An Earnest Musical
By Peter Filichia — If you planned to see that Broadway revival of The Importance of Being Earnest, alas, it’s too late. It closed on June 26 after 189 performances – which is the longest run that any Broadway production of Oscar Wilde’s play had had in nine tries. But you can still hear the […]
The World’s First Beatnik Musical
By Peter Filichia — Tom Aldredge died on July 22. Fran Landesman met the same sad fate a day later. But The Nervous Set, the 1959 musical in which he performed and for which she wrote the lyrics, lives on through its original cast album. The Nervous Set has been in and out of print […]
Make Some August Holidays
By Peter Filichia — August is the only month in which we don’t have a true official holiday. Oh, August 11 is a big day in India and the day after is a big deal in Armenia. But for Americans, such big days as Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas occur in other months – not to […]
Parenthetically Speaking
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 […]
Bleecker on Broadway
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 […]
