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AND THE 1946-47 TONY FOR BEST SCORE GOES TO… by Peter Filichia

Quick! What score was the first to win a Tony Award? Given that we’re talking about the 1946-47 season, Lerner and Loewe’s BRIGADOON is a good guess. After all, it had three hit songs: “Almost Like Being in Love,” “The Heather on the Hill” and “There but for You Go I.”  But it didn’t win. […]

ALBUM COVER – Ramin Karimloo – From Now On

RAMIN KARIMLOO SINGS THEM AS THEY WROTE THEM

Do you know Karimloo’s portmanteau? Need an explanation of that sentence? Karimloo refers to Ramin Karimloo whom Broadway came to know in 2014. His portrayal of Jean Valjean in the second Broadway revival of LES MISERABLES garnered him a Tony nomination and a Theatre World Award.  As for “portmanteau,” our online dictionary tells us that it’s “a word […]

New Legends of Broadway Video with Hal Prince

HAROLD PRINCE: ON THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES By Peter Filichia

Now it’s too late. For years, I’d been itching to ask Harold Prince “Considering that you chose Lila Kedrova to play Fraulein Schneider in your London production of CABARET in 1968 – just before you were readying your Broadway production of ZORBA – why didn’t you choose her to be Madame Hortense? “After all, she’d […]

ALBUM COVER – HALF TIME (Original Cast Recording)

HALF TIME: A Glass Much More Than Half-Full By Peter Filichia

Adults agree on very little. They take opposite sides on politics, religion, sexuality, movies and even pizza. However, there’s one thing on which all adults agree. Time goes fast. (Last year I made a New Year’s resolution and wound up keeping it. I’d never managed to do that before. And how did I achieve it […]

Harry-Potter-Cursed-Child-Imogean-Heap-Masterworks-Broadway

HARRY POTTER AND THE VINYL ISSUE By Peter Filichia

Extra! Extra! Hey, look at the headline that just might be on the front page of The Daily Prophet. “HARRY POTTER” SCORE NOW ON VINYL! We’re talking about THE MUSIC OF HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD (PARTS ONE AND TWO). Imogen Heap’s much-acclaimed score won her the 2017-2018 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music […]

Peter Filichia is the theater critic emeritus for the Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey and News 12 New Jersey.

He is a columnist each Friday for www.mtishows.com and www.kritzerland.com.

Filichia is the author of Let’s Put on a Musical, now in its third printing; Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit of the Season / The Biggest Flop of the Season and Broadway Musical MVPs 1960-2010: The Most Valuable Players of the Last 50 Seasons. His new book, Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks will be published in May, 2013 by St. Martin’s Press.

He has been a columnist for Playbill, Theater.com, Theatermania and Theater Week.

Before joining the Theatre World Awards in 1996 as host and head of the selection committee, Filichia served four terms as president of the Drama Desk. He has served on an assessment panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, and is currently critic-in-residence for the University of Cincinnati-Conservatory of Music and the musical theater judge for the ASCAP Awards program.