Join 11-time Emmy Award winning entertainment journalist for NY1 and NY1OnStage host Frank DiLella on an in-depth exploration that begins with the initial spark of a stage adaptation. We'll delve into the challenges faced during out-of-town tryouts, the unwavering determination to overcome them, and the celebration of reaching over a decade on Broadway – a remarkable feat in the world of musical theatre.

This captivating series features exclusive conversations with the original cast and creative team behind ALADDIN including Alan Menken, Casey Nicholaw, James Monroe Iglehart, Adam Jacobs, Courtney Reed, Sonya Balsara, Adi Roy and more as they recount their experiences with the show.

Whether you're a lifelong Disney fan, a theatre enthusiast, or simply captivated by the magic of storytelling, this series is a must-listen. Unveil the untold story of ALADDIN and discover the passion, resilience, and drive that created a Broadway sensation.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael presents the drama behind the decade’s mega-hits and shocking flops, bringing readers into high-stakes premieres, fraught rehearsals, tough contract negotiations, intense Tony Award battles, and more. From the bitter feuds to the surprising collaborations, all the intrigue of a revolutionary era in the Theater District is packed into Singular Sensation. Broadway has triumphs and disasters, but the show always goes on.

Enjoy Singular Sensation: The Podcast everywhere you get your podcasts or use http://bpn.fm/singularsensation to listen and learn more, and be sure to get the book here: https://amzn.to/4cNdfO3.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since making her national tour debut in 2012 with The Book of Mormon, her career has been filled with firsts in quick succession: her Broadway debut in Aladdin in 2014, to her 2017 West End debut in Dreamgirls. She joined me in the studio during a brief stop in New York, before returning to London to play Motormouth Maybelle in the new West End revival of Hairspray. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

But Todrick’s first love was Broadway, as is obvious from the number of times he’s trod the broads on the mainstem. Last week, he finished a run as Ogie in Waitress the musical on Broadway. But he’s also played Lola in Kinky Boots, Billy Flynn in Chicago - both here and in London. And in 2007, he made his Broadway debut in the original production of The Color Purple as a replacement in the show’s ensemble. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We discussed making his Broadway debut, what he learned understudying two of theatre's most iconic roles and how he brought those lessons to playing the title character in Broadway's longest running show.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Afra Hines joined the company of Hadestown fresh off of her performance in the ensemble of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical where she also received the Legacy Robe. She was previously in the original companies Soul Doctor, Motown, Ghost and In the Heights. Afra has toured the country in one of the nation’s companies of Hamilton and was also featured as the show artwork for Shuffle Along: or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed. In Hadestown, she plays Worker #2 and covers the role of Persephone. Here’s our conversation…

(Note: We're aware that the audio from this interview is more "echoey" than our typical episode due to our recording location. However, we think that conversation is still great and hope that you'll enjoy!)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Timothy Hughes made his Broadway debut in the 2012 production of Chaplin. However, he is probably best known for his role of Strong Man in the film The Greatest Showman and creating the role of Pabbie in the Broadway musical Frozen. In Hadestown, he plays Worker #5 and covers the role of Hades. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ahmad Simmons has performed in three original Broadway companies in the last four years: Cats, Carousel and now Hadestown. In addition to performing choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler and Justin Peck, he was also featured this spring playing Ben Vereen on the F/X miniseries Fosse/Verdon. In Hadestown, he plays Worker #4 as well as understudying the roles of Hermes and Orpheus. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Krause made his Broadway debut as a replacement in the company of Fun Home. He’s toured in American Idiot and Wicked, as well as playing Drew in the Las Vegas sit-down production of Rock of Ages. John plays Worker #3 in Hadestown as well as understudying the role of Orephus. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kimberly Marable recently completed a five-year residency in the ensemble of The Lion King on Broadway. Beforehand, she had made her Broadway debut as a replacement in Sister Act. In addition to her work onstage, she’s one of the co-founders of Broadway Serves, an organization for community members looking to be the change they want to see in the world. In Hadestown, Kimberly plays Worker #1 and covers the roles of Persephone and the Fates. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Featured Songs? Again, no Bombshell music, unless you count the snippet of the “Arthur Miller Medley” that Brian d’Arcy James sang at the piano, but we did get an original song by Shaiman and Whitman from Heaven on Earth, called “The Higher you Get, the Farther you Fall.” We also get a Times Square cover of “Cheers (Drink to That)” by Rihanna.

Everybody seems to be moving on after Bombshell workshop. Karen is picking up serving shifts and booking orange juice commercials. Ivy is back in Heaven on Earth, probably forever. But she is definitely not enjoying it, as she rolls her eyes and marks her way through performances and taking prescription pills on the side.

Julia’s husband Frank finds sheet music to a song she wrote about former flame Michael Swift. She admits to her affair but Frank storms out, telling her “sorry doesn’t cut it.” Frank confronts Michael, who tells Frank this isn’t the first time they had had an affair. Frank leaves him punched and lying on the sidewalk in front of New York Theatre Workshop, and walks out on Julia and their son Leo. 

Out at a Glasshouse Tavern-type doppelganger, the Marilyn cast laments the production’s need to court a star. Jessica leads the charge, stating “Chasing a star is lame. It’s a musical. It’s a new American musical. Why can’t the songs be the star?” Ivy takes it one step further, digging at Karen that “she walks in with the Midwestern moonface and lands everything.”

Tom, Julia and Derek discuss stars to replace Ivy in the role of Marilyn, as well as a title for the musical about her. But unknown to Derek, Eileen is also meeting with potential new directors of the Marilyn musical, where she is spotted by New York Post columnist Michael Reidel. Derek fumes when he reads Reidel’s column, but agrees to stay on the project as long as Eileen “finds him a star.” Ellis ends up connecting Eileen with an unseen movie star named Rebecca Duvall.

After taking a mysterious prescription at her dressing room station, Ivy takes the Heaven on Earth stage under the influence, falling center stage and getting yelled at by Norbert Leo Butz to “get off the freaking stage.” 

In what is the official jumping the shark of Smash, Ivy Lynn storming out of the Shubert Theatre in costume, wig and mic into Times Square. When Karen, who just happens to there to drop off Ivy’s misplaced sunglasses, follows her out Ivy lashes out at her, Ivy yells “You’re nothing special. There are thousands of girls just like you, millions of girls just like you.”

Karen then follows Ivy into a liquor store, giving her $20 for a bottle of booze and drinking in public on their way into Duffy Square. They then sing an impromptu duet accompanied by a busker on an electronic keyboard, a drummer on five gallon buckets and two guitarists. Tom and Sam end up at an all-night diner until 5am, on what may or may not be a date. But on the bright side, the episode ends with a title for the new Marilyn musical: Bombshell.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the first episode where there is zero music by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, which makes sense since the workshop’s over. Instead, we have the original song “Touch Me” written by Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic and Bonnie McKee, and two covers of Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” and Sly and the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music.”

After the Bombshell workshop, everyone is asking if the musical is dead. Well, Ivy is at least - driving herself crazy on a stationary bicycle. In addition, Derek and Ivy are taking a bit of a break so her inside track on the progression of Bombshell is moot.

Derek meets with Karen to tell her that “they” are talking to a new songwriter, a new approach and a new song “and they need her to sing it.” The catch? Tom and Julia can not know. But they do know! Because assistant Ellis and producer Eileen are now BFFs and Ellis now seems to have a full time gig as a professional snoop.

Karen is concerned about aligning herself with Derek but agrees to meet him at a dockside in Queens. The dockside ends up being a Brooklyn warehouse where Ryan Tedder of One Republic is working on, which involves Karen singing “‘touch me’ to a bunch of dancers.”

Sam and the ensemblists of Bombshell *finally* get Ivy out of the gym by taking to Brooklyn Bowl. Bobby the soothsayer laments “they pay us nothing for those things and then as soon as it’s over no one calls and then we end up prowling around trying to figure out what’s going on. We did all that work for free, basically, and then we have no rights to even ask a question.” The result is what is perhaps the most realistic exchange of the television series thus far:

Jessica: “I hate the theatre.”

Bobby: “I hate the theatre.”

Ivy: “I love the theatre.”

Which turns into a bowling lane dance party, jumping off of the furniture, and grapevining down the bowling lane.

Ivy catches Ellis on one of his snooping missions, where he lets on the Karen and Derek are working together. She replies, “Oh if they’re going to replace me with a star that’s bad enough but Karen Cartwright is a nobody.” Bobby meets up with Karen under the guise of catching up since the workshop, but what he’s really doing over beers is getting the dirt on Karen’s secret project. 

The secret project ends up being a choreographed performance of “Touch Me” a Marilyn-inspired techno song staged on a rotating bed with satin sheets. Needless to say it doesn’t go over well with Tom and Julia, with both of them feeling betrayed by Derek and Eileen going behind their backs. But when the creative team finally comes together, Eileen tells them that the Marilyn musical now needs a star to move forward.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Being the workshop presentation, we basically saw excerpts of all the original music from Bombshell by Shaiman and Whitman that we have seen thus far, but we also saw a new original song called “On Lexington and 52nd Street” in its entirety which closed out the presentation. We also saw a cover of Colbie Caillat’s “Brighter Than the Sun,” but the tour de force number we got to see was “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from Gypsy.

Investors are coming in tomorrow to watch the workshop presentation of Bombshell. The flame is hot between Julia Houston and Michael Swift, canoodling in the hallways outside the rehearsal room.

Ivy Lynn arrives at rehearsal with her mother, Leigh Conroy, who just happens to be a veteran Broadway star in her own right. With only a day before the presentation, rehearsal pauses so that Ms. Conroy can wow the company of Bombshell with an impromptu rendition of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” Moments later, rehearsal pauses yet again when Michael Swift’s wife and son barge into rehearsal, causing Julia to storm out of rehearsal and leave rehearsal. Again: the day before the presentation.

With all of the personal drama combined with the rehearsal building seemingly crumbling under their feet, Derek Wells wonders if the project is cursed. But Eileen Rand promises him that Bombshell will be a hit “because Marilyn deserved it.”

Leigh Conroy won a Tony without drugs but it doesn’t look like Ivy Lynn will be able to claim the same accomplishment, taking sleeping pills the night before the presentation. She confides in Tom Hewitt that “her mother is doing everything she can to undermine her, and Karen Cartwright is being handed everything on a plate.” 

The workshop begins with Ivy singing to a swelling imaginary orchestra, but it’s Karen who see dreaming of performing the role of Marilyn. With highlights of the fantasy sequences we’ve seen from the TV series’ first six episodes, we watch both the workshop and the watching of the workshop. Everyone seems to be a bit off of their game, with Ivy falling in a lift, Karen falling off of a platform, and Michael Swift falling head over heels in love with Julia.

Amidst the drama, Karen Cartwright records a demo for Bobby Raskin across the street and wins over yet another potential critic with vocals. The next morning at 6am, she gets woken up by a call that Raskin wants to meet her but she skips it to perform in the workshop. The rest of the ensemble questions her decision but she says “she wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

After the workshop, Ivy confronts her mother by drawing a comparison between herself and Marilyn: both were sad and drug-addicted women whose mothers didn’t love them. Leigh tells her that she knows how difficult this business can be, and that even though wishes Ivy would be something else with her life, her day will come because she truly is talented. The team also contemplates the future of Bombshell - and whether Ivy Lynn or Michael Swift will be a part of that future at all...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The featured songs in this episode included two covers — Shake it Out by Florence & The Machine and Who You Are by Jessie J — and one original song by Shaiman and Whitman called “History is Made at Night.” Oh yeah, and Karen massacres “Hava Nagila,” if we wanna count that.

Changes to the script and score are being made during the workshop of Bombshell, with scenes and songs being moved. Our director Derek Wills isn’t happy with the state of the script, but he’s less happy with his leading lady losing her voice. Ivy Lynn’s voice is inflamed but not infected. While she’s on vocal rest, Bombshell’s creative team begins to contemplate asking Karen Cartwright to take on the part of the workshop’s presentations. 

When Derek informs Ivy about this possibility, she takes her first dose of prednisone to help her ailing voice. However, she finds that it gives her night sweats and headaches. Even though she’s “not in good shape,” she still attends rehearsal to prevent Karen from getting a chance at the part. This makes her even more unwell, with side effects including the strangest musical sequence on the series to date. 

Karen is daunted by the task of learning the role of Marilyn in a week, but yet she feels like “she can do this!” That confidence is bolstered when she crushes it as the entertainment at the Northport Bar Mitzvah, catching the eye of someone named Bobby Raskin.

Our lyricist Julia Houston can’t concentrate on making any edits to the show though because she’s too distracted by her recent smoochfest with her leading man, Michael Swift. But in the process of begging him not to flirt with her, she ends up topless with him in a rehearsal room. Composer Tom Levitt is still trying to decide whether the boring but capable lawyer he’s dating is enough for him. 

Eileen Rand is still on the hunt for $7 million in capital, but the workshop is being attended by “Nathan Lane AND the Nederlanders.” But the buzz is good enough for her to lease an apartment on the 87th floor in the Lower East Side that costs $10,000 a month AND buy Ellis multiple $7 martinis. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As performers in the Bombshell workshop are warming up for the start of a rehearsal day, Derek uses Karen to work on a new sequence for the bridge sequence. Ivy walks in and clearly startled asks “am I late?”

Eileen is anxious about the script developments, interrupting Tom in a date with a handsome lawyer who he’s just not that into. But it’s really Julia who is stalling over dinner at Westway Diner with Michael Swift.  

Eileen uses sneaky Ellis to spy on Julia’s progress. Derek is pissed about everything going well, even pitting Ivy against Karen by asking Cartwright to perform a tricky vocal passage in front of a full company rehearsal. 

In their private rehearsal, Karen graciously apologizes for the awkward situation, which Ivy labels “taking singing lessons from a chorus girl.” Ivy has a lot on her plate but she’s handling it, which she shows both the audience in the rehearsal room and watching on TV with a fully-staged fantasy version of “Let’s Be Bad.”

