Forgive Me, Stephen Sondheim
By Peter Filichia So I celebrated Stephen Sondheim’s eighty-fifth birthday on March 22 in a way in which he wouldn’t have approved. I played the original cast album of Do I Hear a Waltz? Once again, for the hundredth or so time that I listened, I was struck with the 1965 musical’s beauty, tunefulness and […]
Paint Your Wagon Returns
By Peter Filichia Let me spell it out for you so you won’t be as disappointed as Homer and Bart Simpson were on January 4, 1998. Simpsons pere and fils went to a video rental store (remember them?) and took out Paint Your Wagon. They figured that any movie starring Lee (The Dirty Dozen) Marvin […]
Added On The Road
By Peter Filichia Can fifty-three years have really passed since I saw my first pre-Broadway tryout? It happened on March 10, 1962 at the Colonial Theatre in Boston where I saw I Can Get It for You Wholesale: Saturday matinee, first balcony (as we called the mezzanine then), Row F, Seat 6, $4.95. I came […]
Happy Fortieth Anniversary, Goodtime Charley
By Peter Filichia Long before we turned our attentions to Elphaba and away from Dorothy Gale, bookwriter Sidney Michaels, composer Larry Grossman and lyricist Hal Hackady had the same general idea for a completely different story. The result was Goodtime Charley, which opened on Broadway at the Palace forty years ago this week. While the […]
Women’s History Month On Broadway
By Peter Filichia Now that we’ve celebrated February and Black History Month, let’s move to March, which is Women’s History Month. Listen to the playlist I created to go along with your reading here. Readers are encouraged to spend each day of the month playing a song or score that features a great female star […]
