BROADWAY NATION

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...

This is a special holiday reprise of one of Broadway Nation's most popular episodes: It's an audio version of a Broadway Nation Live! performance that was presented in December of 2019 at the Vashon Center For The Performing Arts on Vashon Island just outside of Seattle, WA. Several previous episodes of Broadway Nation have explored the crucial role that the Jewish Russian immigrant songwriter, Ir...

This is the second half of my recent conversation with author Doug Reside, whose fascinating new book is titled Fixing The Musical — How Technologies Shaped the Broadway Repertory. Today, Doug shares with us how cast recordings, movie versions, and even illegal bootlegs on YouTube have shaped the American musical as an art form and defined the Broadway repertory as we know it. If you missed part o...

Over the past century, thousands of musicals have opened on Broadway. Why do we remember some and not others? My guest this week is Doug Reside, the author of a very interesting new book: Fixing The Musical — How Technologies Shaped the Broadway Repertory.  In this conversation, Doug shares with us how the printed versions of the scripts, cast recordings, movie versions, and even illegal bootlegs...

My guests this week are Dustyn Martincich & Phoebe Rumsey who have edited and authored (along with a number of other contributors) a recent book titled Dance In Musical Theatre — A History of the Body in Movement. As anyone who has listened to this podcast regularly knows, much like the authors of this book, I believe that dance has always been one of the most important and key elements of musical...

With Gypsy on Broadway, Wicked on movie screens nationwide and Mama I'm A Big Girl Now off-Broadway, this seemed to be the perfect time to revisit this episode from the first season of Broadway Nation. This was the first of three episodes highlighting the principal themes of the Broadway Musical.  Here I look at the single most ubiquitous and pervasive theme: “Transgressive Women”. For more than 1...

This is the third and final segment of my recent conversation with author Laurie Winer regarding her book Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of The Musical, recently released in paperback. Today our discussion centers on the second half of Hammerstein’s remarkable partnership with Richard Rodgers, including the creation of their musicals South Pacific, Me And Juliet, The King And I, Pipe Dream...

My guest again this week is the noted journalist and theater critic Laurie Winer, who returns for part two of our conversation about her book, Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of The Musical. If you missed part one, you may want to catch up with that before listening to this one. Following the triumph of Show Boat, during the 1930s Hammerstein experienced a very challenging decade of devasta...

My guest this week is the noted journalist and theater critic Laurie Winer, the author of a beautifully written and expertly researched book, Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of The Musical. Diving deep into Hammerstein’s life and work, Winer, offers new insights into the groundbreaking achievements of the creator of Show Boat, Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, and The Sound of Music, to na...

My guest is six-time Tony Award nominee Chad Beguelin, who has created book & lyrics for Broadway musicals The Prom, Disney’s Aladdin, The Wedding Singer, and Elf. Today, he joins me to discuss his captivating new novel set in the world of theater, SHOWMANCE. The beautifully crafted plot of Showmance opens on the disastrous opening night of a new Broadway musical — Stage Of Fools — with book, musi...

Today’s episode is the second half of my conversation with Trevor Boffone regarding his fascinating new book: TikTok Broadway — Musical Theatre Fandom in the Digital Age. If you missed part one of our discussion, you may want to catch up with that before listening to this one. Trevor Boffone is a Houston-based content creator and social media manager. His previous books include Renegades: Digital...

My guest this week is Trevor Boffone whose new book is titled TikTok Broadway — Musical Theatre Fandom in the Digital Age. I suspect that many of you, like me, are not on TikTok and may not immediately think this book will be of great interest to you. However, I encourage you to give it a listen because I think you will find what Boffone has to say in his book and in this discussion to be a fascin...

Today, my guest is my old friend, GERARD ALESSANDRINI, creator of the long-running off-Broadway hit revue Forbidden Broadway, which recently opened its 27th edition, FORBIDDEN BROADWAY — MERRILY WE STOLE A SONG now playing at Theater555 NYC.   On this episode, Gerard and I discuss not only this latest iteration of the show but also look back to its origins in 1980 and explore its remarkable forty-...

This is the second part of my recent conversation with author Thomas Hischak regarding his new book, Song Of The Season — Outstanding Broadway Songs Since 1891. In this captivating book, Hischak looks back at the history of the Broadway musical by chronicling of every New York theater season from 1891 to 2022 and then audaciously selecting one single song as the song of that particular season. To...

Author Thomas Hischak returns to the Broadway Nation this week to tell us about his captivating new book, Song Of The Season — Outstanding Broadway Songs Since 1891. For this book, Hischak analyzed every Broadway season since 1891 and selected one song as the most outstanding. In this episode, we discuss “Oh, Promise Me” from Robin Hood (1891), “In The Good Old Summertime” from The Defender (1902)...

Welcome to a new season of Broadway Nation — the podcast that delves deeply into the remarkable history of the Broadway musical, with a special focus on the Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists who invented it. My guest today is Tony Award-winning Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell. After a short break, I am excited to be back with a new season that will be jam-packed with fascinating Broa...

Hi this is David Armstrong. You may be wondering where I and Broadway Nation have been over the past few weeks. As you will hear, I have been battling a wicked case of bronchitis and today is the first day in ten days that I have been able to talk even enough to croak out this brief message. At the end of the summer, I had been planning to take a few weeks off from podcasting anyway, and this bron...

I’m David Armstrong, and my guest again today is author Andrew L. Erdman, whose captivating new book is titled Beautiful — The Story of Julian Eltinge, America's Greatest Female Impersonator. In this third and final episode in this series, Andrew shares with us the story of how Julian Eltinge capitalized on his international Vaudeville and Broadway fame and became a major movie star in Hollywood a...