BROADWAY NATION

This is a special encore episode of Broadway Nation. In light of the recent revisal of Rodgers & Hart's musical comedy Pal Joey at New York's City Center I thought it would be interesting to revisit one of my favorite episodes. I’ll be back next week with the third part of my conversation with Oliver Soden regarding his amazing new biography of Noel Coward. In the meantime please enjoy Pal Joey an...

My guest again this week is Oliver Soden, author of the amazing new biography: Masquerade — The Lives of Noel Coward. Today in the second part of our conversation Oliver relates how Noel Coward, while still in his early 20s, emerged as one of the signature voices of the 1920s, both in London and on Broadway. If you missed part one of our conversation you may want to catch up with that before liste...

My guest this week is OLIVER SODEN, the author of a truly remarkable new book: Masquerade — The Lives of Noel Coward. As frequent listeners to this podcast may remember, as a teenager growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, I developed an unlikely affinity for all things related to Noel Coward, inspired I am sure by that double record cast recording of the 1972 musical revue, Oh, Coward! — an album that I...

I am thrilled to announce that today’s episode is a Broadway Nation take over! Since I am currently wearing a number of hats including returning to Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre to co-direct Irving Berlin’s White Christmas (which started rehearsals this week), AND working on deadline for my upcoming book (also titled Broadway Nation) but still in the midst of all that firmly committed to keeping ne...

Although nobody knew it at the time, 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 rise of the so called “Rock Musical”. To many HAIR, and the "Rock...

Today’s episode is the second half of my recent discussion with author Grace Barnes whose fascinating new book it titled: National Identity and the British Musical — From Blood Brothers to Cinderella. In this conversation we explore how British national identity has, and often has not, been dramatized in British musical theater, and among the topics that we discuss are the musicals Blood Brothers,...

My guest today is Grace Barnes whose new book it titled: National Identity and the British Musical — From Blood Brothers to Cinderella. This is a fascinating book that explores how British national identity has, and often has not, been dramatized in British musical theater, and she does this by examining the content and context of musicals such as Blood Brothers, Mama Mia, Billy Elliott, The Hired...

This is an encore presentation of my conversation with author Liza Gennaro, regarding her fascinating book : Making Broadway Dance. Liza is currently the Dean of Musical Theater at the Manhattan School of Music and prior to that she had a very active and successful career as a dancer and choreographer on Broadway and with prominent theater companies across the country. Most notably she choreograph...

This is the fourth and final segment of my recent conversation with author Geoffrey Block regarding his latest book: A Fine Romance — Adapting Broadway To Hollywood In the Studio System Era This fascinating new book explores the passionate and often rocky relationship between Broadway musicals and the movie studios that brought them to the big screen. To accomplish this, Geoffrey Block takes an in...

This is the third part of my conversation with author Geoffrey Block regarding his recent book: A Fine Romance — Adapting Broadway To Hollywood In the Studio System Era. This very interesting new book takes an in-depth look at 12 Broadway stage musicals and their Hollywood movie musical adaptations. And today we discuss two of those shows — West Side Story and Rodgers & Hammerstein’s second to las...

This is the second part of my conversation with author Geoffrey Block regarding his recent book: A Fine Romance — Adapting Broadway To Hollywood In the Studio System Era. The romance that Geoffrey is referring to to in his title is the sometimes passionate, but often very rocky love affair between Broadway Musicals and the film studios that adapted them into Movie Musicals. In this episode we disc...

This is the first part of my recent conversation with Geoffrey Block whose latest book is titled: A Fine Romance — Adapting Broadway To Hollywood In the Studio System Era. This fascinating new book explores the sometimes successful, but often very rocky relationship between Broadway musicals and the movie studios that brought them to the big screen. He does this by taking an in-depth look at 12 mu...

