Blog posts

Black (Musical Theater) History Month

pfilichia — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:53:08 +0000

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.

We have plenty to choose from. Black entertainers have been important components in the Broadway musical, as cast albums dating back to Show Boat’s 1946 revival prove.

In case you need suggestions on what to play on each day, I have a few:

Feb. 1: Play “Getting Ready Rag” from the Ragtime concept album so that you can be getting ready for all these songs you’ll play. Any excuse to hear Brian Stokes Mitchell sing is worth it.

Feb. 2: Now play “Getting Ready Rag” from the Ragtime original cast album. Yes, it’s the same song, so why repeat it? Because it’s Groundhog Day.

A Superb Thurber Carnival

pfilichia — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:31:46 +0000

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 Actors’ Carnival.

If you’re a vintage stage, movie or TV buff, you’ll immediately recognize the distinctively dry voices of Tom Ewell, Peggy Cass, Paul Ford, Alice Ghostley and John McGiver. None was a beautiful, glamorous, radiant, ravishing movie star, but, oh, those voices! Hear and savor them now on a crisp, clear recording of this 1960 revue that centered on the short stories and light prose of James Thurber (1894-1961).

The nation came to know Ewell’s workaday voice from The Seven Year Itch. He’d done it on Broadway in 1952, won a Tony and then repeated his role as a frustrated husband in the 1955 Hollywood version (not with original caster Vanessa Brown, of course, but with Marilyn Monroe).

A Tale of Three Dollys

pfilichia — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:40:43 +0000

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 she hasn’t, not since Hello, Dolly! started its pre-Broadway tryout at the Fisher Theater in Detroit in November, 1963.

This week marks the 48th anniversary of Dolly’s saying “Hello!” to Broadway, en route to romping to first place in the long-run musical list: 2,844 performances. But recording-wise, Jerry Herman’s score marked another first. Never before during a musical’s run did Americans have the chance to buy three separate recordings of a musical: the original cast with Carol Channing, the London cast with Mary Martin and a replacement cast with Pearl Bailey.

Say Gwen

MWB Elisa — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:54:07 +0000

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 we’re all pretty sad that we don’t have the lady around to celebrate both her and her achievements. But, oh, aren’t we lucky that her parents gave birth to her on this date in 1925 in Culver City, California?

Alas, Verdon, who appeared in seven Broadway musicals -- and got six Tony nominations and four awards for her troubles – died at 75 in 2000. But since 1993, when I interviewed the star, I’ve reserved a day in early January to re-listen to the cassette tape (yeah, cassette tape!) I made that heavenly May day.

Here are some excerpts I’d like to share with you.

And the Year Starts Up

pfilichia — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 05:35:37 +0000

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 by playing the CD that I got in late 1991: And the World Goes ‘Round. It’s the recording of the revue that celebrates John Kander and Fred Ebb’s first quarter-century on Broadway.

Why choose this for January 1? Well, the world has indeed gone ‘round and endured another spin, so giving this CD a spin seems apt.

For New Year's Eve Stay-at-Homes

pfilichia — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 08:07:12 +0000

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 many know that it’s a good night to stay in and do comparatively nothing. Sometimes Dec. 31 can mean panic in the streets – which might very well be why Turner Classic Movies is showing the 1950 film Panic in the Streets just as 2011 turns into 2012.

So for those stay-at-homes who won’t be getting inebriated at someone’s party, here’s a nice placid way to spend your evening: by taking a quiz that deals with all the liquor and liqueurs that you won’t be drinking.

The forty examples that follow are lyrics that at least tangentially deal with liquor imagery. From which show and song do they come?

Come! I’ll make it easier for you. All the examples are listed in alphabetical order, literally from A-to-Z, by the name of the musical.

Not Your Average Christmas Show

pfilichia — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 05:02:47 +0000

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 34th Street.

But Here’s Love opened on Oct. 3.

Annie would be another candidate, because it concludes on Christmas.

But it debuted on April 21.

Would you have ever guessed Pal Joey? No, of course not. How strange that of all the days that producer-director George Abbott could have chosen to open the cynical Rodgers and Hart musical, he selected the birthday of Jesus Christ.

