Tuesday, January 14, 2025

URINETOWN IS READY TO TAKE SOME ENCORES!

With URINETOWN soon returning to the theatrical horizon (thanks to Encores!), memories from the past quarter-century are flooding back. Memory One: Late 1998. I walk into the offic…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, January 7, 2025

GO TO BREL By Peter Filichia

There were plenty of conversations such as this 57 years ago this week: MUSICAL THEATER SAVANT: From what I heard, you can’t even call it a musical. There’s no book. No story. Only four …

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 10:37AM
Sunday, January 5, 2025

THE REDISCOVERIES OF 2024 By Peter Filichia

This month, I wasn’t like most people who listened to “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Feliz Navidad” or, needless to say, “White Christmas.” No, first I took out my album of A CHRISTMAS C…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 02:08PM

RON FASSLER SEES THAT THE SHOW GOES ON By Peter Filichia

Did you know that when Pearl Bailey was on Broadway doing HELLO, DOLLY! she actually urged the public not to see the show? Well, not always, but certainly at certain performances. See if you…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 02:07PM
Tuesday, December 17, 2024

BROADWAY’S WORDS OF THE YEAR BY PETER FILICHIA

Let’s hear it for demure! It’s Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year. Yes, in addition to Time’s Person of the Year and Sports Illustrated’’s Sportsperson of the Year, Dictionary.com…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 01:04PM
Tuesday, December 10, 2024

MORE ON CHICAGO THEN AND NOW By Peter Filichia

When we left Roxie Hart last Tuesday, she was singing “My Own Best Friend” – all by herself. Yes, John Kander and Fred Ebb originally conceived their song as a solo for the woman that …

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, December 3, 2024

CHICAGO THEN AND NOW By Peter Filichia

CHICAGO’s hitting the 11,000-performance mark last month inspired me. I pulled out the Bob Fosse-Fred Ebb script from August 3, 1973 – 22 months before the show came to Broadway. Let’s…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, November 26, 2024

THE WOMAN WHO WROTE ABOUT WOMEN WRITING MUSICALS By Peter Filichia

Maybe you don’t know who Mae Anwerda Sloane or Annelu Burns were, but Jennifer Ashley Tepper sure does. They’re just two of the dozens upon dozens of subjects that Tepper recounts in her…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, November 19, 2024

DOES MERRILY HAVE AN OUTSIDERS’ CHANCE? By Peter Filichia

Will the winner be THE OUTSIDERS or MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG? We’re talking about the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. All right, there are four other nominees. But in the Ch…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Wednesday, November 13, 2024

AL HIRSCHFELD: IT’S IN THE CARDS By Peter Filichia

Zero Mostel as Peter Pan? Carol Channing as Lady Macbeth? Robert Preston and Sammy Davis, Jr. as the Dromio twins in THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE? Sounds crazy, no? But in 1964, Al Hirschfeld – …

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 10:18AM
Tuesday, November 5, 2024

YOU’RE A GRAND NEW BOOK (AND GRAND OLD CAST ALBUM) By Peter Filichia

YOU’RE A GRAND NEW BOOK (AND GRAND OLD CAST ALBUM) By Peter Filichia He died 82 years ago this week, but here’s proof that he hasn’t been forgotten. Elizabeth T. Craft’s excellent ne…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, October 29, 2024

ROMEO AND JULIET AND MUSICALS By Peter Filichia

It was one of the biggest theatrical hits of the 16th century. And this week, we’ll have the opening of the 36th Broadway revival of a drama that first opened in New York 270 years ago. Wh…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, October 22, 2024

SPEAK TO US, OH BEAUTIFUL CAST ALBUMS By Peter Filichia

“Listen, girls, the way to catch a man is to be a natural woman…” So said Lena Horne before she launched into “Pretty to Walk With,” her opening song in JAMAICA, which opened 67 ye…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, October 15, 2024

RAGTIME MADE US HEAR IT By Peter Filichia

Masterworks Broadway has two ways to whet your appetite for the upcoming presentation of RAGTIME at Encores! The last great musical of the 20th century will play October 20 through November …

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, October 8, 2024

WHEN MAGGIE SMITH WAS A NEW FACE BY PETER FILICHIA

Maggie Smith’s recent death inspired me to listen to NEW FACES OF ‘56. Are you asking, “What could she possibly have to do with that show?” In fact, Smith made her Broadway debut in …

