The Ensemblist

“The Fringe” premiered on March 12, 2013. It was written by Julia Brownell, and directed by Dan Lerner, two more newcomers to the Smash family. The viewership was up this week! Up 220,000 from the previous episode, “The Fringe” was seen by 2.9 million viewers. We saw three songs and a reprise this week: one of which was a cover of “This Will Be Our Year” by The Zombies, sung by the Hit List cast....

This was meant to be a celebratory week for the New York theatre community. We were meant to be seeing our dreams come true. We were meant to be exhausted from the weeks of two-show days and press events. We were meant to be cheering each other on while we gamed award ceremonies. We were meant to be celebrating the power of coming together. But instead, we are home. This pause has been touted as “...

On March 11, 2020, 457 performers were employed in the ensembles of Broadway musicals. Across the companies of 24 musicals, these artists had come to the Main Stem to pursue their dreams of working on Broadway. One of the last to join these ranks was Tony Neidenbach, who made his Broadway debut just ten days earlier.  We asked Tony to share the story of his Broadway debut as well as his experience...

Whether its your first Broadway show or your sixth, closing a show is an emotional experience. You’re saying goodbye to a creative journey, a community of artists as well as stability and a paycheck. When the company of Broadway’s Frozen was asked to move out of the St. James Theatre after the show closed during the Coronavirus pandemic, we reached out to members of the cast to tell us about visit...

“The Read-Through” premiered on March 5, 2013. It was written by Liz Tuccillo, and directed by David Petrarca, both in their Smash debuts. The episode premiered to a viewership of 2.68 million this week, down .36 mil from the previous episode. We didn’t have a whole lot of music this week, despite hearing the read-throughs of two different shows. We saw a Bombshell fantasy Act 2 opener, complete w...

For many theatre artists, there’s the show that changed everything. A musical that - for the first time - reflected a part of the artist that they had never seen before. A show that gave that young artist a glimpse into their future - into an industry and community they would inevitably be a part of. And while that experience is by no means unique, it is often the kernel of why they’ve made the th...

On May 4, 2020, A Strange Loop made history as the 10th musical ever to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. And not only that, A Strange Loop is both the first musical written by a black artist, Michael R. Jackson, and the first musical without an announced Broadway run to be bestowed with this honor. A Strange Loop follows a black, queer writer creating an original musical as he faces a host of...

Today we bring you three stories of unlikely success in the audition room. Tales of booking the role, of not booking the roles, and somehow stories that are both. First up in a story from Josh Lamon. Host of “Josh Swallows Broadway” on the Broadway Podcast Network, he shares with us the story of his very first New York audition. Next up is a story from Ellyn Marie Marsh about how she almost made h...

“The Song” premiered on February 26th, 2013. It was written by Bathsheba Doran, and directed by Michael Morris, whose work we last saw in the season two premiere. The viewership was down a quarter-million from last week, amounting to 3.04 million viewers tuning in on premiere night. We had five featured songs in this episode, with only one pop cover this week! Yay! That cover was Billy Joel’s “Eve...

It’s time for a moment of levity, friends. And what better way to forget your troubles and get happy than by listening to someone else’s troubles. Today, we bring you stories of auditions: both those that are truly wonderful and truly, truly terrible. Special thanks to Erica Dorfler, Megan Sikora and Vishal Vaidya for sharing their stories with us this week.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...

Today we have for you a very special episode in honor of The Actors Fund and the livestream of their 2015 concert of Bombshell.  For those of you who haven’t spent the last six months watching Smash episodes (like we have) this will be your perfect promise for remembering what Bombshell was all about.  Throughout this episode, we will guide you through the most iconic moments of the Bombshell scor...

When a Broadway show closes, we often think about the cast onstage being out of work. But really a Broadway production is an entire ecosystem - often with more than a hundred people working in a variety of positions. One of the performers affected by the closing of Broadway's Frozen in Bronwyn Tarboton. As a vacation swing with the company, she had been performing with the company in a variety of...

The Broadway adaptation of Frozen will not reopen at the St. James Theatre when Broadway once again opens its doors post-pandemic. It effectively took its final bow March 11 running for 26 previews and 825 regular performances. Today, we share some of our favorite conversations about Frozen with original Anna standby Aisha Jackson, music supervisor Stephen Oremus, the original Queen Iduna Ann Sand...

