BROADWAY NATION

This episode is made possible in part by the generous support of Broadway Nation "Backstage Pass Club" Producer Level Member, Tracy Wellans.  For information on how to join the "Backstage Pass Club" please go the show notes for this episode at www.broadway-nation.com In this episode I continue my Centennial celebration of the groundbreaking musical Shuffle Along! with the second half of my convers...

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of Shuffle Along!, the groundbreaking musical that kicked off an entire decade of vibrant black musical theatre on Broadway which included more than a dozen shows that were created by black songwriters, black bookwriters, black producers, black directors and choreographers -- and these shows brought hundreds of black actors, singers, dancers, and musicians to...

This week’s episode is a little different.  I recorded this just five days after it was announced that Stephen Sondheim had died and as it happened my friend, colleague and frequent co-host and contributor to Broadway Nation, Albert Evans, was spending the Thanksgiving weekend with me, and so we were together when this news began to break and during the incredible reaction and response this loss o...

This is the second part of my recent conversation with Irene Sankoff & David Hein -- the dynamic writing team and married couple that created the international smash hit musical Come From Away. Five productions of Come From Away have recently reopened around the world: Broadway, Toronto, London, Sydney and on tour across America. A new Dutch production has just opened, as well, and a live filmed v...

My guests today are Irene Sankoff & David Hein – the dynamic writing team and married couple that created the giant international smash hit musical Come From Away. Five productions of Come From Away have recently reopened around the world: Broadway, Toronto, London, Sydney and on tour across America. A live filmed version of the show is also streaming on Apple TV+. Irene and David won the 2019 Oli...

This episode continues my conversation with author Stacy Wolf about her most recent book: Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure And Promise of Musical Theater Across America , where she relates her cross-country journey from Maine to California during which she visited grade schools, middle schools, high schools, summer camps, festivals, and community theater in cities and towns, large and very small, and...

I recently had the pleasure of to chatting with author Stacy Wolf about her most recent book entitled, Beyond Broadway: The Pleasure And Promise of Musical Theater Across America. Stacy is a Professor of Theater at Princeton University and the Director of their Program in Music Theater. She is also a leading scholar of musical theater, and her other acclaimed books include Changed for Good: A Femi...

My guest today is theatrical animal trainer Bill Berloni. Beginning with the original production of ANNIE in 1977, Bill has provided and trained animals of all species and sizes for 27 Broadway musicals and plays, as well as for countless Off-Broadway shows, National Tours, regional theaters, movies, television shows, commercials and the NYC Ballet – and he found almost all of those animal actors...

This is the final part of my conversation with Broadway actor, singer, dancer, director and choreographer Lee Roy Reams, at least for now. I am sure I will have Lee Roy back for another discussion in the not so distant future. There is no end to the amazing insights and classic show-biz stories that he has locked in his memories. If you missed the first two parts you may want to listen to those ep...

This is the second part of my conversation with Broadway actor, singer, dancer, director and choreographer Lee Roy Reams whose nine Broadway musicals span from Sweet Charity in 1966 to The Producers in 1996, and as you will hear – he is still going strong! If you missed Part 1 you may want to listen to that episode first. We left off there with Lee Roy leaving his job as a dancer on the Carol Burn...

I recently had the delightful opportunity to chat with beloved Broadway actor, singer, dancer, director and choreographer Lee Roy Reams whose nine Broadway musicals span from Sweet Charity in 1966 to The Producers in 1996, and he is still going strong having recently celebrated his 79th birthday with performances at 54 Below and The York Theatre Company! Our conversation ranges from his childhood...

During an incredible Broadway career that stretched from 1953 to 1998, composer Cy Coleman created the music for 12 Broadway musicals. Unlike most Broadway composers, however, he was never part of an ongoing songwriting team but instead worked with seven very talented but very different collaborators. My guest today is one of those esteemed lyricists -- David Zippel who partnered with Cy Coleman o...

This week I continue my conversation with author Cassen Gaines whose fascinating new book Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way tells the story of how in 1921 four talented and determined young black vaudevillians -- Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles -- against incredible odds, teamed up to produce a runaway Broadway hit that ushered in...

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of Shuffle Along! The groundbreaking musical that kicked off a decade of vibrant black musical theatre on Broadway which included more than a dozen shows created by black songwriters, black bookwriters, black producers, black directors and choreographers -- and these shows brought hundreds of black actors, singers, dancers, and musicians to Broadway. This land...

Author Rick Pender takes us inside the creation of The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia.  Rick Pender is a longtime member and former chair of the American Theater Critics Association. He first began reviewing theater in 1985 for a public radio station he managed at Northern Kentucky University. He later became the theater critic for CityBeat – Cincinnati’s alternative weekly newspaper -- and eventua...

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? Musicals are experiences that get embedded in our psyche. We remember them forever -- vividly and in often in great and specific detail. And they get embedded in our emotional and physical memory as well. Our bodies and nervous...

Over the past two episode we’ve explored the principal themes that underly the greatest number of Broadway Musicals. Two weeks ago we looked at “Transgressive Women”, last week it was “Equity, Justice and Inclusion”, and today we explore “Community”.  The Musical theater is a very effective form for dramatizing entire communities of people – and often the community itself becomes a major character...

At the beginning of each episode of this podcast I state that the Broadway Musical was invented by various marginalized and disenfranchised people, and that in the process of creating it, they transformed American culture as well. This is the second of several episodes in which I demonstrate exactly why I think that is true, and how it happened. When we consider the people who created the musical...

This is the second of two special holiday bonus episodes of Broadway Nation. Just like the first, this is an audio version of a Broadway Nation Live! performance that was given in December of 2019 at the Vashon Center For The Performing Arts on Vashon Island, WA. If you prefer to watch a video of this performance you can stream it on their website at: vashoncenterforthearts.org In Part One we look...

This special holiday bonus episode of Broadway Nation is an audio version of a Broadway Nation Live! performance that was presented in December of 2019 at the Vashon Center For The Performing Arts on Vashon Island in Washington State. If you would prefer to watch a video of this performance you can stream it on their website at: vashoncenterforthearts.org Several previous episodes of Broadway Nati...

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”. For more than 100 years an overwhelming majority of musicals have featured transgressive female characters who break the rules, and refuse to follow the path that society has set out for them. And more often than not...

In today’s episode I focus on the Broadway Musicals of the 21st Century. 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. At the same time they have introduced something sort of new – the “Jukebox Musical”. In the process, and with a...

In the second half of my interview with NY Post columnist Michael Riedel about his new book, Singular Sensation – The Triumph of Broadway we continue the story of the Broadway Musical as it moved from the final decade of the 20th Century into the new millennium. Last week’s episode ended with our discussion of the musical Crazy For You and the 1992 revival of Guys & Dolls, two productions that lai...

I recently had a chance to interview NY Post columnist Michael Riedel about his new book, Singular Sensation, and that conversation proved to be the perfect vehicle to tell the story of the Broadway Musical during the final decade of the 20th Century. Michael not only had covered the events and personalities of this period first-hand in his newspaper columns during 1990s -- for the book he also re...

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 even performers from the UK had sailed in, taken over Broadway, and commandeered America’s signature art form – the Musical. At the center of this revolution was trio of spectacular and bombastic “Mega Musicals” that dominate...