After the rehearsal, Sam confines in Ivy that “This company has too many drama queens as it is.” We find out Sam is gay, even though he likes sports (!) 

Afterwards, drunk Ivy confronts Derek at his apartment about why he can’t support her more. Derek tells her he wishes that people “didn’t have those annoying feelings,” to which Ivy yells back “THEATRE IS ABOUT FEELINGS!” Derek the Nightmare gives her a pseudo-apology, which is more than enough for Ivy to spend the night! 

Also, Julia’s son gets arrested because she’s out with Michael Swift, who woos her with a front stoop serenade. And Karen learns how to be sexy to help her boyfriend Dev get a leg up in the running for the mayor’s new press secretary.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There was a lot of music in this episode: Two original songs (History is Made at Night and I Never Met a Wolf Who Didn’t Love to Howl), two snippets of original songs (20th Century Fox Mambo from last ep, and preview of Let’s Be Bad from the next episode), and two covers (Buble’s Haven't Met you Yet and Adele’s Rumor Has It). 

The workshop of Bombshell has begun! Michael Swift is in, Julia is avoiding Ellis, and all seems right in the world. We also meet two icons of the Smash Universe. Linda, America's Favorite Stage Manager, played by Ann Harada, and Bobby, the snarky chorus boy everyone loves to loves, played by Wes Taylor. 

Ivy enters the rehearsal room to riot, if somewhat random applause from her castmates and Derek gives us the rundown: the workshop is primarily for the ensemble, only some numbers will be staged, some costumes but “basically it’s up to you to sell it.”

However, Eileen Rand doesn’t have the $200,000 she needs to finance this workshop. Turns out her soon-to-be-ex-husband Jerry is keeping her from accessing all but $8,000. So she tries to sell a prized Degas sketch hanging in her office to make it happen, but even that it is Jerry’s name. 

Karen keeps getting cut from numbers, thanks to sly comments from Ivy. She confides in Jessica, who along with Sue and Bobby, take shipping for LaDuca, new dance clothes and an “intervention.” Which is Chinese food, Marie Kando-ing her closet and performing a dance from routine from their snap and booty shake “dance class.” 

Everyone ends up at a party for Lyle West at Derek’s house, which of course has a casual grand piano, a drum set and a saxophonist. Eileen has brought the Degas with her which she offers in exchange for points - IF the show is any good. So there’s an impromptu performance of Bombshell which is enough for Lyle to chip in the $200k.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s only three weeks until rehearsals begin for the workshop of the new Broadway-bound musical Bombshell. However, other than a great idea (that may or may not have been stolen from composer Tom Hewitt’s assistant Ellis) the writing team only have eight songs and half a book ready to go. 

Up and upcoming ensemblist Ivy Lynn wonders if the only reason Derek gave her the part for the workshop is because she slept with them. He doesn’t seem to give her any reason to think otherwise, spending his energy on courting Karen for a role in the ensemble. 

Meanwhile, the creative team hunts for the rest of the workshop’s cast. They think they’ve found their leading man Joe DiMaggio in Michael Swift, played by Will Chase. Since he is offer only, Eileen and Derek scout him out at an off- off- Broadway Show. But it turns out Michael Swift has a past with our lyricist Julia Houston - they had an affair five years ago! 

Karen’s parents are worried about her (still) but she stands up to them, saying “being in the chorus of a workshop is so much bigger than many people get to do.”

Dennis tells Tom that Derek and Ivy are dating. Julia confides in Tom about her affair, which Ellis overhears. But Ellis is making his own mistakes, stealing Julia’s notebook of ideas for Bombshell as well as sleeping with his friend/roommate/girlfriend Condola Rashad.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The episode begins with the Bombshell creative team mulling over they are #TeamIvy or #TeamKaren. Tom and Julia are playing with the show’s structure, moving songs around, as director Derek takes Karen and Ivy through dance auditions. Tom tells Ivy “I would have just given it to you.”

Karen stays late for a work session, missing an important business dinner of her boyfriend, Dev. Ivy takes the challenge of competition for the role head on, reading biographies, watching movies, practicing Marilyn’s lip placement and eventually having sex with the director.

In the final auditions, Karen performs a full staging “20th Century Fox Mambo” surrounded by ensemblists.. Derek justifies it by telling Eileen, Tom and Julia “Oh guys? The song was so good that we just went ahead and staged the whole thing.” 

Karen is green, but she’s certainly trained. Ivy was completely spontaneous and sexy. Ivy comes out on top, as the orchestra swells, she cries. But Eileen and Derek agree to keep their eye on Karen Cartwright.

Also, Dev works at City Hall and Julia pursues adopting a baby from China that her son Leo does but her husband Frank doesn’t. But nobody does.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We fade in on a girl with a hunger for fame and a face and a name to remember. That face is Katharine McPhee and that name is Karen Cartwright. She’s singing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” in an audition.

A team of writers Tom Levitt and Julia Houston are tipped off to a subject for a new musical by their assistant Ellis. Ellis says “I think (Marilyn Monroe) would make a good musical.” Julia is intrigued by Marilyn as a subject, saying “There’s just something about (Marilyn). How much she loved and wanted to be loved.” So the team gets to work on a demo, bringing in Ivy Smith to record the song.

Ivy is currently an ensemblist in Tom Levitt’s Broadway production Heaven on Earth, but she confides to him that “You know I love the show. I love you.” Tom: “The ensemble not so much.” Ivy: “I just want a part.”

After THREE commercial breaks, we meet Anjelica Houston as Eileen Rand, who wants the project and wants to connect them with a hot-tempered director Derek Wills. They all agree to set aside their differences, in part due to a specularly staged number on spec called “The National Pastime.” 

Karen turns a remarkable audition for Marilyn, singing Smash’s first pop cover: “Beautiful” by Christina Aguleria. Derek is intrigued enough to invite Karen over to his apartment under the pretence of a private coaching session. She keeps Derek at arm’s length , and the episode ends with both Karen and Ivy vying to “Let Me Be Your Star.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That’s why I found this Mama’s Talkin Loud so intriguing. Mama’s Talkin Loud is a new parenting podcast hosted two of the co-founders of Broadway Baby Mamas, Cara Cooper and Jessica Rush. In addition to being mothers of young kids, each has also been on Broadway this season: Cooper in The Prom and Rush in Dear Evan Hansen and Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.

In this recent episode of Mama’s Talkin Loud, Rush and Cooper spike to Becky Gulsvig and Megan McGinnis, both of whom recently finished touring with Come From Away with young children. Between their discussions of travel days and searching for nannies, I found it a fascinating conversation. Which is why I wanted to share it with you all. 

It’s a perfect companion piece to our Touring Broadway mini-series, which is why I’m so grateful Jessica and Cara are allowing us to share it in our feed today. Here’s their conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sabrina Imamura opened the first national tour of Hamilton in early 2017. Performing in the show’s ensemble took her along the West coast for about a year and a half before Broadway called, where she’s been in the show’s Mainstem ensemble since mid-2018. I asked her into the studio to tell about how performing in two productions differed, both onstage and off. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joshua Michael Burrage has performed with not one, but two first national tours: Newsies and A Bronx Tale The Musical. In between, he made his Broadway debut in the recent revival of Cats. I asked him into the studio to talk about those two tours, and how those experiences differed from performing on the Great White Way. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lauralyn is a veteran of seven Broadway shows, including Rock of Ages, Matilda The Musical, My Fair Lady and SpongeBob, where she played an airborne mermaid among other fantastical characters. I asked her into the studio to tell me about the experience of filming the show, how it differed from the stage production and her favorite moments of canonizing the incredible production on film. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emilie was a member of the original off-Broadway company of Dear Evan Hansen understudying the role of Alana Beck. But in the last twelve months, she’s been a part of two productions that closed prematurely Bat Out Of Hell and this summer’s off-Broadway run of an entirely new commercial musical Broadway Bounty Hunter. I asked her into the studio to share these two very different experiences, and how they were at all united. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That’s a conversation I wanted to explore in this new mini-series Hurt and Healed: an honest look into actors’ injuries, recoveries and the stigma that comes from not being able to be your best onstage.

There is not a theatre performer who leads with more grace than Caissie Levy. Yes, she’s played some of the most iconic roles in Broadway history - from Elphaba in Wicked to Fantine in Les Miserables - but she’s also a warm soul that pulses with kindness.

...it’s probably because she’s Canadian, eh?

Recently, Caissie (who currently leads the Broadway cast of Frozen as Elsa, opened up on social media about a vocal fold injury she incurred during a decade ago, how she worked towards recovery and the stigma she still sometimes endures as a result. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This summer seven Broadway musicals are shuttering their doors, sending scores of ensemblists back to unemployment. But is there a good side to having your Broadway show close? Or at least a silver lining? That’s what I am interested in finding out in this mini-series with three actors who have closed Broadway musicals this summer.

Hannah Florence is no stranger to Broadway with four Mainstem musicals to her credit. However, she’s also no stranger to closing Broadway musicals as she was part of the final companies of all four: Scandalous, Gigi, Paramour and, most recently, My Fair Lady. She’s also an in-demand actress off Broadway and across the country, performing in This Ain’t No Disco at Atlantic Theater Company, Grand Hotel at City Center Encores! and playing Meg Giry in the North American Tour of The Phantom of the Opera. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spencer Liff began his Broadway career as a dancer, performing in the original companies of Big, The Wedding Singer and Cry-Baby. But for the last ten years, Liff has worked on the other side of the table creating staging for both stage and screen. He’s an Emmy nominee for his work on “So You Think You Can Dance” where he has been a resident choreographer for a decade. Back on Broadway, he’s created the staging for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Spring Awakening, Falsettos and Head Over Heels. 

I recently was able to speak with him on a short trip to New York where he was here casting a new workshop of Reefer Madness. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up is a story from Christine Cornish Smith. Less than a week after opening Kiss Me, Kate at Studio 54, she received a surprising text. Every actor who’s understudied a leading role knows what it feels like to receive this text. You know, the one where the stage manager writes that the leading lady is out and you’re going on in the role?

The next story we have to share comes from Shereen Ahmed, who became the first woman of color to play Eliza Doolittle on Broadway. While she’s a trailblazer in terms of representation, her love of the show My Fair Lady is something she developed at a very young age. And while the role isn’t one that she imagined playing, there are reasons why she was the perfect choice to take on the part as an understudy in the Lincoln Center Theatre revival.

Our last story is from Hannah Florence, who was so inspired by her friend Shereen’s story that she wrote her own piece for us inspired by it about going on as Anya in the national tour of Anastasia.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our first story comes from Tommar Wilson, who joined the Chicago company of Hamilton. after almost seven years in the ensemble of The Book of Mormon. As an original member of the show’s Ugandan ensemble, he had seen the show through years of transitions. And the show also ushered a number of personal transitions for Tommar as well.

Our next story is from Kenny Francoeur. As dance captain for the national tour of The Book of Mormon, he helped guide dozens of actors into the production while on the road. He used his signature writing style to write an original piece for us about the do’s - and don’ts - for rehearsing as an understudy.

Our final story is new to the podcast from Marja Harmon. Like Tommar, she left the Broadway company of The Book of Mormon to join Hamilton on the road. Upon her departure, she wrote a story for us about the family she experienced at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Featured in the rehearsing cast of Damn Yankees are a legion of Broadway vets, including Ryan Vandenboom, Kyle Brown, Darien Crago, Haley Fish, Shonica Gooden, Afra Hines, Evan Kasprzak and Adrian Lee. Rounding out the cast performing “Heart” are also Broadway’s PJ Benjamin, Brain Cali, Nick Blaemire, and Aaron Kaburick.

The viewership for this episode was down from last week all across the board, with a live viewership at 425,000, and a DVR viewership of 597,000. The total viewership was 1.023 million, down 321,000 from the premiere. At least its still in the millions though!

During production of the film of Cabaret, Joan Simon is so glad that Gwen and Bobby have escaped to Majorca with them for some time away together. But Gwen has been burned by Bob one too many times - cheated on so often that she practically has a script in place for how he will apologize. He doesn’t see why he shouldn’t be able to see his German translator on set and then come home to Gwen, and offers that she should be able to do the same. But Gwen isn’t the cheating type. Or at least, she isn’t now.

We flash back to 1955, when Gwen learns that her new Broadway musical, a baseball-themed show called Damn Yankees will be choreographed by a young talent named Bobby Fosse. She’s concerned that he won’t be dark enough for this modern-day Faust, but the producer promises her there is a real sense of humor in his work. Gwen swallows her pride and agrees to a work session with the young upstart. After making small talk about each other’s significant others, Bob begins to teach Gwen the seductive steps to “Whatever Lola Wants.” They bond over witty banter and their childhoods working in burlesque houses and Gwen - obviously - lands the job.

The new team quickly begins seducing each other in the rehearsal room as well as in the bedroom, until it becomes too complicated for Gwen to be fooling around with her choreographer behind the back of his ailing wife. Things get more complicated when the Damn Yankees producers threaten to cut Bob’s Act I finale because it isn’t landing with audiences. Knowing he has to prove himself to both the creatives and the critics, he wakes up Gwen in the middle of the night and takes them both away from their respective spouses to get to work on a new number.

