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“The blues help you to get out of bed in the morning. This’d be an empty world without the blues.” So says the title character of MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM, August Wilson’s first Broadway play – but certainly not his last. The 1984 classic is now a film available on Netflix. If you agree that […]

Here’s a challenge for musical theater mavens who can identify a song from a mere line (“J. Edgar Hoover owes him one”), phrase (“the motion of the ocean”) or even a word (“Danube-y”). What song contains the lyrics “We ain’t braggin’ – we’re gonna coat that wood!”? Frankly, one doesn’t even have to know the […]

Mem’ries are lighting the corners of my mind. I’ve been returning to way-back-when thanks to the vinyl copy of the famed and legendary soundtrack of WEST SIDE STORY. Simple aging has taken its toll on the original copy I’ve had since the Kennedy Administration. My gatefold cover has lost its fire-engine-red luster. Its edges have […]

The date: August 27, 1977. The place: The theater then known as the 46th Street and now called the Richard Rodgers. The show: CHICAGO. Some might assume that this is the same CHICAGO whose marquee still graces the Ambassador on 49th Street. Hasn’t it been around forever? No, this was the original production that had […]

There aren’t many people who are able to make the claim that Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin can. In fewer than two years, this composer-and-lyricist team has been able to boast of having both an original cast album and a soundtrack album of the same show. THE PROM, which opened at the Longacre in November, […]