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42nd Street - Original Broadway Cast Recording

Super Tuesday on Broadway By Peter Filichia

If you’re reading this on March 1, you’re undoubtedly well-aware that this is Super Tuesday. Fourteen states will make some serious decisions that could well determine who’ll be our next president. If you’re in any of these states – or even in American Samoa — make sure you vote. Your reading this column can certainly […]

sweet charity london cover

Fleet Charity By Peter Filichia

Masterworks Broadway has found an excellent way to celebrate the recent 50th anniversary of Sweet Charity’s opening. It’s re-released another fine recording of the Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields score. The 1967 London cast album offers Juliet Prowse in the role that in 1966 brought Gwen Verdon her fifth straight Tony nomination (and her first loss — […]

Happy Mardi Gras!

Only Twenty-Eight Years from Broadway By Peter Filichia

So how are we celebrating the hundredth anniversary of Robinson Crusoe, Jr.? The musical that opened at the Winter Garden on Feb. 17, 1916 was a riff on Daniel Defoe’s famous 1719 novel. Although Defoe’s work would ultimately become simply known as Robinson Crusoe, its actual title was substantially longer. Take a deep breath now: […]

The Producers - Original Broadway Cast 2001

Happy Birthday, Abie Baby By Peter Filichia

Since the advent of Presidents’ Day in the ‘80s, not much has been made of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. There was a time when Americans were very much aware that the sixteenth President of the United States had been born on February 12. Oh, it was never as big a deal as George Washington’s birthday ten […]

Bend It Like Beckham Cover

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM: THE MUSICAL By Peter Filichia

When Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was all the rage in 1967, many listeners were very glad that “Within You, Without You” was the first song on the second side. These people, who weren’t fond of the song’s Hindustani sound, found it easier to position the needle on the second song on the second […]

Peter Filichia is the theater critic emeritus for the Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey and News 12 New Jersey.

He is a columnist each Friday for www.mtishows.com and www.kritzerland.com.

Filichia is the author of Let’s Put on a Musical, now in its third printing; Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit of the Season / The Biggest Flop of the Season and Broadway Musical MVPs 1960-2010: The Most Valuable Players of the Last 50 Seasons. His new book, Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks will be published in May, 2013 by St. Martin’s Press.

He has been a columnist for Playbill, Theater.com, Theatermania and Theater Week.

Before joining the Theatre World Awards in 1996 as host and head of the selection committee, Filichia served four terms as president of the Drama Desk. He has served on an assessment panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, and is currently critic-in-residence for the University of Cincinnati-Conservatory of Music and the musical theater judge for the ASCAP Awards program.