Ron Fassler – Medium

8 hours ago

“A CHORUS LINE” FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

March 30, 2023: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler We’ve all seen it: it’s an advertising image as familiar as two yellow cat eyes or two witches. It’s the row of dancers standing in a straight line that has been used for just about every A Chorus Line produced…

6 min read

“A CHORUS LINE” FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

6 min read

Mar 20

IT’S SO NICE TO HAVE YOU BACK WHERE YOU BELONG: “DEAR WORLD” RETURNS

March 20, 2023: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler The plea for a “dear world to get well soon” only took fifty-four years and it may have been worth the wait. In its all-too brief Encores! run over the past week, this underperformed Jerry Herman star-vehicle is a reminder…

5 min read

IT’S SO NICE TO HAVE YOU BACK WHERE YOU BELONG: “DEAR WORLD” RETURNS

5 min read

Mar 18

HAPPY 96TH, JOHN KANDER

March 18, 2023: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler Today is the 96th birthday of the legendary composer John Kander, who is still doing what he does best: writing musicals. His New York, New York, an adaptation of the 1977 film of the same name, will begin previews March…

8 min read

HAPPY 96TH, JOHN KANDER

8 min read

Mar 17

“AND ALL AT ONCE I WAS BEAUTIFUL AGAIN”

March 17, 2023: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler “I was terribly spoiled,” Jerry Herman once said. “I thought you just wrote a musical and it ran for seven years.” Can you blame the man? In 1969, with the opening of Dear World, Herman held the honor as the…

8 min read

“AND ALL AT ONCE I WAS BEAUTIFUL AGAIN”

8 min read

Mar 15

WHO’S THE WOMAN? IT’S MARY MCCARTY

March 15, 2023: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler In late 1970, when Mary McCarty auditioned for the original Broadway production of Follies, she was just what producer/director Harold Prince and casting director Joanna Merlin were looking for: a veteran actress/singer with a past connected to an era that…

8 min read

WHO’S THE WOMAN? IT’S MARY MCCARTY

8 min read

Mar 13

BROADWAY BABY: ETHEL SHUTTA

March 13, 2013: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler When the musical Follies opened on Broadway in 1971, a show set at a reunion of former Ziegfeld-like showgirls, seventy-four-year-old Ethel Shutta (pronounced shuh-TAY), a former Ziegfeld alum herself, had already experienced a long up-and-down career in show business. It…

6 min read

BROADWAY BABY: ETHEL SHUTTA

6 min read

Mar 10

50 YEARS LATER: “SONDHEIM: A MUSICAL TRIBUTE”

March 10, 2023: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler On March 11, 1973, an extraordinary event took place on Broadway that captured a moment in time when the world officially caught up to the advanced talents of Stephen Sondheim. Eyes were opened that night to the remarkably rich and…

Stephen Sondheim

12 min read

50 YEARS LATER: “SONDHEIM: A MUSICAL TRIBUTE”

Stephen Sondheim

12 min read

Mar 3

MOOSE MEMORIES

March 3, 2023: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler “I think probably one of the worst reviews that I got was actually from a person on the street, and not a paid critic. I remember stepping out onto the street and some woman shouted, “Officer, arrest this show!” …

8 min read

MOOSE MEMORIES

8 min read

Feb 27

“MERLIN”— MAGIC TO DON’T!

February 27, 2023: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler “The thing about Doug Henning was that he could make the audience disappear, too!” — Nathan Lane Merlin, the infamous 1983 Broadway musical starring the internationally acclaimed magician, Doug Henning, opened forty years ago this month at the Mark Hellinger…

8 min read

“MERLIN”— MAGIC TO DON’T!

8 min read

Feb 23

THE SAGA OF “SARAVA”

February 23, 2023: Theatre Yesterday and Today, by Ron Fassler Today is the anniversary of when the 1979 musical Sarava, “the new hot musical” as it was billed, reluctantly opened on Broadway. Reluctantly, because the producers had hit upon a scheme by which they ran ad nauseam a television commercial…

6 min read

THE SAGA OF “SARAVA”

6 min read

Ron Fassler

Ron Fassler

Author, playwright, director, actor, theatre critic and historian, his book, “Up in the Cheap Seats,” is available at Amazon.com.

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