Photos: PETER FILICHIA & FRIENDS Warms 54 Below With Memories

By Maryann Lopinto

Peter Filichia returned to 54 Below last week on March 2, 2026 with another chapter of his PETER FILICHIA AND FRIENDS: BR0ADWAY TALES AND TUNES. Accompanied by Music Director Michael Levine on the piano, he had as his guest many performers who had appeared in the shows covered.

Peter, a writer and critic, had seen well over thousands of  shows on Broadway as well as in Boston where he had once lived, where many the shows first played on their journey to Broadway. Many closed on the way. He filled us in with facts and stories from many of the shows he had seen.

The show opened with both Maureen Silliman and her husband William Parry performing  an early scene with a monologue  from CAMELOT when Guenivere comes upon King  Arthur on the way to meet him, not realizing it was King Arthur, and he tells all about Camelot with the title song. Adam Grupper followed with “If I Were a Rich Man,” with all the nuances of  the Broadway production as he was understudy to Danny Burstein in a revival.  I knew he had to have performed the role of Tevye in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF somewhere.

Dick Scanlan followed with “So Far” from a little-known early Rodgers and Hammerstein show ALLEGRO. He choose this song as felt he connected with it as how he had met his husband.

Gerard Allesandrini, who is the master creator of the FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, came out with a long list of the replacements in Kander and Ebb’s CHICAGO with a spoof song of “Razzle Dazzle,” and later in the show returned with Christine Pedi in a song about how songs are enhanced with the use of microphones now and in the olden days it was the pure voice of the likes of Ethel Merman in a spoof of the duet “You’re Just in Love,” with Christine channeling Merman.

Karen Akers treated us to a song she sang in the original cast of GRAND HOTEL, “What You Need.” Neva Small gave us “A Girl With Too Much Heart,” a song by Bob Merrill from the 1978 show THE PRINCE OF GRAND STREET, which also starred Robert Preston. That show would have been Preston’s final Broadway show. It was such a beautiful song, but sadly the show never made it to Broadway after playing Philadelphia and Boston. If any of the other songs were as beautiful as this, maybe they should dig it out and fix it and give it another chance.

THE MYSTERY OF EDWARD DROOD was a story written by Charles Dickens.  He died before finishing it and it left a lot of facts hanging.  Rupert  Holmes got a hold of the manuscript and decided to write a musical of it and let the audience vote for different characters to finish the story. So each performance was different depending on what the audience voted at that performance. We heard “Jasper’s Confession,” sung by Paul Adam Schaefer, who played Jasper in one of the productions, and “Durdle’s Confession” which was sung by Robert Creighton, who played Durdle in the 2012 Roundabout revival production.

Steve Schalchlin’s song was not from a Broadway show; it had a similar theme of Kander and Ebb’s “New York, New York” of coming to New York to pursue a career. The audience loved this. Blake Lee Zolfo sang it, with Steve at the piano. “Deep in the Night,” which was from INNER CITY, had starred Linda Hopkins on Broadway and won her a Tony Award in 1972. This was sung by Aeja Barrows. Christine Pedi returned to sing “Babette” from the musical ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.  This was sung on Broadway by Judy Kaye, who was originally understudy to Madeline Kahn and wound up taking over early in the run, which made Judy a star. 

To end the show, A. J. Shively came out to sing from Jerry Herman’s LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, “The Best Of Times” and the audience joined in. A.J. sang  this in the 2101 revival in the role of John-Michael. This was a perfect ending of a wonderful show.

Thank you Peter Filichia  for this gift and giving us history for many of these shows. Looking forward  to the next chapter.

---

Follow Peter Filichia on Facebook here for more on the writer.

Find more upcoming shows at 54 Below on their website here.

Below, see photos from the show.