100 Showtunes: The Podcast

Spring 2016. You’re at Waitress , and you’re hungry, because when you walked in you could literally smell freshly baking pies. You know three things about it: (1) it’s based on a movie Felicity was in 10 years ago, (2) it stars recent Tony-winner Jessie Mueller, and (3) the score is by Sara Barellis. “Ugh,” you think to yourself, why are they having pop stars who’ve never done theater write musica...

December 2005. You’re at an early performance of the new musical The Color Purple produced by, among others, Oprah Winfrey (who was Oscar nominated for her work in the film version). The score—by three legendary pop-writers who had never really collaborated together or written a musical before—blends jazz, blues, ragtime, folk, and contemporary music. The musical opens with an overture (when’s the...

Spring 1998. This is one of the strongest Broadway seasons in recent memory, with The Lion King , Ragtime , and the new revival of Cabaret . But you’ve been hearing murmurs that the coolest new show in town is actually playing in the ballroom of an old hotel in the West Village. So you’re checking out Hedwig and the Angry Inch . The venue feels more like a grungy club than a theater, with a mostly...

Summer 1997. You’re seeing Jekyll & Hyde . A friend of yours, a self-proclaimed “Jekkie,” has been hyping up this show’s concept album for years and has traveled to see it several times during its prolonged pre-Broadway tour. So if nothing else, you’re curious. It’s set in a prog-rock version of Victorian England and could really be called Emma & Jekyll & Lucy & Hyde . Yes, there’s a scientist wit...

Spring 1971. You’re at Follies , Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince, and Michael Bennett’s follow-up to Company . The opinions of both critics and acquaintances has been so mixed, you can’t imagine how they were all watching the same show. (Though everyone agrees that the poster is absolutely incredible .) The setting is the ficticious “Weismann Theater,” which held an annual Follies (à la Zigfield)...

December, 1965. You’re closing out the year by catching THE MAN OF LA MANCHA. It’s playing at a venue that is considered “Broadway” even though it’s in the West Village, 35 blocks south of the next closest Broadway theater. You’re greeted by a stark thrust stage. After a rousing, brassy overture (seriously, are there any strings in the pit at all?) a long staircase descends from the fly space as a...

June 1964. You’ve finally scored a ticket to see Funny Girl , a new musical biography of Ziegfeld/early radio star Fanny Brice. Brice isn’t really a personality that means much to you, but the young actress playing her sure does. 22-year old Barbra Streisand has already established herself as a rising supernova thanks to her scene stealing role in 1962’s I Can Get if for You Wholesale , TV appeara...

Winter 1964. You’re seeing the new smash hit musical Hello, Dolly! . The production skips the overture and opens immediately on a chorus on 1880s New Yorkers instructing the audience to call on the local matchmaker before Carol Channing revealing herself as Dolly from behind a newspaper. The briskly paced farce centers on this singular creation, a widow who makes ends meet as a matchmaker (but als...

Late fall, 1959. Mary Martin is closing out the decade originating a role in a new Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. R&H haven’t really had a hit since The King and I , but you’re hopeful Mary Martin will bring out their best. The curtain rises on a gaggle of nuns in 1930s Austria singing a prelude before realizing one of their postulates, Maria, is missing. Cut to Martin emerging from a tree and sin...

Summer 1959. You’re attending Gypsy: a musical fable , based on the memoirs of famed burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee. But the show’s driving force is her determined and domineering mother, Rose Havoc, played by Ethel Merman. After one of the most thrilling overtures you’ve ever heard, the curtain rises on a group of adorable kids auditioning for a vaudeville act. Merman barges into the scene, s...

Spring 1951. You’re at a performance of The King and I , the latest musical from Rodgers & Hammerstein. It features Gertrude Lawrence, one of the theater’s most dynamic stars, leading a Broadway musical for the first time in nearly a decade with a role custom tailored for her. She plays Anna Lenowens, a British woman in 1860s Thailand, then known as Siam, hired by King Mongkut to teach his wives a...

