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Raisin's Day in the Sun

Raisin’s Day in the Sun

By Peter Filichia – In the entire sixty-five year history of The Tony Awards®, only one Tony-losing play has ever been turned into a Tony-winning musical. And yet, that Tony-loser — A Raisin in the Sun (which lost the 1959-1960 race to The Miracle Worker) – has remained far more popular than the Tony-winner it […]

Let It Ride! Continues to Ride

Let It Ride! Continues to Ride

By Peter Filichia – Here’s a Broadway trivia question that’s not easy to answer. What musical opened on a holiday that celebrates a person mentioned in one of its songs? No, no musical that opened on St. Valentine’s Day cites that saint. No musical that opened on St. Patrick’s Day mentions him, either. But Columbus […]

“Hello

“Hello, Twelve” Times Three

By Peter Filichia — Never mind that 36 years have already gone by since A Chorus Line opened on Broadway. What’s really astonishing is that five years have already passed since the revival of A Chorus Line opened on Oct. 5, 2006. Each of the two productions yielded a cast album. But A Chorus Line […]

Chita the Achiever

Chita the Achiever

By Peter Filichia – We have two important anniversaries this week, both as the result of West Side Story. It’s celebrating its 54th year of never being out of the public consciousness since its Sept. 26, 1957 debut. Thus, it was 54 years ago this week that Broadway officially took notice of a performer who […]

Guest Blog: Lorrie Davis on Tom O’Horgan

Guest Blog: Lorrie Davis on Tom O’Horgan

In celebration of the release of Divine Hair/Mass in F, Lorrie Davis from the original Broadway cast of Hair shares some memories about the show’s director Tom O’Horgan. Lorrie Davis on Tom O’Horgan The first time I met Tom O’Horgan, I was auditioning for the original cast of the Broadway musical Hair. He was sitting […]

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.