Episodes

Part two of my conversation with Caseen Gaines, author of the new book, FOOTNOTES: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way

A conversation with Caseen Gaines, author of FOOTNOTES: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way

Today my guest is Rick Pender, author of The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia, the new and extraordinarily comprehensive guide to everything Sondheim.

Why are the great Musicals so unforgettable? Why do musicals have so much power and impact? How is it that they are able to live in our hearts and memories for a lifetime? In this Season One finale Episode Albert Evans and I tell our own stories of when, how, and why we fell in love with Broadway…

Musical theater is a very effective form for dramatizing entire communities of people – and often the community itself becomes a major character in the drama. Because of this natural ability, dozens of Broadway musicals - including many of the most popular, acclaimed and influential - focus nearl…

At least 30 popular and successful Broadway musicals have stories, plots and themes that explicitly deal with Equity, Justice, and Inclusion in regard to Race, Ethnicity and Culture. The great musicals that I profile today include The Red Moon, As Thousands Cheer, Show Boat, South Pacific, The Ki…

This is the second of two special holiday bonus episodes of Broadway Nation. In Part One we looked at how the Jewish-Russian immigrant songwriter, Irving Berlin -- in addition to being one of the prime inventors of the Broadway Musical -- also created an entirely new category of popular song: “the…

This week’s special holiday episode tells the story of how the great Jewish-Russian immigrant songwriter, Irving Berlin, not only played a huge role in the invention the Broadway Musical, but also invented an entirely new category of popular song – the Christmas standard. This episode is an audio …

This is the first of three episodes highlighting the principal themes of the Broadway Musical. Today I look at the single most ubiquitous and pervasive theme: “Transgressive Women”. From “Laurey” in Oklahoma! to “Elphaba” in Wicked. From “Annie Oakley” to “Tracy Turnblad”. From “Maria” in The S…

Perhaps surprisingly, the current generation of Broadway creators has re-embraced and reinvigorated both the “Musical Comedy” and the “Musical Play” in ways that I think would make Rodgers & Hammerstein very proud, with shows such as Hairspray and Wicked, At the same time they have introduced some…

The second half of my interview with NY Post columnist Michael Riedel about his new book, Singular Sensation – The Triumph of Broadway continues the story of the Broadway Musical in the 1990s including the musicals CHICAGO, The Full Monty, The Producers, and The Lion King.

In this episode I interview NY Post columnist Michael Riedel about his new book, "Singular Sensation - The Triumph Of Broadway", and that conversation is the perfect vehicle to continue to tell the story of the Broadway Musical during the final decade of the 20th Century.

The Modern Era of Broadway, part 7. In this episode I explore what is often called “The British Invasion of Broadway” – a ten-year period during which it seemed that writers, directors, designers, producers and performers from the UK had sailed in and taken over Broadway with musicals such as Les…

In this episode I explore the growing visibility of queer stories, themes and characters on Broadway in musicals such as Hair, Coco, Applause, Seesaw, A Chorus Line, and La Cage Aux Folles, as well as the devastating effect that the AIDS Crisis had on Broadway during the 1980s and 90s when a whole…

In this episode I explore the history of what is called the “Concept Musical”, including its key creators: Harold Prince, Stephen Sondheim, Kander & Ebb, Michael Bennett and their game changing musicals Cabaret, Company, Follies, A Chorus Line, Chicago, Cats, and Dreamgirls.

In this episode I celebrate 1970s Broadway, and the return of the Black Musical. More than a dozen hit black musicals opened during the decade, and three of them won the TONY Award for "Best Musical"! About half of them were dynamic new, original musical plays – mostly adaptations of popular play…

In this episode I continue my review of Broadway’s Nostalgia Craze of the 1970s and beyond. This includes the musicals Grease, Irene, Over Here!, Very Good Eddie, Whoopee!, Sugar Babies, 42nd Street A Day In Hollywood A Night In The Ukraine, On Your Toes, My One And Only, Crazy For You, Me And My …

In this episode Albert Evans and I explore the origins of Broadway’s “Nostalgia Craze of the 1970s” -- where it came from, and what artistic, social and cultural forces came together to spark this unlikely phenomenon. We look at its roots in the counterculture youth rebellion of the 1960’s, the re…

In April of 1968, “The Golden Age of Broadway” came to an abrupt end on the opening night of the “tribal rock musical” HAIR, which took America by storm and created a shocking jump cut into what I call “The Modern Era" of the Broadway Musical. In this episode I share the story of the emergence and…

As the 1950’s came to a close, Broadway Musicals were at the very center of American culture. Then in 1960, as if on cue, two immensely popular shows – The Fantasticks, and Bye, Bye Birdie – kick off the decade by foreshadowing several major changes in American culture that by the end of the decad…

In this episode I focus on the 1959–1960 which brought us Gypsy vs. The Sound Of Music. And you could subtitle this episode Ethel Merman vs. Mary Martin! Spoiler alert: There was a tie for the Best Musical Tony Award that season, but if you don’t already know the story, it probably didn’t end up …

In this episode, Albert Evans and I take an in-depth look at two classic musicals that went head to head at the 1958 TONY Awards -- .West Side Story and The Music Man. We explore the conception, development and storied history of these legendary shows, and look “under the hood” to discover just w…

This is the second part of my discussion with Tony Award winning Costume Designer Ann Hould-Ward in which we trace the legacy chain of Broadway costume design expertise that was handed down directly over a 100 year period from Aileen Bernstein to Irene Sharriff to Patricia Zipprott to Ann Hould-War…

One of the main threads of this podcast is how the arts and crafts of the Broadway Musical have been handed down directly from one practitioner to the next, generation to generation. In this episode I trace the legacy chain of Broadway Costume Design that was handed down directly from Aileen Berns…