Working through the night, Bob and Gwen are out of ideas. That is, until the pianist suggests a silly mambo and Bob realizes that the lighthearted number can be a cover for characters in agony. And with that, “Who’s Got the Pain?” is born. But while Bob is solving problems onstage and making a name for himself with Gwen as his new muse, Bob’s current wife Joan McCracken lets Gwen know that this scene has been played out before - when Bob left his first wife for Joan.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Broadway veteran Robi Hager (Dr. Zhivago, Bye Bye Birdie, Spring Awakening) is using Facebook Live to stream a performance of his musical Basic Witches. Described as "Drag Race meets Hocus Pocus," the show is sure to be a much-needed distraction for theatre fans. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ben Cook (Mean Girls, Tuck Everlasting) along with his Newsies castmate Dan DeLuca have created a "Mindfulness in the Arts" training course that launches this Friday, April 17. Ben joined me over the phone to tell me how his mindfulness practice began and how other artists can join he and Dan on this journey. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosted by Mary Dina and Brian Sedida, Page to Stage features excellent conversations with theatre makers. We are big fans of this up-and-coming podcast and are so grateful to them for letting us share a portion of their conversation with Margo Seibert. Enjoy!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we are sharing a portion of their full conversation with iconic Broadway legend Angie Schworer. Angie, of course, is a beloved treasure of the American musical theatre. She has performed in 10 Broadway musicals: including the original casts of The Will Rogers Follies, The Producers and Something Rotten! She is also the original performer and the inspiration of the role of Angie in The Prom. A castmate of both Jack and Brendan on various incarnations of that musical, the gentlemen lovingly interview Angie about her unique theatrical training and how she learned how to find her lane and thrive in it. Here’s their conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How and why did a 25-year-old with a Pikachu bedspread become the #1 terrorist in the United States? In 2017, REALITY WINNER, a highly decorated former Air Force linguist was charged with leaking proof of Russian interference in the 2016 election to the media. Her goal – to help protect Democracy. Reality received the longest sentence ever imposed for unauthorized release of government information - five-years, three-months – for her patriotic efforts. THIS IS REALITY captures the unfolding events of the interrogation, the trial, the imprisonment and the current efforts to pursue clemency with those that were 'in the room' where it all happened. 

Produced by Dori Berinstein, Sally Horchow, and Rebecca Aparicio.

Part of the Broadway Podcast Network.

Visit bpn.fm/ThisIsReality for more info and tickets to the show.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we share a trio of stories from members of the show’s Broadway and touring productions.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Antonyo Awards were created in 2020 by Drew Shade and Broadway Black, an organization that supports Black theatre. Named as a light-hearted reference to the Tony Awards, these awards acknowledged Black artists from both the Broadway and off-Broadway theatre communities. The inaugural ceremony was produced by Shade and a committee of associates, including Darnes Barnes. 

Darius Barnes made his Broadway debut as a replacement in the Tony Award-winning musical Memphis in 2011. In the decade since, he’s performed in five additional Broadway musicals: as a replacement in Mean Girls, Cinderella and Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark and an original company member of the 2019 revival of Kiss Me, Kate and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He is also slated to open the new Broadway show MJ the Musical when Broadway returns. 

In addition to his obviously busy performing schedule, he worked on the production team of the Antonyo Awards. He joined me recently to talk about how the team created an awards ceremony from scratch - and why he made the decision not to include a category for Best Ensemble. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, how wrong he was. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prior to the shutdown, Ain’t Too Proud had played more than 400 performances at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre. On today’s episode, we share some of our favorite stories from ATP cast members originally shared on the podcast or on our blog. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Throughout the years his career has span the gamut, performing in everything from The Scottsboro Boys to A Chorus Line. And in addition to his work onstage, he is a producer and investor on shows including Caroline, or Change and Hadestown.

E. Clayton joined me over the phone to discuss how he keeps the momentum moving forward in his career, as well as how it is never too late to learn something new. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We couldn't think of a better person to launch this mini-series with than our co-creator Nikka Graff Lanzarone. She joined me over the phone from her home in Brooklyn to talk about her favorite musical, the 1975 seminal hit A Chorus Line. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

...at least, that’s easy for me to say from the outside. But does it feel like that to the actors who create these ensemble roles? Do they think about the characters they create once the shows close? I posed this question to five of the most experienced and storied ensemble actors working on Broadway today before a live audience at BroadwayCon 2020. Currently performing in Broadway’s Beetlejuice, Chicago, Frozen, Hadestown and Wicked, they each shared stories about the small but mighty influence they’ve had on some of our favorite musicals.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you don’t know Casey Nicholaw by name, you’re certainly familiar with the shows that he has worked on. He’s the director and choreographer of Mean Girls, Something Rotten! and Aladdin. He’s a Drama Desk winner, a Drama League winner, an 11-time Tony Award nominee, and one time winner for The Book of Mormon. He’s basically a winner. 

He’s also on the record for sharing that in every production he helms, there’s one number he’s most proud of. I thought this was a fascinating topic for a mini-series: for an acclaimed director/choreographer to walk us through some of the most famous and crowd-pleasing numbers in the musical theatre canon. We talked about his time as a Broadway performer, the inspiration for those numbers - as well as how he build a number from an idea to a Tony Award-winning hit.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you don’t know Casey Nicholaw by name, you’re certainly familiar with the shows that he has worked on. He’s the director and choreographer of Mean Girls, Something Rotten! and Aladdin. He’s a Drama Desk winner, a Drama League winner, an 11-time Tony Award nominee, and one time winner for The Book of Mormon. He’s basically a winner. 

He’s also on the record for sharing that in every production he helms, there’s one number he’s most proud of. I thought this was a fascinating topic for a mini-series: for an acclaimed director/choreographer to walk us through some of the most famous and crowd-pleasing numbers in the musical theatre canon. We talked about his time as a Broadway performer, the inspiration for those numbers - as well as how he build a number from an idea to a Tony Award-winning hit. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Only to find out that the Dora Awards have recently scrapped their ensemble awards for musical theatre. What is going on here? Not only was I finding that few theatre communities could figure out how to celebrate ensemble work, but some of them are even getting rid of the recognition they once had? I spoke to Dora Awards Manager Scott Dermody about the history of celebrating ensembles at the Dora and why the recognition for musical theater ensembles was recently scrapped. Here’s our conversation... 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During his two week quarantine, Robert was kind enough to send us daily voice memos about his life in lockdown. Each day he received a question from me about Hamilton or quarantine or both, and then send me a voicemail with his response. Today we share the second half of Robert’s quarantine experience, where he shares what he imagines life will be like living in his home country for the first time in over a decade. Here, in his own words, in Robert Walters…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I reached out to one of my favorite performers in the biz, Afra Hines. She’s a veteran of eight Broadway musicals, including two that have take home the Tony Award for Best Musical: In The Heights and Hadestown. She joined me recently to talk about how she feels best ensembles are already being celebrated and how her experience storming the stage at Radio City was, in her esteem, a celebration of her personal contribution to creating a Best Musical. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, I spoke to associate director Gina Rattan. She’s helped lead a number of major Broadway shows over the last decade, most recently working with director Marianne Elliott on Company. She joined me to talk about what an associate director does, her work on Company and how associate directors will be at the helm to bring back many of Broadway’s most treasured shows. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During his two week quarantine, Robert was kind enough to send us daily voice memos about his life in lockdown. Each day he responded to a unique prompt from The Ensemblist co-creator Mo Brady, which he would then respond to by voicemail and send back. Today we share the first half of Robert’s experience quarantine, where he tells us how he got the call go to Sydney and how he spent two weeks locked in a hotel room high above the city. Here, in his own words, in Robert Walters…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s episode, I got the chance to talk with Shaye herself above the drive that led her to travel halfway across the world to pursue a career on Broadway, as well as to start a podcast of her own. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The same could be said of today’s episode guest, Cameron Adams. The legendary Broadway ensemblist made her Mainstem debut in the 2000 revival of The Music Man. In the twenty years since she’s been a mainstay on New York stages, performing in an extraordinary 13 Broadway shows. 

Cameron joined me over the phone to share some of the most memorable moments of her career thus far, as well as how the industry has changed for ensemble performers in the last two decades. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I figured that speaking to a member of the press was as good of a place as any to start. Since theatre press are often the tastemakers for audiences at large, they have experience watching and adjudicating what makes excellent theatre. If the press attend shows in order to convey their expertise about excellent performances, scores, direction and sound design, they could also distill what makes an excellent ensemble. Right?

In my esteem, there was no better press member to have this initial discussion with than Jack Smart. Not only does he work for Backstage, the premiere resources for actors in the entertainment industry, his title is “Awards Editor.” His job is literally about awards. So I was lucky enough to speak with him on the topics of what makes a great theatre ensemble and how can they be recognized with awards. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It seems a simple enough question on the surface. If we can recognize actors playing leading and featured roles in musicals, why can’t we do the same for ensembles. A Tony Award for Best Ensemble would bring legitimacy and respect to the contribution ensemble performers make to shows. It would also bring a level of equity and equality to those performers themselves, making them eligible for the same commandations as our industry’s leading performers. 

In this time where we are “paused” due to the Coronavirus pandemic, our industry is engaged in many important conversations. So he figured it was as good of a time as any to throw this into the mix, and formally ask the Tony Awards to add a new competitive category beginning in the 2021-2022 season: Best Ensemble.

Except, he couldn’t exactly figure out what he was asking for. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gaelen is now sharing her talents across the country in the First National Tour of Mean Girls. Looking back at her career spanning six Broadway shows and three National Tours, she delights in how lucky she has been to have worked with some of the most collaborative individuals in the industry. 

Jon M. Wailin spoke with Gaelen about the inspiration behind her incredible character work, as well as how life on the road has changed since her first tour twenty years ago. Here’s our conversation . . . 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What we found is that for every person who has stepped onstage as part of a theatrical ensemble, there are a multitude of stories to share. Over the years, we’ve expanded our mission - from simply sharing the unknown stories of working in theatre ensembles to make connections between those stories to document and celebrate our collective history. 

To commemorate our 500th episode, we asked our podcast collaborators both past and present to share their favorite stories of working on and listening to The Ensemblist.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, Mo, the 1992-93 season saw the inauguration of the US’s 42nd president, President Bill Jefferson Clinton and the installation of the nation’s first female attorney general, Janet Reno. Outside of those momentous occasions, the country was mainly dealing with ongoing issues, both abroad and domestically: The United States was still dealing with the aftermath of the Gulf War, waged by the previous administration, and with the nation finally acknowledging HIV/AIDS within the last few years as a nationwide epidemic, the US found itself playing catch-up to dealing with a plague that was ravaging its citizens.

In New York, the Broadway industry and community were heavily laden by the effects of the AIDS epidemic, as we see in the telecast. Red ribbons everywhere; emotion overtaking hosts, presenters, and recipients alike; a nominated performance directly addressing the disease AND its stigma; and even an honorary Tony being given to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS for its leadership in the industry’s fight against the disease... we ultimately find a community in mourning, even in this celebratory ceremony of the last hundred years of Broadway.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fredric Odgaard is an original cast member and Assistant Dance Captain of Broadway’s newest juggernaut, Moulin Rouge! The Musical. Fred spent eight weeks running auditions alongside two of his Broadway colleagues: associate choreographer Katie Spelman and dance captain Karli DiNardo. Upon his return to the States, Fred chatted with me about his long-standing relationship with the show’s choreographer Sonya Tayeh and what it felt like to create across the globe when theatre at home is at a standstill.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's conversation is with Ann Sanders. Having made her Broadway debut in Beauty and the Beast, she has played a variety of iconic roles including Queen Iduna in Frozen, Anna in The King and I and Christmas Eve in Avenue Q. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, Mo, the 1992-93 season saw the inauguration of the US’s 42nd president, President Bill Jefferson Clinton and the installation of the nation’s first female attorney general, Janet Reno. Outside of those momentous occasions, the country was mainly dealing with ongoing issues, both abroad and domestically: The United States was still dealing with the aftermath of the Gulf War, waged by the previous administration, and with the nation finally acknowledging HIV/AIDS within the last few years as a nationwide epidemic, the US found itself playing catch-up to dealing with a plague that was ravaging its citizens.

In New York, the Broadway industry and community were heavily laden by the effects of the AIDS epidemic, as we see in the telecast. Red ribbons everywhere; emotion overtaking hosts, presenters, and recipients alike; a nominated performance directly addressing the disease AND its stigma; and even an honorary Tony being given to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS for its leadership in the industry’s fight against the disease... we ultimately find a community in mourning, even in this celebratory ceremony of the last hundred years of Broadway.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s episode, Shaye chats with Andre Jordan, her colleague on the upcoming Broadway mounting of Diana: A True Musical Story, Andre shares his audition process for the show, the experience of first preview and staying creative in a pandemic. Here’s their conversation.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s episode, Shaye chats with Austen Danielle Bohmer. Her colleague on the upcoming Broadway mounting of Diana: A True Musical Story, Austen shares her education, both formal through university, and experiential teaching in India. Here’s their conversation.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2006-2007 Broadway season found itself amidst many cultural highs and lows. Right in the middle of President George W. Bush’s second presidential term and his international “War on Terror,” the season witnessed the inauguration of the nation’s first female speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. On a more sober note, 2007 also saw the school shooting at Virginia Tech, which remains the deadliest school shooting in the history of the United States.

Culturally, the season also saw the inauguration of the very first version of Apple’s iPhone, propelling the world solidly into the age of the smartphone, allowing all the actors in New York to be able to check their rehearsal schedules, and text their stage managers with they’re calling out, RIGHT from the comfort of their cell phone!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rent is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary this year, and a virtual celebration is streaming through Friday March 6th, 8pm Eastern as a part of New York Theatre Workshops 2021 Gala. Enjoy! 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2006-2007 Broadway season found itself amidst many cultural highs and lows. Right in the middle of President George W. Bush’s second presidential term and his international “War on Terror,” the season witnessed the inauguration of the nation’s first female speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. On a more sober note, 2007 also saw the school shooting at Virginia Tech, which remains the deadliest school shooting in the history of the United States.

