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Words

Words, Words, Words – Words Are the Key

By Peter Filichia   “There are words to which I lift my hat,” says Emily Dickinson — well, at least the Emily Dickinson in William Luce’s one-woman play The Belle of Amherst. It’s now being wonderfully played by Joely Richardson at the Westside Upstairs Theatre.   Richardson beautifully conveys Dickinson’s joy when citing such atypical […]

Rex – Original Broadway Cast Recording 1978

REX: HE’S HENRY VIII, HE WAS

By Peter Filichia   David Foubert is an excellent king, Jessica Wortham an extraordinary queen and Katie Wieland is marvelous as the woman who succeeded her.   They’re all currently performing in The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s excellent mounting of The Bard’s Henry VIII. But before Paul Mullins’ superb production took to the stage, […]

Getting to the Bottom of Nine

Getting to the Bottom of Nine

Getting to the Bottom of Nine   By Peter Filichia   If you’re in New York — and are a fan of Nine — you should saunter downtown to Theatre for a New City to see a revival of Six Passionate Women.   And what, you may ask, does one show have to do with […]

Happy Eighty-Ninth

Happy Eighty-Ninth, Angela Lansbury!

Happy Eighty-Ninth, Angela Lansbury!   By Peter Filichia   The first three words that Angela Lansbury ever sang in a Broadway musical would in time turn out to be thoroughly inaccurate.   “Everyone hates me.”   Of course, she wasn’t speaking about herself, but as Cora Hoover Hooper, a character in Stephen Sondheim and Arthur […]

Forty-Five Other Ways to Lose a Man

Forty-Five Other Ways to Lose a Man

By Peter Filichia   “Forty-five ways to go,” my buddy Ed Weissman wrote after he read my column inspired byWonderful Town’s song for Ruth Sherwood: “100 Easy Ways to Lose a Man.”   Yes, although Ruth had claimed that she had “ninety-five ways to go” after she’d inadvertently dissed editor Robert Baker, I could find […]

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.