JOSHUA ELLIS: CALL ON THIS PUBLICIST FOR THE GOOD STORIES By Peter Filichia
I’ve seen it five times and I’ll attend again. I can’t get enough of Call My Publicist! – The Starry Education of a Broadway Press Agent, Joshua Ellis’ one-person show. From 1973 (when he was a union apprentice on Ira Levin’s Veronica’s Room) to 1992 (when he was president of The Joshua Ellis Office and […]
HI, EVERYBODY! HER NAME IS JUNE – AND LANE BRADBURY By Peter Filichia
Here she is, boys! Here she is, world! Here’s Lane Bradbury! She hasn’t made a Broadway appearance in fifty-three years, but many musical theatre aficionados immediately recognize her name. Bradbury was, after all, the original Dainty June in Gypsy. On the (absolutely great) original cast album, she can be heard in “If Momma Was Married” […]
WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS HAIR By Peter Filichia
As we celebrate Independence Day, let’s cite a musical that mentions the famous date albeit in one of Broadway’s most anti-government shows. But there it is in “Going Down” in Hair: “Forgive me if I don’t cry; it’s like the Fourth of July.” The context? Teenager Berger feels that this is his personal Independence Day […]
IT’S THE WRONG SONG IN THE WRONG PLACE By Peter Filichia
Don’t misunderstand. The songs I’m about to cite here are all musical theater songs that I dearly love. Out of context, that is. However, whenever I look at the shows for which they were written, I always think that they’ve been put in the wrong places. This again occurred to me last month when I […]
Ron Fassler Brings Back the Musical Memories By Peter Filichia
Ron Fassler undoubtedly agrees with John Rushton, the little tyke who insists, “Gee, it’s neat to be a newsboy,” in Working. For many of his early teenage years – roughly late 1967 to early 1973 – Fassler did that same job. Rushton never told us how he spent his earnings, but Fassler has: he attended […]