June Is Indeed Busting Out All Over By Peter Filichia
If 1776 is accurate, 140 years ago this week John Adams and Benjamin Franklin took Maryland delegate Samuel Chase from Philadelphia to New Brunswick, New Jersey. The goal of the sixty-mile journey was to convince Chase that the Continental Army did indeed have what it took to win the Revolutionary War. And while they were […]
WEST SIDE STORY: There’s a Place for It By Peter Filichia
It’s still jarring to me – and it shouldn’t be. While watching Mark S. Hoebee’s excellent production of West Side Story at the Tony-winning Paper Mill Playhouse (in Millburn, NJ), I was reminded of a great Stephen Sondheim lyric that isn’t in the celebrated 1961 film. It happens during “Quintet,” one of the most exciting […]
PRESENTING MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS By Peter Filichia
Did you know it was a true story? Indeed, Mrs. Henderson Presents, the 2005 film that became a 2016 British musical – and whose excellent London cast album is now available — was based on two real people. She was Mrs. Laura Forster Henderson (1863-1944); he was Mr. Vivian Van Damm (1899-1960). Together, they forged […]
MAME VS. DOLLY: THE TITLE SONG FACE-OFF By Peter Filichia
What’s the best production number I’ve seen in more than a half-century of attending musicals? “Who’s That Woman?” from Follies, of course. Second place? “We’ll Take a Glass Together” from Grand Hotel, natch. And who gets the brass ring of third place? The title song of Mame, the musical’s first-act closer, which Broadway came to […]
THE WAGON IS NOW NOT ONLY PAINTED BUT ALSO FILLED By Peter Filichia
The spanking new and sensational recording of Paint Your Wagon reiterates how prurient we were back in 1951. Need proof? Just dust off the original cast album and listen to “In Between.” RCA Victor’s fifth cast album had James Barton, playing San Francisco 49er prospector Ben Rumson, admit to a prospective wife that he wouldn’t necessarily be […]
