BROADWAY NATION

This week’s episode of Broadway Nation is the second half of my conversation with author Ron Fassler, whose latest book is titled The Show Goes On — Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements. Among the outstanding Broadway performers and creatives who are at the center Ron’s fascinating stories include Abe Burrows, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Comden & Green, Cynthia Erivo, Fantasia, Frank L...

My guest is author Ron Fassler, whose latest book is titled The Show Goes On — Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements, a fascinating collection of insider theater stories that range from as far back as the 1930s and go right up to today. The performers and creatives referenced in this episode include Andrea McArdle, Ann Miller, Anne Bancroft, Barbra Streisand, Cameron MacIntosh, Carol Burnett...

I, along with the rest of the musical theater world, was saddened to learn that composer CHARLES STROUSE, one of the last of the great creators from the Golden Age of Broadway had passed away last week at the age of 96. Of course, Strouse and his three Tony Award-winning “Best Musicals": Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie — have been discussed frequently on this podcast. So over the weekend, I du...

It's hard for me to believe that I launched this podcast exactly five years ago this week, and even harder for me to comprehend that, to date, more than 279,000 people, from nearly every country in the world, have listened to at least one, and in many cases all, of the 175 episodes! So, today it seemed fitting to rerelease the episode that started it all — the very first episode of Broadway Nation...

This is the third and final segment of my conversation with Michael Owen, author of the recent book,  Ira Gershwin — A Life in Words. On this episode, Michael and I focus on the period of Ira Gershwin’s career following the death of his brother George, during which he had success on Broadway and in Hollywood with composers such as Kurt Weill, Jerome Kern, Arthur Schwartz, and Harold Arlen, and sho...

This is the second episode of my three-part conversation with author, historian, researcher, and archivist, Michael Owen, whose recent book,  Ira Gershwin — A Life in Words, is the first full-length biography devoted to that outstanding artist who penned the words for many of the greatest songs of the 20th Century. If you missed part one, you may want to catch up with that before listening to this...

My guest today is Michael Owen, whose recent book Ira Gershwin—A Life in Words is the first full-length biography devoted to the other Gershwin. In this book, Owen at last brings Ira Gershwin out from behind the long shadow cast by his younger and more famous brother, George. Drawing on extensive archival research, Owen often uses Ira’s own words to create a captivating portrait of a shy and retir...

This is the second half of this week's Encore presentation of my conversation with Tony-award-winning lighting designer Ken Billington. Last week, Ken received rave reviews for his lighting design of the new Broadway musical SMASH, which amazingly is his 108th Broadway production. So, I thought it was an ideal time to revisit this fascinating conversation about the history of lighting design on Br...

This is a special encore episode of my 2022 interview with Tony-award-winning lighting designer Ken Billington. This past week, Ken received rave reviews for his lighting design of the new Broadway musical SMASH, which amazingly is his 108th Broadway production. So, I thought it was an ideal time to revisit this fascinating conversation about the history of lighting design on Broadway and Ken’s ow...

Since announcing last week that Broadway Nation has teamed up with Like Minds Travel to create a series of unique Broadway and Broadway history-related travel experiences specially designed for fans of this podcast, I have been receiving a number of questions, so I thought I createdd this mini bonus episode to answer them. As you probably know by now, we are kicking off this initiative with a whir...

My guest this week is the three-time Tony award-winning Broadway orchestrator Doug Besterman, whose 31 Broadway musicals include The Producers, Fosse, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and his very first show, the 1991 revival of Damn Yankees, to name only a few. During this current Broadway season, Besterman will achieve something unheard of in his field: he will have three big musicals — Death Becomes H...

This is thee second part of my conversation with author Joshua Rosenblum about his new book CLOSER THAN EVER — THE UNIQUE SIX-DECADE SONGWRITING PARTNERSHIP of RICHARD MALTBY, JR, and DAVID SHIRE. We dicuss Maltby's work on the musicals Ain't Misbehavin', Fosse, Song And Dance, Miss Saigon, and The Pirate Queen, and the Maltby/Shire shows, Baby, Closer Than Ever, BIG, and Waterfall. Travel to NYC...