Culturally, the season also saw the inauguration of the very first version of Apple’s iPhone, propelling the world solidly into the age of the smartphone, allowing all the actors in New York to be able to check their rehearsal schedules, and text their stage managers with they’re calling out, RIGHT from the comfort of their cell phone!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Please enjoy our one-on-one with Rodney Hicks as he memorializes his early memories in the show, his personal journey of self growth and discovery, and what RENT means to him. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s episode, we share some of our favorite stories from members of the Broadway and national tour casts of Aladdin, originally shared on the podcast or on our blog. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 1983-84 Broadway season spanned a time with many notable events. Marking the final year of President Ronald Reagan’s first term, 1984 found itself a leap year, an election year, and a Summer Olympics year, which the US hosted in Los Angeles, CA; in an internationally petty move, our long-time Cold War rivals, The Soviet Union, boycotted those games. This season also saw the creation of the federal holiday to commemorate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with Reagan having signed its originating bill the previous November. This year also would see the founding of Canada’s famed entertainment company, Cirque du Soleil.

In New York, one of the largest events to take place, and it is mentioned in the telecast, is that A Chorus Line makes history as the longest running musical on Broadway; after eight years, and 3,389 performances, A Chorus Line broke the record on September 29th, 1983. It would continue to hold that record until 1997, when it was overtaken by Cats. Today it holds the Number 7 spot on the list of longest running Broadway musicals, surpassed only by Phantom, the Chicago revival, The Lion King, the original production of Cats, Wicked, and the original production of Les Miserables.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First and foremost on that list was book co-author Rick Elice, who enjoyed getting his hands dirty as he wrote and rewrote the book to uncover clearer and more specific obstacles for his characters. Also on that list were Dontee Kiehn and Steve Bebout who, after closing the Broadway and national tours, went on to stage many, many well-received productions of the musical around the globe. And then there were those who are mounting the show now: the teachers and students creating little Addams Families of their own all across the country.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 1983-84 Broadway season spanned a time with many notable events. Marking the final year of President Ronald Reagan’s first term, 1984 found itself a leap year, an election year, and a Summer Olympics year, which the US hosted in Los Angeles, CA; in an internationally petty move, our long-time Cold War rivals, The Soviet Union, boycotted those games. This season also saw the creation of the federal holiday to commemorate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with Reagan having signed its originating bill the previous November. This year also would see the founding of Canada’s famed entertainment company, Cirque du Soleil.

In New York, one of the largest events to take place, and it is mentioned in the telecast, is that A Chorus Line makes history as the longest running musical on Broadway; after eight years, and 3,389 performances, A Chorus Line broke the record on September 29th, 1983. It would continue to hold that record until 1997, when it was overtaken by Cats. Today it holds the Number 7 spot on the list of longest running Broadway musicals, surpassed only by Phantom, the Chicago revival, The Lion King, the original production of Cats, Wicked, and the original production of Les Miserables.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are privileged to present six touching letters to be featured in “When The Lights Are Bright Again,” immortalizing this unprecedented time in history.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beyond all of the reasons a school would choose The Addams Family, I wanted to know about their experience producing the show: How did their mountings vary from the professional production I had heard about, both those in the U.S. and around the world? And were these students able to experience a kind of joy working on the show that I didn’t experience in the Broadway company?

Luckily, Jim himself was able and willing to connect me with one of the first high schools to produce an amateur production of The Addams Family: Rock Ridge High School in Ashburn, Virginia. A thriving theatre program with not one, but two full time theatre teachers, Rock Ridge produced the show as its fall musical in the 2017-2018 school year. And lucky for me, I was able to speak to both of those theatre teachers about how their students experienced the show...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 1998-1999 Broadway season found itself in a very tumultuous time in US history. Smack-dab in the middle of President Bill Clinton’s second term in office, domestically the country was facing a multitude of newsworthy events: among them were the impeachment and acquittal of said president in the scandal involving Monica Lewinsky, the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, WY, and the mass school shooting in Columbine, CO that would sadly become the first of a number of school shootings in the nation, in what the Washington Post would eventually refer to as a “uniquely American crisis” in 2018. Abroad the world was embroiled in the Kosovo War, which permeated the American zeitgeist as well. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With a mission to cultivate and extend the production life of musicals to all theatrical marketplaces, TRW is responsible for licensing amateur productions of theatrical properties to student and amateur producers across the country and (in fact, as their name suggests) the world. I spoke with Jim Hoare, their Executive Vice President of Education and Community Initiatives about how the show became a part of the TRW catalogue. A former high school theatre teacher himself, he has directed over one hundred shows and musicals, including the first high school production of Once On This Island and the world’s first production of Les Miserables, School Edition. Over the phone, Jim shared expert knowledge of what has made The Addams Family such a popular choice for amateur licensing. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 1998-1999 Broadway season found itself in a very tumultuous time in US history. Smack-dab in the middle of President Bill Clinton’s second term in office, domestically the country was facing a multitude of newsworthy events: among them were the impeachment and acquittal of said president in the scandal involving Monica Lewinsky, the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, WY, and the mass school shooting in Columbine, CO that would sadly become the first of a number of school shootings in the nation, in what the Washington Post would eventually refer to as a “uniquely American crisis” in 2018. Abroad the world was embroiled in the Kosovo War, which permeated the American zeitgeist as well. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Launching in the fall of 2011, the touring version of the show turned the focus onto the family, including a wedding in the curtain call. It changed the primary conflict from between Wednesday and her parents to between the parents themselves, as I learned from the show’s co-writer Rick Ellis.. It included a lot of new music and musical staging for both Gomez and Morticia that highlighted that conflict, as I heard from associate choreographer Dontee Kiehn. And it doubled down on the humor, adding as many jokes as could fit into the script and staging said associate director Steve Bebout. 

And those changes worked. All three of those original creative members - Rick, Dontee and Steve - said that the continued clarification of the script, score and staging made the national tour an unequivocal success. Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune wrote, “It’s hard to think of another show that has been revised so heavily and, for the most part, successfully, by its admirably indefatigable original authors and composer.”

But I started to wonder… was all that success a fluke? Was the tour just a success in comparison to what had come before? So I delved into the show’s next professional stagings, international productions with the same design, staging and style as the show’ national tour. Lovingly referred to as “replica productions,” the first international production opened in Sao Paulo Brazil in 2012, transferring to Rio de Janeiro the following year. Also in 2013, two replica productions were mounted in Australia and Argentina. The final replica production opened in Mexico City the following year. And luckily for my research, both original associate choreographer Dontee Kiehn and original associate director Steve Bebout were involved in mounting many of them...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First, we’ll hear from Jacob Keith Watson about performing in three Broadway shows over the course of one season. Then, Polly Baird will chat about joining the cast as a replacement and later putting replacements into the show herself as dance captain. Finally, Jackson Cline reads a 2018 interview with long-running cast members Satomi Hofmann & Janet Saia.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2018-2019 season was the last complete season on Broadway, since the 2019-2020 season was cut short this past March for two weeks...er, for two months...just kidding, we’re still here, due to the coronavirus pandemic, but I digress. 2019 marked the 3rd year of President Donald Trump’s term in office, and while he was rarely -- if not ever -- mentioned by name, his presence definitely loomed in the broadcast; from poignant speeches speaking out against demagoguery and systemic discrimination, to other beautiful speeches uplifting representation and opportunity for immigrants and the disabled, and even in the content of the work being celebrated itself, this telecast -- and this season as a whole -- seemed to stand against all the hate and intolerance being shepherded by the recent administration…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steve Bebout has worked as the associate director on four massive Broadway musicals, including Something Rotten!, The Book of Mormon and Sister Act. But, like me, The Addams Family was Steve’s Broadway debut. We both initially were outsiders entering the world of this lumbering imperfect production. So I wanted to get his take on what made the show work from when he first joined the team in late 2009.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 2018-2019 season was the last complete season on Broadway, since the 2019-2020 season was cut short this past March for two weeks...er, for two months...just kidding, we’re still here, due to the coronavirus pandemic, but I digress. 2019 marked the 3rd year of President Donald Trump’s term in office, and while he was rarely -- if not ever -- mentioned by name, his presence definitely loomed in the broadcast; from poignant speeches speaking out against demagoguery and systemic discrimination, to other beautiful speeches uplifting representation and opportunity for immigrants and the disabled, and even in the content of the work being celebrated itself, this telecast -- and this season as a whole -- seemed to stand against all the hate and intolerance being shepherded by the recent administration…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, how it has affected them, and more.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Also a former ensemblist, Dontee had been in the original Broadway ensemble of the famed 42nd Street revival, as well as the Bernadette Peters-led revival of Gypsy. Her journey with The Addams Family began as the associate choreographer for the show’s pre-Broadway tryout in Chicago. She maintained that position for the show’s Broadway run, as well as the national tour and stagings in both Brazil and Australia. She then took over the dual roles of associate director and associate choreographer for two more “replica” productions in Argentina and Mexico City. She was with the show as long as anybody, so she knows the staging of The Addams Family intimately and thoroughly.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 1986-87 season was smack-dab in the middle of a volatile time, but not particularly bombastic itself. We found ourselves in the middle of President Ronald Reagan’s second term, with both the Cold War, the War on Drugs, and the AIDS epidemic raging. (Interestingly enough, a week after this telecast is when Reagan makes his famous speech in Berlin where he asks Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”) Also, this season occurred during the end of the Iran-Contra affair -- a political scandal that embroiled the country for about a year and a half, where the Reagan administration was found to be bartering arms for seven US hostages in the middle east...gotta love a quid pro quo…

On Broadway, the British invasion was HERE. With three out of four of the Best Musical nominees being British imports, Cats alive and well at the Winter Garden, and Phantom opening in the West End and waiting in the wings for their Broadway house, it seemed like Cameron Mackintosh, the RSC, and all their contemporaries were taking over the Great White Way.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paloma Garcia-Lee was one of the busiest of those artists. A verteran of six Broadway shows, she spent 2019 as an original company member of Moulin Rouge! The Musical, as well as playing a featured role in F/X’s Fosse/Verdon and playing Graziella in the upcoming Stephen Speilberg helmed feature film of West Side Story. She was running on all cylinders until March 12. Here, with what happened next, is Paloma Garcia-Lee.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last month, I sent an email to Rick for the first time in more than nine years. Imagine when he replied within 24 hours, excited about the opportunity to discuss the show. In the years since, Rick wrote the script for Peter and the Starcatcher, The Cher Show, and has maintained the multiple companies of his show Jersey Boys, currently the 12th longest running show in Broadway history.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 1986-87 season was smack-dab in the middle of a volatile time, but not particularly bombastic itself. We found ourselves in the middle of President Ronald Reagan’s second term, with both the Cold War, the War on Drugs, and the AIDS epidemic raging. (Interestingly enough, a week after this telecast is when Reagan makes his famous speech in Berlin where he asks Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”) Also, this season occurred during the end of the Iran-Contra affair -- a political scandal that embroiled the country for about a year and a half, where the Reagan administration was found to be bartering arms for seven US hostages in the middle east...gotta love a quid pro quo…

On Broadway, the British invasion was HERE. With three out of four of the Best Musical nominees being British imports, Cats alive and well at the Winter Garden, and Phantom opening in the West End and waiting in the wings for their Broadway house, it seemed like Cameron Mackintosh, the RSC, and all their contemporaries were taking over the Great White Way.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And then… it opened. 

Many jeered the production, but none said it as succinctly as The New York Times’ Ben Brantley, when began his review with the following quote: “Imagine, if you dare, the agonies of the talented people trapped inside the collapsing tomb called The Addams Family. Being in this genuinely ghastly musical must feel like going to a Halloween party in a strait-jacket. A strangled voice inside you keeps gasping, ‘He-e-e-lp! Get me out of here!’”

And then, in early 2016 the Educational Theatre Association had released their annual survey of the most-produced musicals in high schools across the country in the 2014-2015 school year, and The Addams Family was the most popular high school musical in the country.

How was this possible? I thought high schools performed musical theatre canon - Broadway megahits like Oklahoma! and Les Miserables. How did our unloved little musical become so popular? Sure, we are only talking about high schools but it means something that for half a decade more future theatremakers and theatrelovers have learned the lyrics to “When You’re An Addams” than any other song in the musical theatre canon. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final episode of Fosse/Verdon, we see Gwen and Bobby back together to work on a pre-Broadway revival of Sweet Charity. Leading the pack is today’s guest Kelcy Ann Griffin. Kelcy performed on Broadway herself in Bullets Over Broadway and Chicago. She has also played Detective Harper on TV’s Gotham for two seasons. On Fosse/Verdon, she plays Debbie Allen. 

Allen is perhaps most beloved to musical lovers for playing Lydia in both the movie and TV versions of Fame. Today, she’s know for her work as Dr. Catherine Avery on Grey’s Anatomy. But she started as a Broadway baby, performing in Raisin and Ain’t Misbehavin’, Anita in the 1980 Broadway revival and Charity in the Broadway revival of Sweet Charity. Recording from Actors Connection’s New York City studios, I asked Griffin about her experience with Fosse and embodying an icon. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had four featured songs in this finale. The two songs from Sweet Charity, written by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields, were “Big Spender,” performed by the show’s fictional tour cast, and “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” performed by both Kelcy Griffin and Michelle Williams. The other two songs are not from musicals: All That Jazz’s finale “Bye Bye Life,” which exists as a play on the Everly Brothers’s “Bye Bye Love,” written by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, and performed by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Also performed by Lin is a version of “Mr. Bojangles” written by Jerry Jeff Walker.

The finale viewership came in at a high of 992,000 total viewers, third only to the series’s first two episodes, with both live and DVR viewership rising from last week. What’s nice is, the finale’s live viewership was the highest it had been since the pilot, so luckily the show went out on a live high!!

Bob is in pre-production for his semi-autobiographical movie All That Jazz, but the script still has a satisfying ending. Paddy hits the nail on the head when he tells Bob, “the problem with your movie is that your hero doesn’t change.” In his search for a realistic, if unsatisfying ending, part of the pre-production includes interviewing Gwen about her feelings about putting Bob’s next wife, Ann, into roles that she created. Her response? “It’s pretty familiar.”

