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Labor Day Listens

Labor Day Listens

By Peter Filichia — So how will you spend your Labor Day? As summer is a-going out, you may have one last chance to enjoy it. Leave the work to the people in musicals. While you’re on a nice long drive, hear The Producers try to produce. Catch up with photographer Jacques in The Happy […]

Remembering Gower Champion

Remembering Gower Champion

By Peter Filichia — Thirty years have passed since the most famous Winter Garden incident happened. After David Merrick had heard his production of 42nd Street get loads of love and applause from the opening night house, he walked on stage. “I’m sorry to report …,” he said, causing everyone to laugh uproariously. Leave it […]

The Last Smash Hit Operetta

The Last Smash Hit Operetta

By Peter Filichia — It was recorded in June of 1959, but stayed in print for only three years. And yet, most musical theater enthusiasts covet the recording of Song of Norway by the Jones Beach Marine Theatre’s revival cast. They feel that the score has been well served in both performance and sound on […]

Pal Joey – Broadway Revival Cast Recording 1952

Nightclubbin’ on Broadway

By Peter Filichia — Nightclubs are expensive and crowded and offer not-so-hot food. They were even worse when they were smoke-filled. Nevertheless, the musical theater greatly appreciates that such places exist, for they’ve played host to some of our best songs. Musicals set in the good ol’ U.S. of A. have taken us to nightclubs […]

The Highs and Lows of Highlights Albums

The Highs and Lows of Highlights Albums

By Peter Filichia — The choice is yours: You can get a single disc that will give you a good deal of music from Ain’t Misbehavin’, Allegro, Children of Eden, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Most Happy Fella, Ragtime, Sweeney Todd and The Who’s Tommy. Or you can get a much more complete two-disc set of […]

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.