“The Dramaturg” premiered on February 19th, 2013. It was written by Larry Shaw, and directed by Bryan Goluboff, both newcomers to Smash as of season 2. The viewership was 3.29 million viewers, which was 1.16 million down from the previous episode two weeks prior. We saw new material from both of our up-and-coming shows this episode! We were treated to a brand-new song from Bombshell, called “Our L...

“The Fallout” premiered on February 5th, 2013, immediately after the premiere episode. (Aww, remember those two-hour premieres that networks used to do back in the day, Mo?) It was written by Julie Rottenberg & Elisa Zuritsky, whose previous work we saw in the season 1 episodes “Let’s Be Bad” and “The Movie Star,” and was directed by Craig Zisk. Now, here’s a weird thing: viewership for this episo...

This week, we share the second half of our conversation with Ruthie Fierberg, Senior Features Editor at Playbill. In the second half of our spirited conversation, we talked about our favorite performance and ensembles of the season. Here’s the second half of our conversation... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julian DeGuzman has spent the last decade performing in shows that both feature primarily Asian-American casts (Broadway's Miss Saigon) as well as more multi-cultural companies (Newsies, Hello, Dolly! on Tour. He joined me over the phone to talk about how each of those experiences have felt different for him. Here's our conversation... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“On Broadway” premiered on February 3rd, 2013. It was written by new showrunner Joshua Safran, and directed by Michael Morris, who had also directed the season 1 finale. The episode unfortunately did not premiere to as wide an audience as the season 1 premiere or even the season 1 finale; the viewership came in at 4.48 million, about 1.5 million fewer than the finale and almost 7 million fewer tha...

While the New York theatre season was cut short by at least six week, there was certainly much to celebrate this year. From spectacular visuals to music masterpieces, Broadway stages were filled with memorable moments worth noting.  This week, I got the chance to speak to Ruthie Fierberg. In addition to working as Senior Features Editor at Playbill, she’s also one of the most articulate people I k...

Before we dive into season two, Aaron J. Albano and Mo Brady take stock of the first season as a whole. One of the biggest reasons we wanted to look back on this show, now that we’ve had seven years of separation from it and can look at it in an unbiased way, is to see if Smash really holds up: To see how the show authentically represents or sensationalizes our business; to see what, if anything,...

"Bombshell” premiered on May 14, 2012. Rebeck stans rejoice: this finale episode was written by show creator Theresa Rebeck. It was also directed by Michael Morris, who last directed episode 3 of the series. The viewership was up by about a quarter million viewers this week, ending the season with a triumphant 5.96 million! Yay! No covers this week! Instead, rounding out the season was all music b...

For 366 performances, the spooky souls of Broadway’s Beetlejuice haunted the hollowed halls of the Winter Garden Theatre. Until its untimely demise in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the show was playing to sold-out houses who reveled in its zany, but loving spirit. As fans of the show, we are sad to see it go but so greatly for the joy the company brought to the Broadway community.  The Ens...

“Previews,” the penultimate episode of the season, premiered on May 7th, 2012. It was written by David Marshall Grant, and directed by Robert Duncan McNeill (another weird Star Trek connection: Robert McNeill played Lieutenant Tom Paris, also on Star Trek Voyager! So weird….I wonder what the connection is….). The viewership was up from the previous week, being seen by 5.72 million viewers. Thank g...

Just yesterday, the Broadway League announced an extension of its shutdown through June 7. One of the causalities of this is Beetlejuice, which was scheduled to close June 6. That disappointing news means that the production has already played its last performance on Tuesday, March 11. Cast member Elliott Mattox was gracious enough to join me on the phone to talk about how he heard the news and ho...

A decade after Sunday in the Park with George won the Pulitzer Prize, a new musical exploded on the scene in a way the theatre community hadn’t seen since A Chorus Line. RENT, with music, lyrics & book by Jonathan Larson, was presented at New York Theatre Workshop in January of 1996 before quickly making the jump to Broadway that April, where it won four Tony Awards and the 1996 Pulitzer Prize. Fo...