Part of the casting process is Bob auditioning Ann for the role of Katie - a role is obviously based on herself. Bob grills her, making Annie run the scene over and over pleading “why can’t you do the scene like it means something to you?” Her response: “Because this isn’t a scene. This is my life. These are my words. You took our life and you put it into a fucking scene in a movie.” Nicole is also watching her life being put into a fucking scene in a movie when she visits the All That Jazz set and watches the conversation she had with her dad being rehearsed by another actress playing her. 

After creating Roxie in Chicago, Gwen is back where she was just a few years ago: at dinner with her manager, discussing dead ends of career opportunities. She really wants to act, but isn’t interested in following the work to LA. When Nicole’s interest in extracurricular drugs increases, Gwen considers moving her, Ron and Nicole out of the city. But dangled with another challenge to the way he sees the world, Bob gives Gwen the role of Roxie on tour, telling her, “It’s your show. It’s always been your show.” Her husband Ron forces Gwen to make a decision: staying with him vs. being puppeted by Bob. And so, she watches him pack up his life and leave. 

Post-production, everyone is back on their shit: Gwen performing and hosting a medical auction on Staten Island, and Bob recreating conversations he had with Ann (both in real life and in the movie) with his latest girlfriend. Gwen takes on the task of shadow choreographing the pre-Broadway revival of Sweet Charity, but with the direction missing the heart of the show completely the only way for the show to work is for them to work as they always have been meant to: side by side, as partners.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fosse/Verdon’s penultimate episode “Nowadays” premiered on May 21, 2019. It was written by Joel Fields & Steven Levenson, and was directed by Tommy Kail. In this episode we saw the old Fosse standards of “All that Jazz” and “Nowadays” from the musical Chicago, reconstructed by Valarie Pettiford. Here again we see the company of Chicago, featuring Bianca Marroquin as Chita Rivera, and including Broadway stalwarts Tyler Hanes as Jerry Orbach, Sean Patrick Doyle as Michael O’Haughey, Bahiyah Hibah as Candy Brown and Peter Chursin as Christopher Chadman. We even get to see a Ballet Mistress played by Pamela Sousa, who was played by Nina Lafarga in the last episode. 

“Nowadays” was jam-packed with music -- the most we’ve seen in any given episode this entire series -- and it was all from, you guessed it, the musical Chicago, written by Kander & Ebb.. These four songs included the titular song “Nowadays” featuring our own Velma and Roxie, Bianca Marroquin and Michelle Williams; rehearsals of “All That Jazz” and “We Both Reached For the Gun” featuring Tyler Hanes and Sean Patrick Doyle as Billy Flynn and Mary Sunshine, respectively; and a non-diegetic rendition of “Razzle Dazzle” performed by Michelle Williams.

The total viewership for this episode rose by 53000 viewers to a total of 859,000. The main rise came from a growth of DVR numbers to a whopping 492000, with live numbers inflating a tiny bit to 367000.

It’s 1975, and Chicago is back in the rehearsal room following Bob’s triumphant return from a heart attack. But Bob feels fucked without his pills - he can’t eat, he can’t sleep and he definitely can’t direct. He’s pushing for Paddy, musicians, dancers - literally anyone he can to get him the dexedrine he can imagine. 

Gwen is pushing herself to become the ingenue she no longer is, arriving at the rehearsal room hours early to stretch, jump rope and perform vocal trills. But even still Gwen is having trouble keeping up with Bob’s uptempo choreography, leading Bob to change the choreography for “We Both Reached For The Gun” for Gwen to sit instead of dance. Meanwhile, she’s working every angle she knows to get a new, more satisfying ending written for her. But when Kander and Ebb pen the perfect finale to showcase Gwen, Bob flexes his power and makes it a duet between Gwen and Chita.

When the reviews come out, they are positive to Gwen and Chita but less so for Bob. His failure reminds him of yet another low point in his personal life: when he was just a failed dancer and unknown choreographer who couldn’t get his famous wife pregnant due to his low sperm motility. Just as Gwen can’t get Bob to sign onto Chicago until she dangles him being replaced by Hal Prince, she can’t get pregnant until they’re scheduled to adopt a child.

But even Gwen’s triumphant return to the Broadway stage seems short-lived, when the pregnancy combined with blisters on her vocal chords make her time off of the show - literally without a voice. And even though Bob promises Gwen that there will be no publicity for her temporary replacement, word of mouth for the shortly available Liza Minnelli brings in lines of ticket buyers and a more positive review than the aging Verdon received.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The sixth and seventh episodes turn their focus onto the creation of Chicago. We see Fosse in the rehearsal room as begins staging the show before being sidelined with health issues. When he comes back after four months, the show becomes much darker - turning into the piece we know and love today. Among the Broadway performers playing those in the rehearsal room are Robyn Hurder, Michael Williams, Fred Odgaard, Alex Wong and this week’s guest, Heather Lang. 

Heather Lang has performed on Broadway in An American in Paris and Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark and will be back in Jagged Little Pill this fall. In Fosse/Verdon, she plays Sandy, Fosse’s associate on multiple projects from the film of Cabaret to Chicago on Broadway. Here’s our conversation.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we asked Caitlin Kinnunen, who received a Tony nomination for originating the role of Emma, into the studio to chat about her experience as a queer actress bringing this role to life. In addition to The Prom, Caitlin has performed on Broadway in Spring Awakening and The Bridges of Madison County. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Only two featured songs appear in this episode, both of which are from Kander and Ebb’s Chicago: the previously mentioned “All That Jazz” sung by Bianca Marroquin, and the titular song “All I Care About Is Love” theoretically sung by Jerry Orbach, at least according to the subtitles...it sure doesn’t sound like him tho…

The total viewership hit its all-time run-of-show low this week, clocking in at 806,000 viewers, down 72,000 from the previous episode, with DVR viewers also dipping down to 442,000; however, live viewers went up from last week to 364,000. So hm.

Bob is on the knife’s edge, with editing the Lenny Bruce biopic six months behind schedule and rehearsals for Chicago scheduled to start in just three days. But his diet of dexedrine, cigarettes and stress is giving him coughing fits in rehearsal that send him to the emergency room - arriving just time for doctors to observe his first heart attack.

Forced to come face-to-face with the ticking time bomb inside his rib cage, Bob thinks back to the beginning of his career, proving himself to bored patrons in sleazy nightclubs, and a father who looks down on him but won’t let him quit dancing. That need for audience’s validation and push to prove himself follows Bob to this day, but that inner drive may also be the thing that kills him.

The heart attack sidelines Bob’s work on Chicago by postponing the project for at least four months, but Gwen has contractual approval over the director and she won’t approve anyone but Bob. The new plan is to start back up in the new year and open in New York in June. Gwen works to orchestrate his recovery, from getting the entire company of Chicago to sign a get well card to making up their daughter to look like an adult so she can visit Bob in the hospital.

After spending six minutes technically deceased, Bob is on the slow road to recovery. But it isn’t until he knows he can still have sex does he feel sure that he is fully himself again, so he convinces Ann to have sex with him in his hospital bed. But the incident gives both of them “the holy trinity” of shame, pleasure and confusion - something Bob is familiar with since his teenage years.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This bottle episode had very little music in it; it was almost like a normal TV show!! The only featured song we had was an uncanny rendition by Michelle Williams of “Where Am I Going?” from Sweet Charity, with music and lyrics by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields, honestly proving why her star-turn as Gwen Verdon earned her an Emmy.

Three months after checking himself into the Payne Whitney Psychiatry Clinic, Bob and his new girlfriend Annie are hosting a party for Neil Simon following the death of his wife, Joan. But joining them at their Southampton rental for the first time are Gwen and her new beau Ron. In their first moment alone, Bob asks Gwen what she thinks of Annie, telling her “Nicole really loves her.” But all Gwen wants to talk about is Chicago: scheduling a meeting with producers and telling him they have a theatre for the show.

However, Bob is more interested in making his next project a biopic on Lenny Bruce starring Dustin Hoffman. Not only does that put Gwen’s plans for Chicago in jeopardy but it concerns Ann, who knows that his doctors suggested he take a year off of work or he’d end right back in the Clinic. The conversation comes to head after their dinner to celebrate Joan, where Paddy and Gwen both challenge Bob about his motivations for rushing Lenny to the screen. Amidst the adult conversations is Bob and Gwen’s daughter Nicole, who cycles through the rooms of the house wearing a midriff and refilling cigarette cases.

After dinner, Gwen courts Ann to be on her side in persuading Bob to postpone Lenny, but it becomes clear they are both on different sides: Gwen wanting him to work on Chicago and Ann wanting him not to work at all. When Gwen puts Bob’s feet to the flame: “You wanna know the truth?. I’m finished with these corny, bullshit musical comedies.” It isn’t until Gwen admits she’s not sure that he’ll be alive to direct in two years and throws Hal Prince’s name into the ring that Bob agrees to kiss and make up. Well, it’s a kiss that leads to a lot more than just a kiss.

In the early hours of the next morning, Gwen and Ann have a heart-to-heart over croissants: Gwen gives Ann her blessing because Bob has introduced her to Nicole. She also tasks Ann with keeping him from going off the edge, promising “he’ll give you what he gave me: Lola, Charity, Roxie.” But while Gwen has seemed to win Bob over into directing Chicago, Bob proclaims that he will be doing them both at the same time.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The fourth episode. Man, it’s a friggin doozy! Using the development of Pippin as a jumping off point, we really get to see into Fosse’s process. Through power plays and an incredible amount of sexual misconduct in the workplace, Fosse woes the company into the performances we wants them to deliver. In this episode, there are many familiar Broadway faces playing the company of Pippin including this week’s guest, Emma Caymares. 

Emma Caymares has performed at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in two productions, playing Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Wendy in Finding Neverland. She also performed on the small screen in the Starz series Flesh and Bone. In Fosse/Verdon, she plays Rebecca, one of the dancers in the original company of Pippin who caughts caught up in the power of Bob Fosse - and visa versa.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All of our music this episode comes from the musical Pippin, with all music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. The cast of Pippin features Ahmad Simmons as Ben Vereen, Lindsay Nicole Chambers as Leland Palmer, Bahiyah Hibah as Candy Brown, and Alexis Carra as the fictional Sherry (said to be based on the experiences of original cast member Jennifer Nairn-Smith). Also in the cast are Nina Lafarga, Peter Chursin, Emma Caymares, Paloma Garcia-Lee, Tessa Grady, Colin Bradbury, Michael Hartung, Raymond Baynard and Michael McArthur.

At the premiere of his film Cabaret, Bob is weighed down by the memory of his flop Sweet Charity three years earlier. But when the reviews come in they call Cabaret a masterpiece, meaning Bob has a “blank check” in the entertainment industry. So in the rehearsal room for Pippin Bob follows his gut. Calling the script “boring and small,” he chooses to “blow the whole thing up” both by demanding script changes and conspicuously sleeping with the entire female ensemble. That is, except for the one dancer avoiding his advances - a young woman named Annie Reinking. 

Gwen drops by Pippin rehearsal to confide in Bob that the show is in trouble, but he finds himself too wrapped up in his own career to make time for hers. Gwen is ready to move onto the next project - and has already secured the rights to turn the play Chicago into a musical. But Bob has a lot of job offers after this and can’t guarantee Chicago is the next thing he wants to do.” On top of her career, things are sleeping away in Gwen’s personal life as her best friend Joan Simon is in the hospital with only a month to live. 

Bob is pressuring the authors to change the ending of Pippin, for the title character to choose lighting himself on fire rather than fall in love. He’s also making his power known in his courting of the female ensemble: taking away a featured spot in the show’s “Manson Trio” from a dancer who won’t sleep with him and giving it to Annie, who “knows she doesn’t have to visit his hotel room to get the solo.”

Months later, Bob calls Gwen at 3am asking her to come to Washington DC and help him fix the end of the show. In bed with her new boyfriend, she hangs up on him. But in the following year as he wracks up Tony, Emmy and Oscar Awards for Best Direction, he conspicuously thanks “a good friend of mine, Gwen Verdon,” for her contributions. But it’s been 13 years since she won her last Tony Award, and spending time at home with their daughter just isn’t enough for a woman who “won’t rest until she knows she has it all.”

Bob is on his own downward spiral though. Much like the title character in Pippin, Bob is looking for something fulfilling - completely fulfilling. In a fever dream, Ben Vereen, Paddy, Gwen and his female conquests taunt Bob to jump out his hotel room window, with Gwen saying “the ones who die young, they’re the ones who live forever. If you do this, you’ll eclipse me, you’ll eclipse everyone.” But it’s the thought of their daughter Nicole that keeps him from jumping, much to the chagrin of the voices in his head.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Radial Park in Queens is Broadway at the drive-in. An interactive, theatrical experience, from the safety of your own vehicle. Guests will come to enjoy a show on the big screen with live, sing-along entertainment, performed by Broadway stars.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the third episode of the F/X Fosse/Verdon miniseries, the episode’s primary musical moment does not celebrate Fosse at all. It is a flashback sequence where a young Gwen Verdon, working as a reviewer for the Hollywood Bugle, first sees the work of seminal choreographer Jack Cole. Performing in a nightclub as Cole’s dancers are Eliza Ohman, Adrian Lee, Reed Luplau, Ryan Steele and my guest for this episode, Ricky Ubeda. 

Ricky Ubeda made his Broadway debut in the Broadway revivals of On The Town, which he joined just after winning the 11th season of television’s So You Think You Can Dance. Since then, he’s become a mainstay of the Broadway stage, playing Mistoffelees in the revival of Cats and in the revival Carousel choreographed by Justin Peck.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this edition, we spoke with award winning Director and Choreographer Jason A. Sparks, President and Theatrical Director of Fosters Theatrical Artist Residency. Fosters is a new nonprofit organization designed to support and nurture artists and their new theatrical works to their truest, greatest potential. 

