A GREAT TURN OF PHRASE by Peter Filichia
By Peter Filichia One of the great ingredients of the musicals from The Golden Age of Broadway was its lyrics. Wordsmiths gave much attention and care to finding j-u-s-t the right word, the perfect rhyme and the ideal scansion. And every now and then, they’d give us a little lagniappe by taking a phrase that had […]
On Stage, Charlie Brown! by Peter Filichia
By Peter Filichia The Peanuts Movie had me remembering a feeling I’ve had for decades. Charlie Brown got away with murder. I don’t mean that Charles Schulz’s pie-faced cartoon character actually killed anyone. Although I do believe that if the kid ever did rub out Lucy van Pelt, a smart lawyer for the defense in “The […]
GUYS AND DOLLS: THE GOLDEN AGE’S NEW GOLDEN AGER By Peter Filichia
GUYS AND DOLLS: THE GOLDEN AGE’S NEW GOLDEN AGER By Peter Filichia Turning sixty-five this week is one of the Broadway’s greatest musicals. Indeed, some say it’s the all-time greatest. Of course we’re talking about Guys and Dolls, which made its bow at the 46th Street Theatre on Nov. 24, 1950, not the 1992 revival […]
STEVE – AS IN SONDHEIM? by Peter Filichia
By Peter Filichia If the play version of The Graduate could get an album, why shouldn’t Steve? The Graduate used snippets of ‘60s music during scene changes, so Columbia Legacy execs decided to issue an album of each song in its entirety. The fifteen tracks ranged from an easy listening waltz (“Moon River”) to a […]
Beggar’s Can Be for You Choosers By Peter Filichia
Beggar’s Can Be for You Choosers By Peter Filichia Long before Forbidden Broadway’s Gerard Alessandrini put his own lyrics to existing melodies, John Gay (1685-1732) did the same with The Beggar’s Opera. Unlike Alessandrini, Gay didn’t center on songs from musicals – for the good reason that none existed at the time. What Gay did […]
