ON BROADWAY

This week, we explore the music of Charles Strouse. Long-time listener, Sharon Kahn , made a generous contribution to the Sounds of Broadway studios and earned herself the right to create a playlist for our streaming radio station or serve as a guest host for this podcast. She chose the latter and talks about the career of Charles Strouse. We play a generous number of selections from the musicals...

My guest this week is Ethan Popp, a Grammy®, Olivier®, and three-time Tony® Award nominee, who is nominated this year for the Tony Award for Best Orchestrations for The Lost Boys . He is also the Music Director for the show. He has worked with some of the biggest musical acts in the recording business, including Queen, Tina Turner, Elton John, Stevie Nicks, Bono, Alice Cooper, and Smokey Robinson....

I chat with Dr. Kristin Stultz Pressley, a Broadway historian and lecturer and the co-host of the Dr. Broadway Podcast. We talk about her new book - Jukebox Musicals: Crazy for You to MJ the Musical (Essential Musicals) . The book explores a style of show that's dominated Broadway for the better part of two decades. Through a chronological look at the development of long-running hits, like Mamma M...

On this week’s episode of On Broadway, I chat with Adam Gwon, an American composer and lyricist. He made his off-Broadway debut in 2009 with Ordinary Days . He has written eight other musicals that have premiered Off-Broadway and at major regional theaters across the country.  Gwon has been a recipient of the Fred Ebb Foundation Award, presented to aspiring composer/lyricists, as well as the Kleba...

This week I speak with the composing team of Tom James McGrath and Amy Clare Tasker about their new musical Rising . Songs from the show are incorporated into the episode. Rising  reimagines the 1916 Dublin rebellion through the inner life of Patrick Pearse, its most enigmatic leader. As he leads the charge against the British Empire, Patrick must reconcile his public role with the private self he...

I speak to Nicholas Brown-Cáceres, acting chief of the Music Division, and Cait Miller, senior music reference specialist, at the Library of Congress. They talk about Inside the Vault , a collaborative, interactive and virtual exhibit that will be accompanying the national tour of The Sound of Music .

On this episode of On Broadway, I speak with Amnon Kabatchnik, the author of the book, Bloody Broadway – Plays of Menace, Murder, and Mystery – Volume 1 900-1930. The book’s entries are presented chronologically and include a plot synopsis, production data, opinions by critics, and biographical sketches of playwrights and key actors-directors.

This week I speak with Frank Verlizzo , on his first book of the Retro Broadway Mystery Series – Scenery of the Crime .  Before becoming an author, Frank Verlizzo was a legendary graphic designer, the man behind such iconic poster art as the original Broadway productions of Disney's The Lion King ; Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park with George , and Ira Levin's Deathtrap .

I speak with actress and cabaret performer Klea Blackhurst , who will be starring in the new Off-Broadway musical, Just Desserts: A Musical Bake-Off . The show opens at the AMT Theater (354 West 45th Street) beginning January 30 and running through February 22. Her podcast episode will available by Friday, January 23.

On this episode of On Broadway, I speak with Henry H. Sapoznik, a Peabody Award-winning coproducer of NPR's Yiddish Radio Project, about his book - The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City . The book offers a new look at over a century of New York's history of Yiddish popular culture, telling the story in over a baker's dozen chapters on theater, music, architecture, crime, Blacks and Jew...

I speak with David Armstrong, an American stage director, writer, producer, podcaster, and educator, about his book, The Broadway Musical: How Immigrants, Jews, Queers and African-Americans Invented America's Signature Art Form. "A groundbreaking exploration that reveals the powerful impact of marginalized groups on the evolution of the Broadway Musical."

I interview Rupert Holmes , known for his Tony Award-winning musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood . I spoke to him, primarily, on his adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical, The Pirates of Penzance . Retitled Pirates!, the reimaged production, which played last year on Broadway, has the setting now in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The show infuses the score with jazz, Caribbean, and bl...

We welcome back Sondheim scholar Rick Pender, who talks about his new book, Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: Behind the Bloody Musical Masterpiece . "An award-winning Sondheim expert dives into all facets of this unique, murder-filled masterpiece-its slimy roots, original production, characters from killers to lovers to bakers, soaring score, gripping storytelling, and lasting power."

I speak with Frankie Dailey, the New Works Director at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre. The organization’s 37th Annual Festival of New Musicals will take place on October 23-24, 2025 at New World Stages in New York City.   The Festival features eight new musicals in 45-minute staged reading presentations in front of an industry-only audience. This event brings together theatre producers,...

I speak with Rob Ruggiero, the Artistic Director of TheaterWorks Hartford, who is directing the 50th anniversary production of the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning musical, A Chorus Line , at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Ct.

I chat with Mike Hadge - comedy writer, content creator, producer and songwriter - about his musical Doofyland , where he wrote the book, music and lyrics. A brief description of the show: DoofyLand is a bawdy musical satire that explores how easily our happy place can become a cage and how its up to us to truly “embrace the enchanthood.” Featuring a score that echoes classic Disney composers with...

I speak with Jeffrey Seller about his memoir Theater Kid , which is a coming-of-age tale from the most successful American producer of our time. He is one of the masterminds behind the Tony Award winning musicals Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights, and Hamilton.

A rollicking conversation with the composing team behind the current Broadway hit, Dead Outlaw - David Yazbek and Erik Della Penna. The two, life-long friends, engage in an entertaining and revealing discussion about the show and musical theater in general.

I interview with Daniel Jenkins ( Big River, Big – the Musical ), who is appearing in the new Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire revue, About Time .    About Time , which runs at Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theater in Chester, CT from May 24 - Jun 15, 2025, is the third revue created by the composing team. Here is a brief description of the show: From long-ago love affairs and ambitions of the past...

I interview John Yun, who is currently the music director for the Broadway production of Maybe Happy Ending . We talk about this multi-Tony Award nominated musical. John has served as the associate conductor for the Broadway production of Hell’s Kitchen – The Alicia Keys musical, the associate music director for Broadway productions of Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ , as well as Tina: the Tina Turner Musical...

In this week’s episode of On Broadway, I speak with James Magruder, author of the new book, The Play's the Thing : Fifty Years of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016) . The book’s four chapters are dedicated to one of the Yale Rep’s artistic directors to date: Robert Brustein, Lloyd Richards,Stan Wojewodski Jr., and James Bundy. Numerous sidebars—dedicated to the spaces used by the theater, the play...

I speak withTed Vives, who has written the score and book to a musical entitled Scientific Method . The show is unproduced, but did recently receive an honorable mention by the American Prize for Excellence in the Arts. We chat about the genesis of the musical, its plot and structure and hear a few songs from the show. For information about Scientific Method and to hear more songs from the score,...

I chat with the highly opinionated and entertaining John Kendrick - author, teacher and theatre and film historian. His 2008 book Musical Theatre: A History is a comprehensive history of musical theatre from ancient times to the present. He is also the webmaster for Musicals101.com: The Cyber Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre, TV and Film.

I chat with Trevor Boffone, a social media content creator and author, about his new book - TikTok Broadway: Musical Theater Fandom in the Digital Age.

I chat with Tom James McGrath (book, music & lyrics) and Amy Clare Tasker (book & lyrics) who wrote the new British musical - The Queen is Mad. The plot: The Queen is Mad is inspired by the true story of “Joanna la Loca”. The elder sister of Catherine of Aragon, Joanna is outspoken, spirited and headstrong – everything a 15th century princess is not supposed to be. When Joanna inherits the...