Special thanks to Jason A. Sparks for opening up about Fosters Theatrical Artist Residency. If you would like more information, please visit FostersResidency.org.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In their premiere season, Quincy and Kevin are taking a deep dive into the musical Wicked from Elphaba’s point of view, joined by a different actress who has performed the role in each episode. There are currently five episodes available for streaming, featuring conversations with actresses such as Lindsay Pearce, Caroline Bowman and this one, with longtime Wicked ensemble member and Elphaba understudy Stephanie Torns.

New episodes are scheduled to be released every Friday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and most major platforms. For more information, you can find them on social @sentmenpod or email them at sentimentalmenpod@gmail.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Special thanks to Ken Davenport, Mary Dina and the team at TheaterMakers Summit 2020 for allowing us to share a portion of the conversation with you. To hear this full panel, as well as dozens of others you can still gain access to the summit at TheTheaterMakersStudio.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While the titular song from Chicago does not appear in the episode, the featured music that does all comes from the musical Cabaret, with music and lyrics by Kander & Ebb. We are treated to Ethan Slater portraying the legendary Joel Grey in “Wilkommen” and “Two Ladies” accompanied audibly by Alysha Umphress and Morgan Weed, and visually by Lindsay Dunn and Kaitlyn Edgar, as well as footage of Kelli Barrett singing “Mein Herr” from a previous episode.

Bob ends his vacation early to begin the editing process of the Cabaret film, but is not happy to find that the editing team has already created an “unwatchable” rough cut that makes him feel like the world is falling apart. Bouncing into Gwen’s apartment with Chinese food, he asks Gwen to join him in the editing room because he’s “feeling a little lost right now.” However, Gwen isn’t available to assist Bob because she’s going to be in rehearsals for a play - a straight play - called Children! Children! 

The two play power struggle with their daughter Nicole, both claiming that they can’t be responsible for her while they are working. When Gwen passes her off to Bob for a dinner meeting with her manager Mel, Bob passes her off to his friend Paddy. When Gwen finds out, she explodes at Bob who considers watching his own daughter a favor.

Being taken advantage of by Bob reminds Gwen of her teenage self living in Culver City, California, when caught the eye of James Henaghen, a prominent theatre critic who rapes, impregates and then agrees to marry the young Verdon. Filling in for her deadbeat husband, he reviews a performance of the Jack Cole dancers and realizes she needs to perform for him, leaving her bastard infant son with her parents to go on tour.

In addition to playing wife and mother to Bob, the writers of Children! Children! want Gwen, two-time Tony Award winner, to audition for the role. She pretends to love the audition process: “it’s like a first date with a new crush,” and gets the part, although Mel confides in her that she was “not everyone’s first choice.” In rehearsal Gwen gets singled out with more notes and adjustments than she’s used to, a sharp juxtaposition to how she was lauded for her performance in Can Can. Feeling inept at her work in the rehearsal room, Gwen offers her services in Bob’s editing bay where she is subservient but shines.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The second episode focuses on the creation of Damn Yankees, from rehearsals in New York to its out of town tryout in New Haven, CT. In the episode, Fosse inserts a mambo-inspired dance duet called “Who’s Got The Pain?” into the show to showcase Verdon and a dancer named Eddie Phillips, played by this week’s guest Ryan VanDenBoom. A veteran of Broadway’s Bandstand, Ryan VanDenBoom has performed on screen before as a sailor in the Channing Tatum-led film Hail, Caesar!. In Fosse/Verdon, he has one of the series’ largest dance features. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Although performances are currently paused because of the COVID-19 pandemic, several of The Lion King’s beloved cast members are joining us to share some of their favorite memories of working on the show. These pieces were originally shared on our blog to celebrate The Lion King’s 20th anniversary in 2017. Here, in their own words, are Rosie Lani Fiedelman, Blake Hammond, Kimberly Marable, Arbender Robinson & L. Steven Taylor:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Please note that when this interview was recorded, the Legacy Robe was known as the Gypsy Robe. The name was changed in 2018, because of the insensitive nature of its previous title.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Created by Jacob Ben-Shmuel and Alan Blake Bachelor, One Million Musicals is an ambitious, independent endeavor to produce - you guessed it - ONE MILLION high quality musicals to the podcasting space. With a team of artistic collaborators, not to mention many notable swings and ensemblists from Broadway, Jacob and Alan drop a new podcast with an entirely original story and set of songs and characters every month.

To explain the creation and execution of One Million Musicals in their own words, here is our interview with Jacob and Alan.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the first episode of the TV miniseries, we meet Fosse and Verdon on the set of the film version of Sweet Charity. The episode then transfers locations to Munich, Germany where Fosse and Verdon work together to turn Cabaret into one of the most seminila movie musicals in the history of film. Performing “Mein Herr” are a quartet of Broadway dancers including this episode’s guest, Skye Mattox.

Skye Mattox made her Broadway debut as replacement in the 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story. Since then, she performed in Broadway’s revivals of On The Town and Carousel, the later for which she was nominated for a Chita Rivera Award. She’s also no stranger to bringing musical drama to the small screen: Skye and I first worked together during the winter 2013 on the second season of NBC’s Smash. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here on The Ensemblist, we are also taking the opportunity to speak to some of the Broadway ensemblists who are working on the series. First up is Hamilton and Bandstand's, Morgan Marcell, who worked as an associate choreographer on the series in addition to appearing on camera in three episodes.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the layman, it was the first time in years that a Broadway musical reached the greater cultural conversation. Musical theatre had drifted from the zeitgeist after decades of leading the entertainment industry, but here it was back and in charge.

For the theatre aficionados, it was the first Broadway musical to run longer than a decade. For comparison, prior to Broadway’s shutdown there were four musicals running that had opened more than ten years ago. 

But for theatre artisans, A Chorus Line was the first big musical without a separation between principals and chorus. In A Chorus Line, every character was named and given a point of view - not only in the staging but in the script itself. It’s a popular device now, but it shook theatre artists to their core because it meant that what they knew to be true about live theatre was finally being shared with audiences; that every company member makes an important contribution to the success or failure of a musical.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We heard five featured songs in this premiere. The two songs from Sweet Charity, “Big Spender” and “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” were both written by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields. While the latter was an excerpt from the original recording, “Big Spender” was performed and sung by Bianca Marroquin and the Fandango girls. Also included in this episode were songs from Cabaret, all written by John Kander and Fred Ebb: “Wilkommen” which was a recording, as well as “Mein Herr” and the title song “Cabaret,” both performed by Kelli Barrett.

The limited series begins in Hollywood, with 19 years left in the illustrious life and career of Bob Fosse. With his wife and muse Gwen Verdon at his side, he is setting up shots for the song “Big Spender” in his directorial debut: a feature film version of his hit Broadway musical Sweet Charity, which had opened on Broadway with Verdon as the lead less than three years early. While Bob is the director, it is clear that Verdon is just as much a creative force as he is, deconstructing the movement for the dancers and even recommending one of them should be cut when the frame needs to be tightened.

At a party to celebrate the film’s opening the following year, Verdon and Fosse host a party for friends and colleagues at their New York City apartment. While the energy is positive with the attendees entertained by a performance from their young daughter Nicole, the reviews for the film are notably less enthusiastic. Of particular note in the New York Times review, which says “Sweet Charity is a movie haunted by the presence of an unseen star, Gwen Verdon. Although Mrs. McClaine often looks like Miss Verdon, she never succeeds at recreating the eccentric line that gave cohesion to the original.” 

The box office bust of Sweet Charity makes Bob have to work hard to line up his next film directorial job, which he hopes to be a film adaptation of the 1966 Broadway musical Cabaret. While the film’s producer Cy Feuer is skeptical that Bob’s aesthetic is appropriate for the material, Fosse convinces him by leaning on his experience performing in the USO during World War II. Well, that and going behind Feuer’s back by speaking to his boss.

Fosse lands the job and flies to Munich, Germany to direct the film two years later. But while he seems in his element visiting a brothel to cast extras and sleeping with his translator, Feuer is concerned that Fosse’s demand for specificity is going to cost the production millions like the financial flop Sweet Charity. Bob asks Gwen to join him in Munich, where she again saves the show by applying dancers make up and even making a 72 hour trip to New York and back to pick up the perfect gorilla costume.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the days and weeks leading up to Myles return to rehearsals, Broadway shut down in the second week of March, sidelining not only Myles return to the stage, but even his in-person physical therapy.

In his own words, here is Myles’ inspiring take on staying optimistic and galvanized through this unprecedented time.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steph was in the room as Hamilton was staged, sitting at tech tables as the show was refined, performed in the show as an original cast member and now helps to set and maintain companies of the show around the world. She was generous enough to take time to talk to me from her New York home, where she and her wife raise their young son. Between starting episodes of Dinosaur Train, Steph told me about the purpose of the line in Hamilton and how she teaches the staging to scores of performers around the world.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heading into the April ceremony, the original productions of A Chorus Line and Chicago were virtually tied for nominations, with 12 and 11 respectively. Also nominated for Best Musical were Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures and a revue called Bubbling Brown Sugar. But the night went to A Chorus Line, winning 9 Awards, The awards for Set and Costume Designer going to Pacific Overtures and Chicago going home empty handed.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like A Chorus Line before it, and Hamilton after it, the show was a cultural phenomenon whose impact reached far outside a typical Broadway audience. Rent expanded the typical theatre audience to those who didn’t think that musicals were “for” them. One of the ways that Rent achieves this is by turning a very specific story into a universal message of community and, of course, love.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heading into the April ceremony, the original productions of A Chorus Line and Chicago were virtually tied for nominations, with 12 and 11 respectively. Also nominated for Best Musical were Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures and a revue called Bubbling Brown Sugar. But the night went to A Chorus Line, winning 9 Awards, The awards for Set and Costume Designer going to Pacific Overtures and Chicago going home empty handed.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jen’s statement about the line as a political function intrigued me. Sure, Soft Power is a musical about politics. But is the line itself a political act. So I went to the source, the woman who staged the line into Soft Power herself: Leigh Silverman, director of Soft Power.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When I started hearing rumblings of this announcement this night before, I began to text friends and colleagues asking if they had heard similar news about an impending announcement. With each person I checked in with, the reaction was similar: disheartened but not surprised. No one I knew really believed that the New York theatre industry would be back up and running by January, and yet to see it in print that there is at least another seven months ahead of this is just so sad.

I say “at least” because that’s all we know so far: not that performances will begin Tuesday, June 1st but that they could begin on June 1 at the earliest. It might be next Labor Day, or further into the future.

But like I said, it’s not just the lack of an end date to this “intermission” that is disappointing. It’s that much of this could have been prevented. With better leadership, better preparedness, more mandates, perhaps we could have been back in theatres by now. It wasn’t always inevitable that this shutdown would last more than a year, but now it is our sentence to wait.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the song, a reprise of a number called “Democracy,” the full company of actors comes down to the edge of the stage. There, standing shoulder to shoulder, 15 performers looked directly into the audience to recognize our presence in the space.

What is it about this line?! Why is it that, in an industry known for spectacle, does stillness provide the most arresting visual images. Why is that, in an artform full of Ziegfeld’s Follies and falling chandeliers, nothing is as effective as doing nothing?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about Cristy and Sound Body at ofsoundbody.com. You can take her "Yoga for people who hate Yoga" class online: https://linktr.ee/cristycandler.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Education is an ongoing topic of debate in our country. The arts, forever America's favorite face rag, has its own education that continues to lose acknowledgement and funding in schools nationwide. There are opportunities to learn outside of school, but those don't come without a price. Education has a lot of systemic issue, but this episode focuses on how arts education has helped shape the lack of representation seen on Broadway currently.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Education is an ongoing topic of debate in our country. The arts, forever America's favorite face rag, has its own education that continues to lose acknowledgement and funding in schools nationwide. There are opportunities to learn outside of school, but those don't come without a price. Education has a lot of systemic issue, but this episode focuses on how arts education has helped shape the lack of representation seen on Broadway currently.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we’re looking back at Tina: The Tina Turner Musical! Tina opened on Broadway on November 7, 2019 after a spring 2018 world premiere on London’s West End. Not only does this biomusical feature high-octane performances of Turner’s greatest hits, but it dives deep into her life offstage, thanks in large part to the talented ensemblists populating Tina’s world.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up is Moulin Rouge! After a July 2018 premiere in Boston, Moulin Rouge! opened at Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre on July 25, 2019. Boasting a large cast of Broadway veterans & plenty of show-stopping spectacle, Moulin Rouge! was a dazzling highlight of the 2019-20 Broadway season.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Watch the film here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CFBZgSSj0Ma/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Going into the ceremony, Ragtime led the pack with 13 nominations, followed by The Lion King with 11. The acclaimed Roundabout Theatre Company revival had 10 nominations, with Side Show and The Scarlet Pimpernel as new musicals, and 1776 and The Sound of Music as revivals.

A lot of things happened during the season, many of which were covered in all the politically-skewed humor of the telecast. President Bill Clinton was in his second term in office, and by the time of this broadcast he was elbow-deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, with impeachment talks just around the corner. Also referenced as a joke in the telecast, 1998 brought upon the advent of Viagra, which was approved by the FDA in March of that year. LOL.

In New York, this season also marks the “Disneyfication” of Broadway, where in a partnership of Disney, LiveEnt, and The New 42nd St. Inc, transformed Times Square from the seedy, sketchy neighborhood history knew it to be, to the child-friendly, glamorous tourist-trap we know it is today. This season also boasted the opening of 35 Broadway productions, and notably this was the year that Cats surpassed A Chorus Line as the longest running show on Broadway. Meow.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yet staying masked, practicing social distancing, and avoiding large crowds remains crucial in the fight against COVID-19. As a result, Broadway and many theatres across the country remain closed until at least January 3, 2021.

