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Allegro: Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Our Town

Allegro: Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Our Town

By Peter Filichia Even a splendid production of Allegro, such as the one that Tom Wojtunik is delivering right now at The Astoria Performing Arts Center, reveals a show that really should be heard and not seen.  Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first failure has a terrific score. Many of us suspected as much in the latter […]

Androcles at Last!

Androcles at Last!

By Peter Filichia Do I hear a waltz? Of course I do. Isn’t Androcles and the Lion by Richard Rodgers? And getting a song in three-quarter time is a given in any of the legendary composer’s scores. Here in this 1967 TV musical, the waltz is the first song, just as it was in Jumbo, […]

Irma La Douce: All Talking! All Singing!

Irma La Douce: All Talking! All Singing!

By Peter Filichia ”So I see they went and made a musical out of Irma La Douce.” That will be the reaction from some when they hear that Encores! is presenting Irma La Douce from May 7-11 at City Center. Ho-hum, another new musical based on yet another movie – in this case, the one […]

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

By Peter Filichia I’d hate to let the month go by without acknowledging the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. No one can be 100% certain that we should have celebrated it on April 23, but that’s the date that academics accept as the most likely. Because no one knows for sure, it’s possible that I […]

More for Your Money

More for Your Money

By Peter Filichia “Rumson Creek” from Paint Your Wagon is a nifty little ditty, but it lasts a mere fifty seconds. Thus, at ninety-nine cents a download, you’re paying two cents a second. That doesn’t mean your money wouldn’t be well-spent. But there are songs that technically offer you more for your money. Yes, there’s […]

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.