YOU’RE STILL GOOD, CHARLIE BROWN By Peter Filichia
You’re a Good Man, Michael Presser. Hail to the founder and executive director of Inside Broadway, now in its 40th year of bringing theater to kids – and kids to the theater. One of Presser’s projects is the Summer Stock, Jr. series. It has allowed kids who ranged in age from nine through 16 to […]
THE CHAPIN DISH: TED CHAPIN REMEMBERS FOLLIES By Peter Filichia
Although many musical theater enthusiasts know that Stephen Sondheim criticized the lyrics of Lorenz Hart and Ira Gershwin, they may not know that he could be just as tough on Ted Chapin’s typing. On the 1971 production of FOLLIES – 10 years before he’d start a 40-year tenure as president and chief creative officer of […]
MR. PRESIDENT AND I
By Peter Filichia Go to Google Maps to locate the Emerson Colonial Theatre on Boylston Street in Boston. Then punch in the Emerson Majestic Theatre on Tremont Street in that selfsame Boston, and you’ll find that the distance is a mere tenth of a mile. That doesn’t sound like much, but it certainly seemed immense […]
REMEMBERING ANGELA LANSBURY
By Peter Filichia Where’s that star with the bugle? In heaven, if there is such a place. This week, Angela Lansbury would have reached 97. The only way we can now wish her a happy birthday is posthumously. However, she’ll always live in every musical theater enthusiast’s consciousness, thanks to the cast albums of ANYONE […]
PORGY AND BESS: IT IS NECESSARILY SO By Peter Filichia
Fourscore and seven years ago – on October 10, 1935, to be precise – a musical theater work of monumental proportions opened. Not everyone knew that then. A mere 124 performances was the best that PORGY AND BESS could muster at the time. The world hasn’t needed 87 years to appreciate the masterwork that the […]