“GOOD HEAVENS! IT’S AN AMERICAN IN PARIS!””
By Peter Filichia March 20, 1952. RKO Pantages Theatre, Hollywood. The 24th Annual Academy Awards. Finally, it’s time for the Best Picture winner to be announced. Ever since the nominations were released five weeks earlier, some veteran film observers have been betting that the winner will be A Place in the Sun, the much-acclaimed adaptation […]
ZORBAS GREEK TO ME
By Peter Filichia The recent Encores! production of Zorba reiterated what a marvelous score John Kander and Fred Ebb provided for their 1968 musical. Their second 1968 musical, if you want to get technical. Earlier in the year, they had given us The Happy Time, another magnificent series of songs. Not many teams can boast […]
IT SURELY ROARS, BUT CERTAINLY DOESN’T SMELL
By Peter Filichia Fifty years ago this week, after the lights went down at Broadway’s Shubert Theatre, the audience may well have recognized the first twenty-three notes of the Overture to The Roar of the Greasepaint — the Smell of the Crowd. They offered a preview of the song that had already been established as […]
FLORA’S FIFTY!
By Peter Filichia It was hardly George Abbott’s first Broadway show. In fact, he already worked on or at least had his name on more than a hundred. But it certainly was the first Broadway effort for the musical’s star and songwriting team. All experienced bittersweet results from this musical called Flora, the Red Menace […]
TWO’S COMPANY, THREE CHEERS
By Peter Filichia God love these legendary Oscar-winning actresses who felt they hadn’t run the entire entertainment gauntlet until they’d done a Broadway musical. Katharine Hepburn, Vivien Leigh and Shelley Winters all tried their luck singin’ and dancin’ long after they’d won their gold statuettes. And so did Bette Davis, the 1935 Oscar-winner for Dangerous […]