So much remains unknown for our industry, but there is hope as live performances begin sprouting up at venues such as Berkshire Theatre Group and Weathervane Theatre. As Broadway’s Diana prepares to be filmed for Netflix. As theatre artists find ways to create work digitally.

But what did the future look like for actors at the beginning of the pandemic? During the month of March, we released daily conversations with actors performing in Broadway shows, national tours, and regional productions, as they first adapted to workplace changes, then unemployment and the uncertainty. Six months later, we look back at those conversations to see if anything from the past can teach us about the months ahead.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, the ceremony featured one of the most lauded openings in Tony Awards History, titled “Bigger.” Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Kitt and featuring the iconic line “We were that kid,” “Bigger’ featured more than a hundred Broadway performers and eventually won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, the ceremony featured one of the most lauded openings in Tony Awards History, titled “Bigger.” Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Kitt and featuring the iconic line “We were that kid,” “Bigger’ featured more than a hundred Broadway performers and eventually won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leading up to the award ceremony, Miss Saigon and The Will Rogers Follies were tied for the most nominations of the season, with 11 each. But it was The Will Rogers Follies that walked away with six wins (Musical, Score, Choreography, Direction, Costume, Lighting). Miss Saigon and The Secret Garden both received three wins (Jonathan Pryce, Lea Salonga, Hinton Battle), (Book, Daisy Eagan, Scenic) while the fourth nominee for Best Musical, Once On This Island, walked away empty handed.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We spoke to Anthony about the process of creating Black Broadway Men and their plans for the future. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will each have the following week to research the season as a whole and then bring you our most surprising findings about how the telecast did and didn’t reflect the year on Broadway. 

To join us for our first Tonys recap, be sure to watch the 1991 Tony Awards.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve been going back to see how this supposed love letter to Broadway has held up over the past decade. So let’s dive in and talk about season two of Smash.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our finale’s set list was comprised of three songs: one cover and two originals. Our cover featured the majority of our principal cast singing “Under Pressure” by Queen. For our originals we were treated to a very Pitch-Perfect-esque Tony Performance of the Hit List staple “Broadway Here I Come,” written by Joe Iconis and performed by the full Hit List Cast (sans Mara Davi), and as our finale ultimo, in-house team Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman took the series home with their original song “Big Finish” sung by our leading-lady duo, Megan Hilty and Katharine McPhee.

After two seasons, the companies of Bombshell and Hit List are both “Under Pressure” as they march toward the Marquis Theatre - home of this year’s Tony Award ceremony. With only 12 hours until the big show, Tom and Julia are writing their possible acceptance speech, Derek is drinking to forget that he publicly admitted casting Daisy in exchange for sex, and Leigh and Ivy discuss how the other one has better chances of winning.

Jimmy is sabotaging himself by attempting to get out of attending the ceremony, until Julia has a “Come to Jesus” with him to get the balls to attend. Also, Derek is sabotaging himself by attempting to get out of attending the ceremony, until Ivy has a “Come to Jesus” with him to get the balls to attend. But both end up attending, which is good because they both end up accepting awards: Derek for choreographing Hit List and Jimmy on behalf of Kyle of Hit List’s book.

Gabe and Lexi are furious that they’ve been called in to perform at the Tony Awards to support Daisy, until Ivy reminds Karen and company that they can refuse to perform with her. When they do, producer Jerry counters by giving Daisy the chance to perform “Reach for Me” instead. But following her win for Best Featured Actor, Derek decides to make it right and take Daisy out of the Tony performance, putting in Karen, Jimmy and (surprise) Ana in an a cappella performance of “Broadway, Here I Come.”

After winning for Best Score, newly minted Tony winners Tom and Julia decide to stay together as a writing team. Ivy gives a touching ode to live theatre in her acceptance speech for Best Actress and while Hit List walks away with most of the initial awards, Eileen Rand’s Bombshell takes home the prize for Best Musical.

In its closing moments, the cast of Smash couples up - Ivy with Derek, Julia with Michael Swift, Eileen with her formerly imprisoned bartender, Karen with a prison-bound Jimmy- and the series finale ends with as much of a non-sequitur as it began: an out-of-time duet performance by our two divas giving the show a “Big Finish.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had three featured songs this week, with our only original song being an excerpt of Hit List’s “Rewrite This Story” written by Pasek & Paul. Our two others included a cover of Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright” sung by Megan Hilty, and “If You Want Me” from Once, performed by Krysta Rodriguez.

It’s just days until Tony Award nominations come out, and nobody’s feeling alright: Eileen wants more nominations than Hit List, Tom wants a win to cement his future as a director. Oh, and Ivy Lynn is puking in the bathroom between scenes because she’s pregnant. Jimmy is worried that Kyle won’t be recognized with a Tony nomination for Best Book, but Hit List’s producer Jerry says he’s worried about the wrong thing: Ana is filing a wrongful termination suit against Derek.

The Outer Critics Circle deems “Best Director” a tie between Derek and Tom, and Julia Huston wins “Best Book” for Bomshell. But Hit List walks away with the rest, including acting awards for Karen, Sam and Daisy. The win for Daisy lights a fire under Karen’s ass to protect her roommate, igniting her to storm into Daisy’s dressing room demanding she quit Hit List. But Daisy’s been working too hard for ten years to give up this opportunity.

At the Outer Critics Circle luncheon, Julia gives a touching tribute to Kyle, and Tom dedicates his joint win to Derek, but afterwards tensions fire as Jimmy interrupts the proceedings to give Julia a lecture in theatrical ethics. Burning the candle at both ends and with his voice failing, Karen encourages Jimmy to call out of that night’s show and watch the fruits of Kyle’s labor from the audience. Teary-eyed after sitting in the Barrymore, Jimmy realizes that theatre lovers will remember Kyle for his work onstage, not because he did or didn’t win a Tony.

The morning of the nominations are announced, everyone from the Bombshell and Hit List camps are crowded around their screens to watch them live. Bombshell gets 12 nominations, including those for Ivy, Leigh, Derek, Julia, Tom but Hit List gets 13 with nods for Karen, Daisy, Derek, Jimmy and Kyle. But all is not peachy, as Julia being dragged to court by her soon-to-be-ex-husband and Derek publicly acknowledges that he wrongly terminated Ana and gave the part to Daisy after sleeping with her.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had four original songs in the episode this week. Our two from Hit List included “Pretender,” written by Lucie Silvas and Michael Busbee, and “I’m Not Sorry,” written by Andrew McMahon. Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman penned our remaining two for the Houston/Levitt revue, which were the punny “Grin and Bare It,” performed by Megan Hilty, and “The Right Regrets,” sung by our now-defunct music team Christian Borle and Debra Messing.

Audiences are literally running to see Hit List on Broadway with Derek’s former assault-ee Daisy now understudying Ana but something about the show isn’t working uptown. Derek is worried that the problem is Ana’s performance as the Diva, so he tries putting Daisy on for the role. Jimmy wants a posthumous Tony Award for Kyle, so he and Julia get to work on finding a solution that brings some of the downtown magic Hit List had off-Broadway up to 46th Street.

The great Lindsay Mendez guest stars as the great Lindsay Mendez performing in a one-night concert of Huston and Levitt songs designed as a ploy for Tony nominations. You see, as Eileen knows “the Tonys are not just about a great show, but a great story.” And Bombshell’s story is that Tom and Julia are a great, yet so-far unawarded pair of song writers so she asks the semi-estranged duo to perform a duet at the concert.

Ivy and Karen make a Times Square promise that although award season is bound to get a little crazy, they promise to be adults about it. Ivy’s pill-popping past is catching up with her, so she has to start fixing her reputation from difficult diva to sweethearted star. But the player with more on the line is Derek, who is being blackmailed by a “Not Sorry” Daisy in exchange for taking over Ana’s role. 

Everyone who’s anyone shows up for the Huston-Levitt concert, including pre-icon Lin-Manuel Miranda playing a twitter-obsessed, Jonathan Groff-obsessed Lin-Manuel Miranda. That is, everyone except for Julia who is too busy reworking Kyle’s ideas into ways to save Hit List. Covering for Julia missing in action, Ivy throws caution to wind and doubles down on her bawdy reputation in a burlesque performance of “Grin and Bare It.” And in the 11th hour, Julia finally arrives to perform a nostalgic duet with Tom as they both decide to say goodbye to their writing partnership.

When Ivy is confronted by Ana about Derek, the leading lady takes on Karen saying”you play this naive, just-off-the-bus routine to get exactly what you want, but deep down you’re just as calculating as the next person.” In a parting shot, Ivy tells Karen that she’s glad Hit List made it to Broadway because now she can beat her fair and square for the awards. Also, she's pregnant.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week’s episode included five featured songs: two covers and three originals. The covers included Radiohead’s “High and Dry” performed by Jeremy Jordan, and Billy Joel’s “Vienna” serenaded by Christian Borle. We again heard an excerpt of Iconis’ “Broadway Here I Come” but the two full-length originals came from Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman: Bombshell’s “At Your Feet” and Hit List’s “The Love I Meant to Say.”

Sam Strickland’s put in rehearsal to replace Jimmy is in three hours, but Karen and Derek are screwing around on the couch - that is until Jimmy breaks onto Karen’s fire escape, catches the two in her apartment and runs off. Tom gets a call from his former one-night stand Kyle’s phone, but instead of a booty call it's the police letting him know that Kyle was killed in a car accident. 

Eileen Rand is ready to talk about a Tony campaign, and Bombshell is the show to beat. Ivy Lynn may be nominated twice: as Best Actress in Bombshell and Best Supporting Actress in Liaisons. But all that Tony talk is put on hold when the Bombshell company learns about Kyle’s death, with even Ivy calling in sick to be with Derek down at Manhattan Theatre Workshop.

In a series of flashbacks, Kyle’s friends remember their own favorite intimate moments with him: Julia in storyboarding Hit List, Tom in a boudoir serenade, Karen in an lobby chat during Bombshell’s opening, and Jimmy in brainstorming Hit List ideas along the East River. Finally with a justifiable reason to be sad, Jimmy uses a song from the show to memorialize “the love he meant to say” to his dear departed best friend.

With Gabe and the company of Hit List understandably shocked, Derek cancels the evening performance. But the Hit List fans show up anyway to honor Kyle’s memory, and a seated reading at music stands for a standing room only house turns Hit List into a phenomenon destined to move uptown to Broadway (funded by Eileen’s ex-husband, Jerry.) And as a parting gift, Julia gets the lights of the Lily Hayes theatre marquee dimmed in Kyle’s honor.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had a lot of music this episode, mainly from Hit List! Our one song from Bombshell was an excerpt of Shaiman and Whitman’s “20th Century Fox Mambo” performed by Megan Hilty (and Kathie Lee Gifford?), and our one cover was Jeff Buckley’s “The Last Goodbye,” sung by Andy Mientus. The remainder of our songs come from Hit List: we hear excerpts from Pasek and Paul’s “Rewrite this Story,” and Joe Iconis’ “Broadway Here I Come.” Two new songs were another by Joe Iconis called “The Goodbye Song,” and “Don’t Let Me Know,” written by Lucie Silvas and Jamie Alexander Hartman.

Without much competition for new musicals on Broadway this season, Bombshell is poised to make a splash at the Tony Awards in June. But with slow ticket sales, Eileen is going to have to pray for a miracle to keep Bombshell open til June. So she is whoring out Ivy for press events right and left, anything from the Today show to an appearance at the Brighton Beach Senior Center. 

Adding insult to injury, producers Daryl Roth and Kevin McCollum are duking it out with ten other producers ready to write a check to move Hit List to Broadway this season. But there may not be a show to move if Jimmy shows up late and high for photo calls. Derek attempts to solve the Jimmy problem by hiring former Bombshell ensemblist Sam Strickland to understudy him. 

Things are looking up for Julia, with the announcement her new non-musical version of Gatsby going to Manhattan Theatre Workshop next season. Now that Tom isn’t in line to direct the City of Angels revival, he wants Julia to create the show with him. The conflict comes to a head at one of Ivy’s many press events: Julia feels Tom told her under no uncertain terms he only wants to direct, while Tom believes Julia is only interested in being a writing partner when she gets her way.

With tonight seeming to become the most important night in Hit List’s life, Derek gives Jimmy an ultimatum: shape up or ship out. But Jimmy doesn’t take the threat seriously, showing up late onstage, making up choreography and causing an onstage accident that leaves Karen with a bleeding gash. The performance is the last straw for Derek, firing Jimmy on the spot. But the journey for Hit List may be dead in the water anyway, as every potential investor is scared off because the show isn’t financially viable enough to make it on Broadway.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First up is Adinah Alexander. Adinah made her Broadway debut in Parade in 1998, two decades after moving to New York City. She’s since performed in the original casts of Urban Cowboy, Wicked, The Wedding Singer, and most recently, Kinky Boots. From piano bars to Off-Broadway’s The No Frills Revue, from mega-flops to mega-hits, Adinah told us all about her extraordinary career. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We only had two featured songs this week. We had a cover of Frank Sinatra’s That’s Life, sung by Marilyns past and present, Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty, and we got the chance to revisit Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman’s tour-de-force finale, Don’t Forget Me, this time performed by the Bombshell victor herself, Megan Hilty.

The curtain comes down on Bombshell’s final preview and things are looking up for Ivy! That is until she dives into reading Broadway message boards, where she’s being touted as a “career chorus girl.” But backstage before the overture, Ivy’s mother and co-star tells her that her experience has made her into the star she is today. She brings the house down with a glorious performance ending with ‘Don’t Forget Me,” which leaves Karen visibly shook.

Even before opening, Julia is already pitching Tom ideas for their next show: a musical version of The Great Gatsby. But Tom may have found his own new project without her, directing a Broadway revival of City of Angels. When she confronts him about the rumor at the opening night party, he admits that all he wants to do right now is direct, not write another musical.

