting George “Chet” Forrest — I interviewed the gentlemen at their impressive apartment at 100 West 57th Street. I loved that the place was a veritable Wright-and Forrest Museum. The walls were covered to the square inch with memorabilia from their Hollywood films, Copacabana days […]
GYPSY II By Peter Filichia
Could it really already be forty-two years later? Figures don’t lie. On Sept. 8, 1974, I saw Angela Lansbury try out her Rose in Gypsy at the Shubert Theatre in Boston – the first professional production of that landmark musical that I’d see. I knew she’d be marvelous. By then I had gleaned what Lansbury […]