Broadway’s First Jukebox Musical

pfilichia — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:53:57 +0000

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 do-re-mi.

For the adults, get the original cast album of Do Re Mi. The musical that opened nearly 51 years ago at the St. James was a solid-selling album after it was released in January, 1961. But some cynics have alleged that many people bought it for this marvelous song they’d heard called “Do Re Mi” in which the musical scale was taught.

Legend has it that people knew just from the sound of the music that it was a show song, so they went looking for it in the original cast album section of their record stores. Once they came across a record called Do Re Mi, there was no way to stop their buying it.

The All-Star Musical

pfilichia — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 05:35:42 +0000

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, Comeback Player of the Year and Reliever of the Year, among others.

I also thought about what the ultimate “All-Star Game” would be. True, every year there’s at least one musical that could be said to be all-star-studded. But looking over the past fifty seasons, there was no question which was the all-starriest: I Do! I Do! which opened forty-five years ago this week.

I Hear Bells

pfilichia — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 04:50:07 +0000

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, as Rex Harrison got to sing “Why Can’t the English?” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” For women? I’d say Bells Are Ringing, which opened 55 years ago this week, on Nov. 29, 1956.

Really, aren’t “It’s a Perfect Relationship” and “I’m Goin’ Back” the best first-and-last punch for a woman in musical theater history – especially as delivered by Judy Holliday?

Hear the original cast album, on which Holliday plays Ella Peterson, a switchboard operator at Susanswerphone, her cousin Sue’s eponymous answering service. This was a genuine necessity for busy people in pre-answering machine ‘50s. What’s coincidental is that twenty some years before Holliday did the musical, she, then Judith Tuvim, actually was a switchboard operator for Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater.

The Big Bajour

pfilichia — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:07:53 +0000

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 “L’chaim!” from Fiddler on the Roof, “Dis-Donc” from Irma La Douce, “Moritat” from The Threepenny Opera, “Rahadlakum” from Kismet, “Abbondanza” from The Most Happy Fella, “Preludium” from The Sound of Music and -- from My Fair Lady -- “take” instead of “tike.”

But in addition to those words from seven different tongues, on Nov. 23, 1964, they learned another from the Romany language that gypsies speak.

“Bajour.”

It means “swindle.”

A Perfect Ten for Blackbirds and Shuffle Along

pfilichia — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 04:37:29 +0000

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 existence in the late ‘40s.

At first, two different sizes – ten-inch and twelve-inch -- played at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute. Because classical records and original cast albums needed more space to accommodate all (or much) of their music, the powers-that-be decreed that twelve-inch records would be used for these recordings.

But for pop recordings, they likely reasoned, ten inches’ worth of music would be enough. The thinking was that consumers, conditioned to buying a 78 r.p.m. record with a song on each side, would be satisfied with four songs to a side. What’s more, a ten-inch record would cost commensurately less than a twelve-inch record with six or more songs to a side.

Three Cheers for Two by Two

pfilichia — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 06:43:58 +0000

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 Show of 1970-1971 because Danny Kaye was coming back to Broadway. Although he had visited with a one-man show in each of the previous decades, he hadn’t done a book show since Let’s Face It! in 1941 – almost three decades earlier.

Big musicals should have big characters and big events. Two by Two could easily boast both, for Kaye would be playing Noah – and if God’s drowning the entire world isn’t a big event, what is?

Better still: The bookwriter was Peter Stone, whose previous Broadway show had been 1776, for which he’d provided the best book in musical theater history. Stone had been able to convincingly humanize the founding fathers, so he might do well by the real “Founding Father” – namely God -- and His interaction with Noah.

Broadway Saints

pfilichia — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 04:10:58 +0000

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 to celebrate All Saints Day. All you have to do is play songs in which saints were involved.

If you’re really ambitious, you’ll play the full opera of The Saint of Bleecker Street. But if time is at a premium, you still have a few nifty numbers from which to choose.