You’re now 40 songs into this project, and have learned about influential and iconic shows, songs, and creators. Now we’re going to look at a one of musical theater’s most evergreen tropes: Star Turns Catch up with all the songs to date! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.100showtunes.com

Before we say “Goodbye Old Girl” to our third playlist, I wanted to name the Notable Creatives that we covered. Add these to the folks introduced in Turning Points and Songs Everybody Should Know , and you’re well on your way to being a Broadway expert. Catch up with all the songs to date! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus epi...

Summer 2024. You’re attending a performance of Suffs , a new musical produced by, among others, Hillary Clinton and Malala. You’re expecting a sort of “girl-boss” Hamilton . Suffs is based on American history, stars its composer/librettist/lyricist, premiered at The Public Theater with Phillipa Soo (she did not join the Broadway company), and featured non-traditional casting (in this case, all the...

Spring 2015. You’re at Fun Home , a musical based on Alison’s Bechdel’s memoir of growing up in a funeral home, embracing her queer identity, and confronting her father’s closeted homosexuality and suicide. As grim as that may sound, the musical is rather, well, fun. It’s staged in-the-round on a sparse stage with eclectic furnishings while Alison, a middle-aged butch lesbian, sits behind a drafti...

Spring 2009. You’re watching the new musical Next to Normal . You had missed its off-Broadway production a year prior, which had gotten a mixed-response, and you’re curious as to why people are more on board with the Broadway incarnation. The musical opens on the Goodmans, a quintessential suburban family, as Mom (Diana Goodman) helps her teenaged children (Gabe and Natalie) and husband (Dan) get...

Spring 2005. You’re at Dirty Rotten Scoundrels , a new musical based on a Steve Martin movie you’ve been meaning to watch. To be honest, the main reason you’re here is to see Sherie Rene Scott and Norbert Leo Butz reunite after they starred in Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years back in 2000. The show opens on the French Riviera and boasts a bright jazzy score with genuinely funny lyrics by D...

It’s 1998, and you’re one of the lucky few to catch Parade during its short run at Lincoln Center Theater. You’ve heard good things about the score by a talented young composer, Jason Robert Brown, but you’re a bit apprehensive about the show’s subject matter. You’re settling in for an evening that will explore a rape and murder in Atlanta, the trial of the falsely accused Leo Frank, and the antis...

It’s 1998, and you’re watching Ragtime a lavish and epic musical that takes the scale and scope of the 1980s British mega-musical and filter it through distinctly American voices and material. The expansive narrative focuses on three distinct groups in New York at the turn of the 20th Century—upperclass suburban whites, Eastern European immigrants, and African Americans—along with notable celebrit...

It’s 1992, and you’re watching the musical Falsettos . It’s the Broadway premier of two off-Broadway musicals from the 80’s, now presented as a single piece. William Finn wrote its eccentric score and co-wrote the book with director James Lapine. The simple set is a red platform and a freestanding door, with furniture coming and going as needed. The opening number, “Four Jews in a Room B******g,”...

An introduction to the 100Showtunes. More info at 100Showtunes.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.100showtunes.com

Fall 1983. You’re at La Cage Aux Folles, a new musical with a score by Jerry Herman—who wrote some of the biggest hits of the 1960s but hasn’t been so lucky lately—and a book by Harvey Fierstein. Fierstein made his Broadway debut a year prior, writing and starring in the smash hit play Torch Song Trilogy , which mad him one of the most visible and open gay celebrities in America. The musical opens...

Late May, 1978. You’re one of the few people on this green earth to see a Broadway performance of Working , a new musical with a book and direction by Stephen Schwartz and a score divvied up by Schwartz and a diverse team of other composers and lyricists (Michele Brourman, Susan Birkenhead, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers, and James Taylor). You see a parade a working stiffs—truckers, ho...

It’s 1966, and you’re nearing the end of Sweet Charity ’s first act. The evening thus far has been stylish and sexy, dominated by the unmistakable staging of Bob Fosse and a score by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields that matches his freak. The show also marks the triumphant return to stage of Gwen Verdon, Fosse’s wife and muse. She plays the titular Charity Hope Valentine, a taxi dancer who maintains...