My guest today is Joshua Rosenblum, author of Closer than Ever — The Unique Six-Decade Songwriting Partnership of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire. This remarkable new book chronicles the sixty-six-year (and counting) partnership of two of the most gifted songwriters of our time and provides us with full behind-the-scenes accounts of their musicals interspersed with deep-dive analyses of some o...

You may not know Trude Rittmann's name, but you have heard her music. During the "Golden Age of Broadway" (and beyond), she composed music for 33 Broadway musicals, including Carousel, Brigadoon, South Pacific, Fininan’s Rainbow, The King and I, My Fair Lady, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Peter Pan, The Sound of Music, and Camelot.  In this episode, Albert Evans and I tell the story of one of the leas...

 On this episode, I have a big announcement, so I asked my buddy, friend, colleague, and Broadway Nation’s favorite co-host and guest host, ALBERT EVANS, to join me today to turn the tables on me and ask me the questions rather than me being the interviewer. As you may have guessed from the episode title, the announcement is that I have a book coming out called BROADWAY NATION (sound familiar?) an...

 On this episode, Albert Evans returns to Broadway Nation to discuss a topic we don't often broach on this podcast: Movie Musicals. Of course, movie musicals go hand in glove with Broadway musicals and many film musicals originated as Broadway musicals including several we talk about here because our principal topic is Movie Musicals that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Coming up this week...

My guest again this week is Christopher S. Connelly, author of the fascinating new book HELEN MORGAN — THE ORIGINAL TORCH SINGER AND ZIEGFELD'S LAST STAR. On this episode, Christopher and I look at Helen Morgan's life and career during the 1930s, both in Hollywood and on Broadway. And we delve a bit into her personal story, including the love of her life and her several marriages. we end by lookin...

My guest again this week is Christopher S. Connelly, author of the fascinating new book HELEN MORGAN — THE ORIGINAL TORCH SINGER AND ZIEGFELD'S LAST STAR.  The topics discussed in this episode include: Morgan's follow up to Show Boat, the 1929 hit musical Sweet Adeline — a star vehicle created especially for her by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. The 1932 revival of Show Boat and subsequent...

This week my, guest is Christopher T. Connelly, the author of the fascinating new book HELEN MORGAN — THE ORIGINAL TORCH SINGER AND ZIEGFELD'S LAST STAR.  There are a number of individuals who were very big Broadway stars back in what I call the Silver Age of Broadway (the 1920s and 30s), But who today are mostly overlooked and left out of the conversation. Performers who were on a level with Jols...

The progressive and disruptive social movements of the 1960s and 70s had a huge impact on the Broadway Musical and were reflected back into the culture by them. These include the Civil Rights movement, Women’s Liberation, Black Power, and the Gay Liberation Movement. The Stonewall Rebellion in 1969 brought gay issues into the mainstream and during the 1970s LGBTQ+ people would become “out, loud, a...

This is the final episode of a three-part conversation with author Elizabeth T. Craft regarding her recent book, Yankee Doodle Dandy — George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage, the first book major work about Cohan in fifty years. If you missed the first two episodes in this series, you may want to catch up with those before listening to this one.   In this episode, Elizabeth Craft and I discuss the...

This is the second of a three-part conversation with author Elizabeth T. Craft regarding her recent book, Yankee Doodle Dandy — George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage, which is the first book about Cohan in fifty years. If you missed the first episode in this series you may want to catch up with that one before listening to this one.   This week, Elizabeth and I begin with a discussion of Cohan, t...

My guest today is author Elizabeth T. Craft, whose terrific new book, Yankee Doodle Dandy — George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage, is the first book about Cohan in fifty years. No one looms larger in the history of early Broadway than the Irish American writer, composer, lyricist, director, choreographer, producer, actor, singer, dancer, and musical theater legend George M. Cohan — who is often c...

This is a Special Encore of the 100th episode of Broadway Nation which was first posted in March of 2023. To celebrate I invited Albert Evans to join me to discuss, debate, and decide once and for all who is the Greatest Broadway Musical Star Of All Time!  It is impossible to look back on the past year without thinking of CHITA RIVERA and the tremendous legacy she leaves behind. SPOILER ALERT! Chi...

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...