2013: I Resolve
It’s the worst aspect of New Year’s Day. We all feel compelled to make New Year’s Resolutions. And way down deep, we know we’re not going to be able to keep them. People who weigh as much as Stanley Steamers go on diets, hoping that by bathing suit season they’ll be hearing, “You’re looking great, […]
To Honor The Shortest Day of the Year
On December 21 — which is the shortest day of the year in terms of daylight – why not play “The Shortest Day of the Year”? It’s the song that can be found about halfway through The Boys from Syracuse. Richard Rodgers wrote the melody that Lorenz Hart set to lyrics for their 1938 musical […]
Chaplin Finds His Voice
By Peter Filichia — It’s been more than ten years since I had a certain conversation with Michael Kunze, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. Kunze was in New York because the musical for which he’d provided the libretto and lyrics was about to open on Broadway. It was a period piece, […]
All Rodgers, All Hammerstein, All the Time
By Peter Filichia — A few weeks ago, we talked about the 25-disc “Broadway in a Box” set as a holiday present for newcomers to musical theater. If that’s a little too rich for your blood, how about the new 12-disc, 11-show set that called Rodgers & Hammerstein: The Complete Broadway Musicals. The box is […]
Lyrics in London
By Peter Filichia — If you’re quite familiar with the 1966 original Broadway cast album of Cabaret, two lyrics are going to jump out at you when you listen to the 1968 original London cast album. One comes quite early, when Fraulein Schneider sings “So What?” On the Broadway disc, Lotte Lenya sings “When I […]
