ZORBAS GREEK TO ME
By Peter Filichia The recent Encores! production of Zorba reiterated what a marvelous score John Kander and Fred Ebb provided for their 1968 musical. Their second 1968 musical, if you want to get technical. Earlier in the year, they had given us The Happy Time, another magnificent series of songs. Not many teams can boast […]
IT SURELY ROARS, BUT CERTAINLY DOESN’T SMELL
By Peter Filichia Fifty years ago this week, after the lights went down at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre, the audience may well have recognized the first twenty-three notes of the Overture to The Roar of the Greasepaint — the Smell of the Crowd. They offered a preview of the song that had already been established as […]
FLORA’S FIFTY!
By Peter Filichia It was hardly George Abbott’s first Broadway show. In fact, he already worked on or at least had his name on more than a hundred. But it certainly was the first Broadway effort for the musical’s star and songwriting team. All experienced bittersweet results from this musical called Flora, the Red Menace […]
TWO’S COMPANY, THREE CHEERS
By Peter Filichia God love these legendary Oscar-winning actresses who felt they hadn’t run the entire entertainment gauntlet until they’d done a Broadway musical. Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh and Shelley Winters all tried their luck singin’ and dancin’ long after they’d won their gold statuettes. And so did Bette Davis, the 1935 Oscar-winner for Dangerous […]
HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY, HALF A SIXPENCE
By Peter Filichia We’ve missed the fiftieth anniversary of Half a Sixpence, but let’s not allow it to go by without mentioning this “big, blooming hit” (John McClain, Journal American). The happy-go-lucky musical, which celebrated its semicentennial on April 25, wound up as Broadway’s fourth-longest-running British musical import – or maybe even third-longest, depending on […]