This is a special POD SWAP editions of Broadway Nation! Last December it was my great pleasure to be a guest on Jeffrey Scott Parson’s terrific show, A Musical Theatre Podcast, and this week I am thrilled to share that episode with my Broadway Nation audience. Think of this “pod swap” as sort of a “Summer Replacement Special.” If you are too young to remember those, then let me fill you in. Back i...

This is the third and final part of my recent conversation with authors Millie Taylor & Adam Rush about their captivating new book titled, Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative. As you will hear, Millie and Adam have uncovered new alternative ways of relating the history of the Musical. Instead of just one way of telling that story they have identified multiple thematic histories of t...

My guests again this week are Millie Taylor & Adam Rush, the authors of a very interesting new book titled, Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative. This is the second part of our conversation about their unique approach to relating the history of both the American and the British Musical Theatre. They accomplish this through their use of multiple thematic 'histories' that take readers...

My guests this week are Millie Taylor and Adam Rush, the authors of a very interesting new book titled, Musical Theatre Histories: Expanding the Narrative. Musical theatre is often perceived as being either a Broadway based art form, or as having separate histories in London and New York. This new book, however, presents the Musical as neither American nor British, but also both of those, and more...

Celebrating Dorothy Fields 118th Birthday! Women have had a much more significant impact on the Broadway Musical than has generally been reported or acknowledged. In fact, talented, dynamic women have been a major force in the creation and development of the American musical theater from the very beginning and right up to today. In this episode my special guest Albert Evans and I will share the of...

This is the third and final part of my conversation with Ben Francis whose amazingly compelling new book is titled Careful the Spell You Cast — How Stephen Sondheim Extended the Range of the American Musical. Just like the book, our discussion has been structured around Sondheim’s collaborators. In this episode we discuss his work with George Furth, John Weidman, Hugh Wheeler & James Lapine. And,...

This is the second part of my conversation with author Ben Francis regarding his very compelling new book: Careful the Spell You Cast — How Stephen Sondheim Extended the Range of the American Musical. This week Ben and I focus on three of Sondheim's key collaborators — Harold Prince, Burt Shevelove, and James Goldman. If you missed last weeks episode you may want to catch up with that one before l...

My guest today is Ben Francis, author of a very compelling new book titled Careful the Spell You Cast — How Stephen Sondheim Extended the Range of the American Musical. Sondheim is without a doubt one of the most studied, examined, and analyzed Broadway creators of all time. In fact, we have done quite a bit of that right here on Broadway Nation. However, as you will hear, Ben Francis contends tha...

This is a special Encore Episode in celebration of PRIDE month. The Stonewall Rebellion in 1969 thrust the issue of Gay Rights into the mainstream and as a result, during the 1970s queer people became “out, loud, and proud” in significant numbers. In fact, all of the progressive and disruptive social movements of the 1960s & 70s — Civil Rights, Women’s Liberation, Black Power, Anti-War — had signi...

This is a special Pride Month encore of one of Broadway Nation's earliest episodes! From the very beginning the Broadway Musical has to a very large degree been a Queer creation. In this episode David Armstrong shares the fascinating stories of early queer creators including producing and life partners Charles Frohman & Charles Dillingham; the first great gay director Hassard Short; drag superstar...

This is the second half of my conversation with Rebecca Applin Warner, who is the author of a new book: The Musical Theatre Composer As Dramatist — A Handbook For Collaboration. Last time Rebecca shared some of the fascinating concepts and techniques that can be found in her book in regard to breaking down and analyzing the components of a musical, including its principal and supporting themes (bo...

My guest this week is author Rebecca Applin Warner, whose new book is titled The Musical Theatre Composer As Dramatist — A Handbook For Collaboration. As frequent listeners to this podcast have no doubt figured out by now, my primary interest in musical theater is in the storytelling — especially how the bookwriter, composer, lyricist, choreographer, director and designers all come together to dra...

This is a Special Encore release of one of my personal favorite episodes! You may not know the name, Trude Rittmann, but you have certainly 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...