The Ensemblist

The 53rd Annual Tony Awards were held at the Gershwin Theatre on June 6, 1999. Unlike every other award ceremony we’ve discussed in this miniseries, the show did not have a formal host. Heading into the ceremony, the closed Lincoln Center Theatre production of Parade led the pack with nine nominations. Following closely behind was the eventual winner for Best Musical: Fosse. Also in the running fo...

What is Clubhouse? Leroy Church, associate producer on the Clubhouse production of Dreamgirls, gives us an inside look at creating theatre on an emerging app with some on Broadway's greatest performers. What has brought Sheryl Lee Ralph, Marisha Wallace, Gerald Caesar, Amber Riley, Kayla Davion, Raena White, Jelani Remy, Nick Rashad Burroughs and more to this show? Learn more about your ad choices...

Today, actor Raymond J. Lee talks about the Grammy nominated off Broadway show Soft Power.  Host Michael Fatica was blown away by how cleverly it deals with super touchy topics about race, democracy, traditional theatre and more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In my journey to chronicle the transformation of The Addams Family musical through its many incarnations, I was starting to understand what made the show so unique. Most first national tours are essential replicas of the Broadway production, but The Addams Family’s was not. Launching in the fall of 2011, the touring version of the show turned the focus onto the family, including a wedding in the c...

We're celebrating the birthday of one of our favorite leading ladies, Celia Keenan-Bolger. She is a four-time Tony Award nominee, winning for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 2019 for To Kill A Mockingbird. Beloved in the New York theatre community for almost twenty years, her first theatrical award was in 2005 for Outstanding Ensemble Performing in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Ce...

On today’s episode, we’re celebrating the 33rd anniversary of Broadway’s longest-running show, The Phantom of the Opera. Although the Majestic Theatre remains dark because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve dug deep into our archives to revisit some of our favorite stories from Phantom ensemblists.  First, we’ll hear from Jacob Keith Watson about performing in three Broadway shows over the course of...

The 73rd Annual Tony Awards were held June 9, 2019 at Radio City Music Hall with James Corden hosting for his second time. Heading into the ceremony, Hadestown led with 14 nominations, followed by Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations with 12, Tootsie with 11, Beetlejuice with 8 and The Prom with 7. In the running for Best Revival of a Musical were just a pair of shows: Rodgers &...

Over the years, The Ensemblist has had the sublime opportunity to speak with four performers from a variety of Hamilton companies, each with their own unique memories and takeaways from the experience. Special thanks extend to performers Antuan Magic Raimone, Alexia Sky, Rebecca Covington Webber, and Kim Taylor for recalling their experiences with us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph...

One of the not-so secret secrets in this show about secrets is that The Addams Family went through massive structural changes multiple times on its way to becoming the most popular musical in America. Many of the changes were noted in my previous discussions with Rick Elice and Dontee Kiehn: solidifying the focus on the family, the addition of the wedding curtain call. But both Rick and Dontee had...

The 73rd Annual Tony Awards were held June 9, 2019 at Radio City Music Hall with James Corden hosting for his second time. Heading into the ceremony, Hadestown led with 14 nominations, followed by Ain't Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations with 12, Tootsie with 11, Beetlejuice with 8 and The Prom with 7. In the running for Best Revival of a Musical were just a pair of shows: Rodgers &...

It’s 2021, and the theatre industry is still shut down. In this new series, “The Shows We Need”, Michael Fatica will try to identify pieces that we as a community need to come back when the theatre world resurfaces. We begin with Jagged Little Pill, which deals with many big social issues and starts new conversations. Guests Kei Tsuruharatani and Marc Kimelman chat about the creation of the show,...

The original production of The Addams Family was choreographed by Tony Award winner Sergio Trujillo. Once a Broadway ensemblist himself, The Addams Family came along when Sergio had four productions running simultaneously on Broadway: our show, the long-running Jersey Boys, the sparse but beautiful musical staging in Next to Normal, and the Tony-Award winning production of Memphis. With this many...

