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By Peter Filichia — Even before I started listening to Musical Comedy Favorites by Andre Kostelanetz, I was intrigued by the song listing. You do know Kostelanetz, don’t you? He was an orchestra leader (1901-1980) who liked to go heavy on strings and provided much “easy listening” long before that term came into being. His […]

By Peter Filichia – Roxie Hart, let alone Mrs. Lovett, wasn’t the first musical theater woman to have blood on her hands. Annina was in The Saint of Bleecker Street. Granted, there were two profound differences between the leading female characters of Chicago and Sweeney Todd and Annina. One is that the blood on the […]

By Peter Filichia — If all had gone according to plan, I would have written and posted this column — marking a sixty-second anniversary — last Tuesday. Don’t blame me: I’m not the one who postponed the opening of Miss Liberty from July 4, 1949 to July 15, 1949. What a shame, too, that a […]

By Peter Filichia — You may know Song of Norway, for which Robert Wright and George (“Chet”) Forrest adapted melodies from Norwegian classical composer Edvard Grieg. In the ‘40s, it ran two years and was eventually made into a feature film. You undoubtedly know Kismet, for which the same Wright and Forrest adapted melodies from […]

By Peter Filichia — There was a good deal of talk last week about the change in cigarette packaging. Terribly graphic images are now to be put on the labels. Why couldn’t this have happened decades ago? We might have got a great many more shows from Frank Loesser. All right, we couldn’t expect that […]