Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit and the Biggest Flop of the Season - 1959 to 2009

Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit and the Biggest Flop of the Season - 1959 to 2009 by Peter Filichia is now available. 

It happens every season. Broadway has one, two, or if really lucky a few hit musicals, but there are many, many more flops.  From torturous Philadelphia and disaster Boston tryouts, and to Broadway with award winning composers, bookwriters, lyricists, producers and stars; here's a look at the extreme cases from each season of the past half-century.  100 Shows: The musicals that everyone knew would be hits - The Sound of Music, The Phantom of the Opera, The Producers. Those that sounded terrible from their announcement - Via Galactica, The Civil War, Lestat (and sometimes even worse than expected). The musicals that were destined to succeed - Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Merrily We Roll Along. The shows that there was not much awareness or thought didn't have a chance - Man of La Mancha, 1776, Grease. 

Peter Filichia is a New York-based theater critic for The Star Ledger newspaper in Newark, New Jersey and for television station News 12 New Jersey.  He also writes a regular column three times a week, "Peter Filichia's Diary," for the website TheaterMania.com. Weekly, he writes a column on original cast recordings for Masterworks Broadway.  Filichia is the author of the book Let's Put on a Musical: How to Choose the Right Show for Your School, Community or Professional Theater, currently available through Back Stage Books. He wrote the weekly column entitled "Stagestruck" for Theater Week magazine during its nine-year run and for three years for Playbill On-Line. Then he wrote a daily column, "Theatergoer's Diary," for Theatre.com and BroadwayOnLine.com.