It’s time to start 2021 with some joy. And what better way than to share something that’s been bringing me joy over the last few months: Let’s Hear It For The Choice. Created by Jimmy Larkin, Let’s Hear It For The Choice is a celebration of great musical theatre performances large and small. Jimmy has been sharing compilations of these bold statements, or “choices,” on his Instagram channel along...

The 41st Annual Tony Awards were held June 6, 1987 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre with Angela Lansbury hosting for her third time. Heading into the ceremony, Me and My Girl and Les Miserables were neck in neck leading the pack for most nominations (with 13 and 12, respectively.) Behind them were Starlight Express with seven nominations and Rags with five. Although the category is titled “Best Reviv...

So many of us experienced the unexpected in 2020. When the world stopped, we were forced to reckon with who we are without busy lives to distract us. That reckoning was most uncomfortable for the busiest among us, who were moving so fast they never took the time to stop. Paloma Garcia-Lee was one of the busiest of those artists. A verteran of six Broadway shows, she spent 2019 as an original compa...

My first stop on this journey was reaching out to an old colleague, Rick Elice. Along with Marshall Brickman, Rick wrote the book for the musical adaptation of The Addams Family. Rick and I’s path crossed a handful of times during my tenure with the original Broadway production: he was in the room when I had my final audition, he was in the building to put in new leads or when the show closed on N...

The 41st Annual Tony Awards were held June 6, 1987 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre with Angela Lansbury hosting for her third time. Heading into the ceremony, Me and My Girl and Les Miserables were neck in neck leading the pack for most nominations (with 13 and 12, respectively.) Behind them were Starlight Express with seven nominations and Rags with five. Although the category is titled “Best Reviv...

It was supposed to be the biggest Broadway show of the season. Two theatre titans taking on two of the most familiar roles in popular culture. The combination of wildly successful source material and innovative theatremakers were sure to create a theatrical juggernaut. And the public agreed: advanced ticket sales for the show were the largest of any Broadway production to date. And then… it opened...

In this month's episode of Chris Chats With, host Christine Shepard (Mean Girls, Head Over Heels) brings together a roundtable of colleagues and friends for a roundtable discussion about community v. the individual. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this month's episode of Chris Chats With, host Christine Shepard (Mean Girls, Head Over Heels) brings together a roundtable of colleagues and friends for a roundtable discussion. Ari Groover, Arica Jackson and Ricardo Zayas delve deep into a discussion about community v. the individual. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There isn’t a theatre choreographer more associated with their own unique style than Bob Fosse. The infamous Oscar-, Emmy- and Tony-winning director and choreographer created his own signature technique that distinguished shows like Chicago, Pippin, and Damn Yankees into dance masterpieces. This April, FX launches a new limited television series Fosse/Verdon, based on the 2013 biography by Sam Wes...

We’re revisiting our 2014 interview with Tony Award Winner Randy Graff. Among her many Broadway credits is the original production of Les Miserables. Randy spoke to us about originating the role of Fantine on Broadway, the rehearsal process, memories of performing the show, and why Les Miserables has had such a lasting legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Fosse/Verdon finale, “Providence,” premiered on May 28th, 2019. Just like the pilot, its writing credit was separated into two: the story of the episode by Joel Fields & Steven Levenson, while the teleplay itself was written just by Steven Levenson. The episode was directed by Tommy Kail. We saw three pieces of choreography in this finale: two were performances of “Big Spender” and “If They Co...

Most recently seen in New York shining in the ensemble cast of off-Broadway’s Smokey Joe’s Cafe, Dionne has performed on Broadway in Motown, Memphis and Hot Feet. But her other passion is for fine period clothing, which led her to become the owner of the fine vintage clothing and luxury goods store Couture du Jour. Dionne spoke with Anna about how she turned into passion into a thriving storefront...

We’re revisiting our 2014 interview with Eddie Korbich. As we know, original cast recordings are vitally important in bringing Broadway and off-Broadway musicals to audiences both before and after the shows have left the stage, and Eddie is no stranger to the process of creating them. He’s been featured on five! In this interview, Eddie spoke with us about how cast recordings inspired him as a chi...