Sammy’s Back and Running
By Peter Filichia — Sept. 21, 1998. The pilot episode of Will & Grace airs on NBC. Will Truman and his friends – including Jack McFarland – are playing poker. Jack is stalling, wondering if he should hold or discard. And while he wonders, he starts singing to himself. “A room without windows,” he drones. […]
October’s Party
By Peter Filichia — Quite often during the month of October, I start thinking of George Cooper’s poem “October’s Party.” You’re pardoned if you don’t know it. It was the poem I chose to memorize in seventh grade when Sister Monicella (doncha love those old nuns’ pseudonyms?) demanded that we memorize one. With “only” twenty-four […]
To Us, Drake Means Alfred Drake
By Peter Filichia — This week, let’s celebrate what would have been the 96th birthday of the Broadway musical’s quintessential leading man: Alfred Drake, who was born on Oct. 7, 1914. When Robert Viagas wrote his book I’m the Greatest Star – subtitled Broadway’s Top Musical Legends from 1900 to Today — he chose twenty […]
Before There Was Sweet Charity, There Was Sweet Irma
By Peter Filichia — Who’d expect that Irma La Douce could still be bought 50 years after she reached New York? True, Irma, who arrived here on Sept. 29, 1960, isn’t seen very often anymore. Says Mel Miller, who produced Irma La Douce at his Musicals Tonight! in 2008, “It took me 10 years to […]
The Show Almost Called You’re in Town
By Peter Filichia — This week, all of us wish that we wouldn’t have to mark the ninth anniversary of Urinetown’s Sept. 20th opening. How much better the world would be if we could have celebrated it nine days earlier. Alas, Urinetown had originally been set to open on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 at the […]
