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The Roar Of The Greasepaint – The Smell Of The Crowd_1500x1500

IS “ROAR” READY TO RE-ROAR? By Peter Filichia

It’s the last traditional score from a Broadway musical to yield five hit songs that most everyone in the nation knew at the time. It was the precise middle of the ‘60s, and the musical was The Roar of the Greasepaint – the Smell of the Crowd. It had a book, music and lyrics by […]

Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music New Photos on Pinterest

MAKING AN ENTRANCE By Peter Filichia

Isn’t it queer? In “Send in the Clowns,” Desiree sings about “making my entrance again with my usual flair.” And yet, in A Little Night Music, Desiree sings this lyric long after she’s made her first-ever entrance – one that isn’t full of flair. For Hugh Wheeler and Sondheim had decided that provincial actress Desiree […]

Les Poupees de Paris_Album Cover

Before LES MIZ, There Was LES POUPEES DE PARIS By Peter Filichia

There’s not much left at Flushing Meadows to remind us of the 1964-65 World’s Fair. Oh, there’s the Unisphere, of course, and the New York Hall of Science. But the State Pavilion hasn’t held up well and the Heliport is now a banquet facility. Starting this week, however, we have another reminder of New York’s […]

Runaways – Original Cast Recording 1978

Runaways Has a New Run By Peter Filichia

This week, New York has the chance to rediscover the first musical for which a woman received not one, not two, not three but four Tony nominations. What a shame that Elizabeth Swados – tabbed in 1978 for Best Book, Best Score, Best Direction and Best Choreography for Runaways — won’t be here to see it. The […]

Hamilton Musical Cover_Masterworks Broadway Peter Filichia

THE ROOMS WHERE I’D LIKE TO SEE IT ALL HAPPEN By Peter Filichia

John Verderber, one of our most promising musical theater writers, asked a terrific question on Facebook the other day. “‘The Room Where It Happens,’” he wrote, citing a ditty in Hamilton, “is on its way to becoming a famous musical theatre song. And in keeping with that theme, there’s a room where it happened that […]

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.