“The Bells of St. Sebastian” is the stirring first act closer of Nine. In it, the adult Guido Contini looks back on the day when the nuns discovered that he had been in the company of a prostitute. Needless to say, they weren’t favorably impressed.

Mary Martin's a Babe

pfilichia — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:49:28 +0000

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 made in the early ‘50s of musicals from the ‘20s through the ‘40s, the one I like best is Babes in Arms. It’s now available again after a torturously long absence. Those who’d like a CD of it can demand one simply by asking, “Burn, Babes, burn!”

Babes in Arms is the 1937 musical in which a group of teenagers need money and have no idea how to get it – until one of them yells, “Hey! Let’s put on a” – well, you know what they’re going to put on.

The score was hardly a put-on. Of the dozens of musicals for which Rodgers and Hart provided full scores, Babes in Arms has four of their most famous songs: “My Funny Valentine,” “Johnny One Note,” “The Lady Is a Tramp” and “Where or When?” They’re all well-served on this most spirited of Engel recordings.

Raisin's Day in the Sun

pfilichia — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 04:34:59 +0000

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, that Tony-loser -- A Raisin in the Sun (which lost the 1959-1960 race to The Miracle Worker) – has remained far more popular than the Tony-winner it spawned in 1973-1974: Raisin, which celebrates its thirty-eighth anniversary on Oct. 18.

That doesn’t remotely mean, however, that Raisin isn’t worth investigating. Indeed, stock and amateur groups that are looking for a different take on Lorraine Hansberry’s classic should look at the Samuel French script and listen to the Masterworks Broadway original cast album (which won a 1975 Grammy, too).

Let It Ride! Continues to Ride

pfilichia — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:54:21 +0000

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 songs?

No, no musical that opened on St. Valentine’s Day cites that saint. No musical that opened on St. Patrick’s Day mentions him, either.

But Columbus Day -- Oct. 12 – was the day that Let It Ride! opened on Broadway. And Columbus is indeed invoked in a lyric of the title song.

Let It Ride! isn’t merely marking an anniversary this week; it’s celebrating a significant one. It debuted 50 years ago on Oct. 12, 1961. The score was written by the illustrious songwriting team of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. They were born within fifty-two days of each other in 1915, and met in 1934 while at the University of California. There they decided to collaborate, and did right up to Livingston’s death in 2001.

“Hello, Twelve” Times Three

pfilichia — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:42:09 +0000

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 passed since the revival of A Chorus Line opened on Oct. 5, 2006.

Each of the two productions yielded a cast album. But A Chorus Line does have a surprising distinction that can’t be said of many shows: one of its songs has been released in three markedly different renditions.

Chita the Achiever

pfilichia — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 03:44:01 +0000

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 public consciousness since its Sept. 26, 1957 debut.

Thus, it was 54 years ago this week that Broadway officially took notice of a performer who would turn out to be one of its greatest stars. She’s Chita Rivera, the first of literally thousands of Anitas.

Rivera had already done three musicals on Broadway. She’d started in Can-Can (1954) in arguably the lowest capacity of any performer: as a replacement dancer. She then moved up to a tiny role in Seventh Heaven (1955), and then had a song all to herself in Mr. Wonderful (1956). If you’re sensing unmitigated progress, show business doesn’t quite work that way. Rivera’s next Broadway job was understudying Eartha Kitt in Shinbone Alley in early 1957.

Guest Blog: Lorrie Davis on Tom O’Horgan

MWdigital — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:43:34 +0000

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 O’Horgan.

Lorrie Davis on Tom O'Horgan

The first time I met Tom O'Horgan, I was auditioning for the original cast of the Broadway musical Hair. He was sitting on the floor of a dingy room at Variety Arts Rehearsal Studios in New York City, along with the authors and the producer. I thought these people were strange.

Although his hair was long, Tom O'Horgan never tried to convince us that he was a hippie. He didn't wear designer outfits or raggedy clothes. He didn't exhibit outrageous behavior, get high or recite mantras. We all understood he believed in peace, love, liberation and equality because he led by example. Tom O'Horgan was always calm, soft spoken and quiet even when everyone else was speeding around.