It’s an honor to bring Peter Filichia’s column every week on Kritzerland called ‘Filichia on Friday’ to our readers on DCMetroTheaterArts.
THIS WEEK: Let Me Hear Your Opinion on This
Peter Filichia is the New York-based theater critic emeritus for The Newark (N.J.) Star Ledger newspaper and News 12 television station. He is also the author of Let’s Put on a Musical (Back Stage Books, 2007), now in its third printing; Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hits /The Biggest Flops of the Season (Applause Books, 2010); and Broadway Musical MVPs 1960-2010: The Most Valuable Players of the Last 50 Seasons (Applause Books, 2011), chosen one of Publishers Weekly’s Top 10 Performing Arts titles of 2011. His new book, Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks: A Very Opinionated History of the Broadway Musicals That Did Not Win the Tony Award, will be published in May, 2013 by St. Martin’s Press.
Peter has been a columnist for Playbill, Theater.com, Theatermania and Theater Week. He blogs weekly at MasterworksBroadway.com; and writes “Filichia Features”for Musical Theatre International’s Web site The Marquee, and “Filichia on Friday” for Kritzerland Records’ Web site.
Before joining the Theatre World Awards in 1996 as host and head of the selection committee, Peter served four terms as president of the Drama Desk. He has served on an assessment panel for the National Endowment for the Arts, and is currently critic-in-residence for the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and the musical theater judge for the ASCAP Awards program.
My first thought is the actor was a bit of an idiot. Of course you are supposed to play along when the actors interact with you. The fact that his interaction was a harangue of some sort and he cant understand that you were just haranguing him back demonstrates a real cluelessness on his part. Then emailing you? Sorry Peter but this guy/gal has issues. Your “mending the fence” shows more than enough generosity, but I guess you never want to make enemies if you can fix it. My 2 cents about the audience thing is that generally I hate when I have to “perform”with an actor as an audience member. I want to relax and be entertained or transported, not feel like I have to be clever or be a part of the action. But maybe I’m in the minority, after all Tony and Tina was pretty succesful.