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Black (Musical Theater) History Month

By Peter Filichia -- February is, of course, Black History Month. So celebrate each day by playing an African-American’s performance from different cast albums. ...

A Superb Thurber Carnival

By Peter Filichia – A Thurber Carnival, the original cast album that Masterworks Broadway is re-issuing this week, could just as easily be called A Character ...

A Tale of Three Dollys

By Peter Filichia -- Dolly Gallagher Levi has certainly kept her promise. For nearly half a century, she’s been telling us that “Dolly’ll never go away again”-- and ...

Say Gwen

By Peter Filichia -- This month’s Friday the 13th can be considered both lucky and unlucky for Broadway. It would have marked the 87th birthday of Gwen Verdon, and ...

And the Year Starts Up

By Peter Filichia – So what was the first recording in 2012 that you chose for your listening pleasure? For the twentieth straight year, I started New Year’s Day ...

For New Year's Eve Stay-at-Homes

By Peter Filichia -- As that famous Frank Loesser song asked, “Here is the jackpot question in advance: what are you doing New Year’s Eve?” Most will party, but ...

Not Your Average Christmas Show

Peter Filichia – So what would be the most logical Broadway musical to open on Christmas Day? Why, Here’s Love, right? After all, it’s the musical of Miracle on ...

Broadway’s First Jukebox Musical

By Peter Filichia -- You’re in the middle of holiday shopping. You want to get something nice for that couple next door and their toddler. But you don’t have much ...

The All-Star Musical

By Peter Filichia – In my recent book Broadway Musical MVPs, 1960-2010, I gave awards that baseball annually bestows but theater doesn’t: Most Valuable Player, ...

I Hear Bells

By Peter Filichia -- What musical gave its leading character the best opening song as well as the best closing song? For men, the answer is probably My Fair Lady, ...

The Big Bajour

By Peter Filichia -- Forty-seven years ago this week, musical theater enthusiasts added a new word to their foreign-language vocabulary. They’d already learned ...

A Perfect Ten for Blackbirds and Shuffle Along

By Peter Filichia -- The birth of any innovation makes for some growing pains. That too was the case with the so-called long-playing record when it came into ...

Three Cheers for Two by Two

By Peter Filichia – It was to be The Big Show of the season. For decades, “The New Richard Rodgers musical” always was. But Two by Two was going to be The REALLY BIG ...

Broadway Saints

By Peter Filichia -- There’s that old expression, “You don’t have to be Jewish to” – whatever. Well, I’ll say that on this November 1, you don’t have to be Catholic ...

Mary Martin's a Babe

By Peter Filichia -- We all have our favorite recordings. Mine, of course, may not be the same as yours. But of all the studio cast recordings that Lehman Engel ...

Raisin's Day in the Sun

By Peter Filichia – In the entire sixty-five year history of The Tony Awards®, only one Tony-losing play has ever been turned into a Tony-winning musical. And yet, ...

Let It Ride! Continues to Ride

By Peter Filichia – Here’s a Broadway trivia question that’s not easy to answer. What musical opened on a holiday that celebrates a person mentioned in one of its ...

“Hello, Twelve” Times Three

By Peter Filichia -- Never mind that 36 years have already gone by since A Chorus Line opened on Broadway. What’s really astonishing is that five years have already ...

Chita the Achiever

By Peter Filichia – We have two important anniversaries this week, both as the result of West Side Story. It’s celebrating its 54th year of never being out of the ...

Guest Blog: Lorrie Davis on Tom O’Horgan

In celebration of the release of Divine Hair/Mass in F, Lorrie Davis from the original Broadway cast of Hair shares some memories about the show’s director Tom ...
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