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, October 1, 2024

And for a Significant Anniversary … By Peter Filichia

I was racking my brains in trying to find the perfect gift for Princeton and Kate Monster’s 20th wedding anniversary. Princeton, you may recall, proposed to Kate Monster on June 6, 2004, t…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Friday, September 27, 2024

HAPPY 60th, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF By Peter Filichia

The 1964-65 season gave birth to a dozen new musicals, but only one has ever enjoyed a Broadway revival. FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, of course. Make that, revivals, plural. Wonder of wonders, mirac…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 08:50AM
Tuesday, September 17, 2024

NO, NO, NANETTE By Peter Filichia

You’re aware of one great book about a 1971 Broadway musical production, but do you know another? For years, we’ve all celebrated Ted Chapin’s magnificent Everything Was Possible, abou…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 05:03PM
Tuesday, September 10, 2024

HUMMING AT THE PHOTO CALL

By Peter Filichia A picture is not only worth a thousand words, but it can also be worth quite a few songs. That occurred to me as I was humming many a show tune while attending Photo C…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, September 3, 2024

STEREOPHONIC’S SOUNDS By Peter Filichia

The rumor going around Broadway said that it was really about Rumours. STEREOPHONIC, David Adjmi’s comedy-drama, the most recent winner of a Best Play Tony, does bring to mind Fleetwood Ma…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 10:52AM
Tuesday, August 27, 2024

ANYTHING ELSE IS A LAUGH By Peter Filichia

Many people remember the birthdays and anniversaries of friends and relatives. I do, too – but I also remember when people laugh at lyrics in musicals. Sounds crazy, no? But this occurred …

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 11:01AM
Tuesday, August 20, 2024

JULIAN SCHLOSSBERG – A CAPITAL GUY By Peter Filichia

Nice press conference at Sardi’s for julian schlossberg. No, I did not make two typos when putting his name in lowercase letters. That’s the way they’re printed on the cover of his new…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 10:42AM
Tuesday, August 13, 2024

LEMPICKA: THE SUN HAS COME OUT FOR TAMARA BY PETER FILICHIA

I don’t wish anyone ill, but in a strange way, I was happy that someone was. In April, I was scheduled to review LEMPICKA at a Wednesday matinee. Hours before showtime, the press agent ema…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 07:43PM
Tuesday, August 6, 2024

RE-INTRODUCING HELEN MORGAN BY PETER FILICHIA

Christopher S. Connelly knows how big a star Helen Morgan was during the Roaring ‘20s and beyond. But he’s now made sure that you know it, too. Connelly’s provided hundreds of eye-open…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 03:23PM
Tuesday, July 30, 2024

THAT OTHER SOUTH PACIFIC By Peter Filichia

Frankly, I don’t think that I’d ever listened to it. But I did reach for that SOUTH PACIFIC recording as soon as I arrived home from the Goodspeed Opera House. (Not so incidentally, at t…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, July 23, 2024

STARTING HERE WITH MALTBY, SHIRE AND ROSENBLUM By Peter Filichia

“My first reaction was that all of the songs were losers.” “A terrible idea.” That first quotation, reported by Joshua Rosenblum in his excellent new book CLOSER THAN EVER, came from…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, July 16, 2024

LISTENING TO THE GREAT GATSBY By Peter Filichia

Although the title is printed in gold, on a black background, it also offers one tiny dollop of a different color. There’s a shining burst of green situated atop the first “T” of THE G…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, July 9, 2024

AS FOR FRANK LOESSER’S TRUE MASTERPIECE… By Peter Filichia

And then there was another loss that may have been the unkindest cut of all… As we discussed last week, although GUYS AND DOLLS was the biggest hit of the 1950-51 season, Frank Loesser’s…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, July 2, 2024

FRANK LOESSER’S BAD LUCK By Peter Filichia

Seeing the recent, brilliantly staged reading of HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING by The National Asian Artists Project started me thinking. Frank Loesser had twice provided …

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 06:00AM
Tuesday, June 25, 2024

SO MANY TONY QUESTIONS! By Peter Filichia

And now that the books have been officially closed on the 2023-2024 season and the Tony Awards, I’ve been answering a great many questions from relatives, friends and (let’s face it) fre…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 11:27AM
Tuesday, June 18, 2024

OPERATION MINCEMEAT’S OUTSTANDING-O’S By Peter Filichia

Understand that in this tally, we’re not counting curtain calls. But indeed, last month in London during a Saturday matinee of OPERATION MINCEMEAT, I saw not one, not two, but three standi…

SOURCE: Masterworks Broadway at 11:14AM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic
TBA: Ragtime