Downtown, Hit List has sold out the rest of its off-Broadway run. Eileen has invited the company to come uptown and see Bombshell’s opening, which makes Karen feel like she’s watching her ex-finance walk down the aisle. Jimmy implores her to go and that she’s got him in her corner. But it’s Jimmy that implodes at the opening night party, getting into a fist fight with his drug-dealing brother in the middle of the event.

The reviews are in and Variety calls Bombshell “The finest musical of the season.” But it’s the New York Times review that has everyone on edge and Ivy hiding in the restroom. The current Marilyn confides that she can’t get the former Marilyn out of her head, but the mutual admiration society is there in full force as Karen admits that she was watching Ivy play Marilyn. Ivy promises Karen that she’ll make it to Broadway herself soon enough, but off-handedly jokes for it “not to be this season.”

That promise may be going down the drain as Derek hatches a rumor that Hit List is heading to Broadway. It doesn’t stop the two leading ladies from dueting at the party on an impromptu version of “That’s Life.” But that’s not the most surprising pairing of the night, as Tom and Kyle end up leaving together while Ivy gives Derek blue balls. Surprises abound, as Eileen doubles down on their so-so New York Times review, declaring “Screw the Times! We’ll sweep the Tonys!”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we spoke to an incredible six performers about what makes an opening night on Broadway so garsh darn special. Throughout the episode, you’ll hear from Jenifer Foote, Tyler Hanes, Bre Jackson, Anastacia McCleskey, Linda Mugleston and Eric Ulloa. Enjoy...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of those artists is Lindsay Northen. A 12-year veteran of Broadway's Wicked, she and her husband, actor Jared Bradshaw, recently moved out of their New York City apartment and headed south. Here to tell us how and why is Lindsay Northen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had all original songs but nothing new this week. We were able to revisit excerpts from Bombshell’s Let Me Be Your Star, Our Little Secret, and Dig Deep, all written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, and a new acapella prologue version of Broadway Here I Come for Hit List, written by Joe Iconis.

Even though he isn’t an actor, director/liberrist Tom Levitt is having actors’ nightmares before Bombshell’s invited dress. The run-through is riddled with mistakes - a surprise nude scene for Ivy, the house did not come in for “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” and poor Brian pulls a muscle - which means that Sam might be going on for him. Eileen recommends cancelling Bombshell’s first preview but Tom thinks it’s an invitation to the press to sharpen their knives. So Eileen gives him a challenge: fix all the problems by 3pm today or she’s going to cancel the performance.

Jimmy has been pulling all-nighters writing nine new songs for Hit List, a task which he is sure has been laid on him by Derek as retribution for Karen and Jimmy dating. Derek is finally reinspired to make changes to Hit List - adding reprises and a new framing device that tells the story in flashback. Jimmy is having a fit about the changes, but it’s hard to know whether that’s because of his ego, his all-nighters, or his coke habit. Kyle and Ana are hype about the rapid-changes Derek is making to Hit List, but Karen is convinced they are simply retribution for dating Jimmy.

Tom isn’t able to fix all of the problems of the invited dress in six hours, but lies to Eileen so she doesn’t cancel the first preview. But when Tom isn’t able to get the intermission down to 15 minutes, Julia pinch-hits with a new staging idea for the top of Act II that allows it to be staged in the audience instead of the stage. 

Even though Ivy’s nudity in the dress rehearsal was a mistake, it’s given the show a spike in both buzz and ticket sales. Eileen and Tom ask Ivy to keep the nudity, a decision she doesn’t make until she onstage for the first preview. When she finally decides to keep the nudity, it ends up making a show-stopping moment that is perfect for the scene.

But all is not good with Bombshell. After not being put on to cover an ailing ensemblist, Sam quits the show saying that his career is “going in the wrong direction.” And New York Times publishes an article saying the spirit of Marilyn Monroe is alive and well onstage, but in Hit List. The Grey Lady calls Hit List “edgy and occasionally brilliant, bound to take the theatre season by storm” and leading the way for Hit List to move uptown toward the Main Stem.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With only 11 members, Hamilton’s ensemble is as featured as any in recent memory. Imagine the future high school productions of Hamilton, where dozens of young people will play American civilians, British soldiers and cabinet members. Here, we see all of that expertly handled by less than a dozen performers. 

One of the 11 who took on this monumental feat for this filmed performance is Hope Easterbrook. Joining the Broadway company in March 2016, she played the Women 2 track. Hope joined me this week over the phone to talk about her roles in the show as well as her experience filming the show for posterity. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we spoke to three Broadway performers about “pre-production,” the process that choreographers use to develop their musical staging for a show. Throughout the episode, you’ll hear from Paige Faure, Dionne Figgins and Adam Perry. Enjoy…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had three featured songs this week: two originals and one cover...and this time, no reprises!! The originals included a Pasek & Paul original called “Original,” boppily sung originally by Bombshell’s original Marilyn Katharine McPhee, and a Shaiman & Whitman piano-bar tune called “A Love Letter From The Times,” sung by the legend herself Liza Minnelli! (Oh, and Christian Borle too.) Our one cover was an underscore version of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” sung by the birthday girl Ivy herself, Megan Hilty.

Bombshell is in tech rehearsal, and it’s very clear that Ivy has not forgiven Tom for casting her mother to play Gladys in the show. She seems to have poisoned the entire company against him. He can’t take back what he did, but he can remind her how much her loves her with a birthday surprise for the ages: dinner with Liza Minnelli. But Ivy already has her own surprise party planned, so now she has to balance two parties: one with Tom, and one that he can’t know about.

At Hit List rehearsal, the company showcases a new song called “Original” for New York Times editor Richard Francis. He likes the number, a cautionary tale of a woman reinventing herself to become a star, but Francis is more fixated on what could be backstage drama: a director and ingenue ditching Broadway for off-Broadway arm in arm.

Julia is doctoring the script of Hit List and finds the biggest problem is The Diva, who she identifies as not really a character, but a trigger for Amanda who has no real agency of her own. In coaching Kyle on his script, she learns that he hasn’t really… ever… learned how to write a musical. But in a day of storyboarding with Julia and Scott Nichols, Kyle cracks the code at how to add some drama into Hit List.

Even though Liza Minnelli singing an original composition that Tom wrote during tech turns Ivy back into a Tom fan, she still doesn’t invite him to her birthday party. But when she leaves her keys at dinner, Tom walks in on a full company birthday party that he wasn’t invited to. Mama Ivy has to teach Tom that while they’re working, they can’t prioritize their friendship over their work.

Karen and Jimmy have been conoodling in the costume racks, but he still wants to keep their relationship on the DL - per Derek’s request. But Karen doesn’t know about their agreement, and when she tells Derek, it puts a riff back between him and Jimmy that affects their work in rehearsal. Karen has to remind Derek that he doesn’t own her, which gives Jimmy and Karen agency to start dating in public.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This was five years ago, so it doesn’t have the audio quality of our current episodes. However, Lin is such a sweetheart on mic and is dropping such great truth bombs about ensembles but we felt it was finally time to take the full interview out of the vaults and share it with you. Here, in his own words, is Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rarely has an ensemble been so visible as they are in Hamilton. The term “Ensemble of Principals” has been used to describe the cast and for good reason: every track in the 11 member ensemble is highly unique and memorable. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had only three featured songs this week, but they were all originals! From Hit List, we had Katharine McPhee’s rendition of “Broadway Here I Come,” and another Andrew McMahon original entitled, “Reach For Me” sung (and swung) by Krysta Rodriguez. From Bombshell, Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman delivered the mother-and-daughter duet called “Hang the Moon” performed by Megan Hilty and Bernadette Peters.

The role of Marilyn’s mother, Gladys, has finally been cast and rather than going with Patti LuPone, Eileen and Tom have gone with someone a little closer to home: Ivy’s mother: The Broadway star Leigh Conroy is stepping out of retirement to play the role only she could play! Ivy can only feign excitement about the casting, as her relationship with Leigh is filled with competition. 

Karen’s Dad is also in town on business, but it means that he can stop by Hit List rehearsal and attend the theatre’s gala that evening. Since the gala is Hit List’s introduction to the board members and theatre patrons, Scott Nichols wants to add the Diva’s number to the gala performance.

In rehearsal, Ivy and Leigh are dealing with the tension by being nice to each other. Too nice, in fact, that they aren’t playing any of the stakes in the book scenes. That is, until they begin to tell disparaging stories about each other in front of the entire company. But in performing a heartfelt ballad called “Hang the Moon,” both pairs of Gladys and Marilyn, as well as Leigh and Ivy seem to feel empathy for one another. The song makes Mailyn, Ivy and Julia all cry.

At the Manhattan Theatre Workshop’s gala, Karen’s rendition of “Broadway, Here I Come” goes well, but it’s Ana’s gravity-defying performance of “Reach For Me” on silks that brings the house down. And when the Arts Editor of the New York Times commends Ana’s performance, Scott Nichols wants to make the character bigger. And who does he ask to help work as dramaturg to make it happen but Bombshell writer Julia!

And while Karen’s dad isn’t initially behind her leaving Bombshell, after her gala performance he can see why she would both make the jump to Hit List and be interested in Jimmy. But Jimmy is having his own problems, including stealing from the gala’s coat check to pay off a drug dealer.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With music by Tom Kitt, and both book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, next to normal is many things: a family drama, a rock opera, an exploration of mental illness. But is it an ensemble musical?

The cast of next to normal has only six actors: The four members of the Goodman family: Diana, Dan, Gabe and Natalie. Then there’s Natalie’s boyfriend Henry and one actor who plays both Dr. Madden and Dr. Fine. And that’s it. So the show technically has no ensemble. 

So what does a show like next to normal mean for the history of the ensemblist? We certainly don’t have separate singing and dancing ensembles any more, but has the use of ensembles run its course all together? 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, Olivia Hernandez shares with us a story about facing racism in the theatre industry head-on, and how she forged her own path to acknowledging and advocating for other artists of color. Here, in her own words, is Olivia Hernandez.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karen’s Dad is also in town on business, but it means that he can stop by Hit List rehearsal and attend the theatre’s gala that evening. Since the gala is Hit List’s introduction to the board members and theatre patrons, Scott Nichols wants to add the Diva’s number to the gala performance.

In rehearsal, Ivy and Leigh are dealing with the tension by being nice to each other. Too nice, in fact, that they aren’t playing any of the stakes in the book scenes. That is, until they begin to tell disparaging stories about each other in front of the entire company. But in performing a heartfelt ballad called “Hang the Moon,” both pairs of Gladys and Marilyn, as well as Leigh and Ivy seem to feel empathy for one another. The song makes Mailyn, Ivy and Julia all cry.

At the Manhattan Theatre Workshop’s gala, Karen’s rendition of “Broadway, Her I Come” goes well, but it’s Ana’s gravity-defying performance of “Reach For Me” on silks that brings the house down. And when the Arts Editor of the New York Times commends Ana’s performance, Scott Nichols wants to make the character bigger. And who does he ask to help work as dramaturg to make it happen but Bombshell writer Julia!

And while Karen’s dad isn’t initially behind her leaving Bombshell, after her gala performance he can see why she would both make the jump to Hit List and be interested in Jimmy. But Jimmy is having his own problems, including stealing from the gala’s coat check to pay off a drug dealer.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Day 3, Day of Accountability, was a space to begin examining accountability with the Broadway industry - rooted in its history of individual and systemic racism. This was a time to collectively manifest an anti-racist theatrical landscape, while exploring the steps towards realizing that dream. Here is BAC co-founder Christian Dante White.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Day 2, Day of Listening, was a space to center the experiences of black industry professionals, while challenging white allies to bear witness and reflect on what it means to dismantle implicit bias as it related to institutional and internalized racism. Here to tell us more is Broadway Advocacy Coalition co-founder Chrisitan Dante White.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We saw two full original songs and two excerpts this week, which means, no pop covers! Our in-home team of Shaiman and Whitman wrote Liaisons’ Ce N’Est Pas Ma Faute (It’s Not My Fault) sung by Sean Hayes, and Bombshell’s The National Pastime, sung and tapped by Katherine McPhee and the Bombshell ensemble. From Hit List we heard a reprise of Heart Shaped Wreckage from last week, and a new opening song called Rewrite This Story, written by Pasek & Paul.

Now that Derek is signed onto direct Hit List, Scott Nichols of Manhattan Theatre Workshop offers the theatre’s 80-seat underground space. He is afraid it doesn’t have much of an overwriting theme to appease his mainstage subscribers, but he will reconsider if stubborn Jimmy and agreeable Kyle are able to reinvent Hit List by Friday.

Taking over the direction of Bombshell is harder than Tom anticipated - it’s like Tom and Karen are speaking different languages. In the absence of any legal agreements about using Derek’s concepts in Bombshell, Tom is forced to reinvent the show. And in the absence of Derek’s choreography, Tom’s staging on numbers like “The National Pastime” turn Bombshell into a sugar-induced headache.

What the show also needs is to get rid of Jerry Rand as a producer. The silver bullet comes in the form of a contract Eileen signed with the Marilyn Monroe estate for the use of her journals - which heavily influenced Julia’s book. In a hostile takeover, the women of Bombshell force Jerry to sign over the show to Eileen.

At Liaisons, Ivy has cemented her talent as “The Terry Whisperer,” but she and Terry both hate this “meh” version of the show and make a pact that it might as well go down in a blaze of glory. With an over-the-top version of a Terry Falls-helmed number called “It’s Not My Fault,” Liaisons announces that it will close at the end of the week, making Ivy a free agent.

The musical chairs between Bombshell and Hit List come to a head at the opening night of Liasions, where everybody wants what they can’t have: Jerry and Karen want Derek to return Bombshell, while Derek wishes that he had a book writer like Julia and a star like Karen. It’s unclear what Jimmy wants, other than to not write a new opening number for his show. 

Karen starts the musical chairs in motion, acknowledging to Tom that she’s not his Marilyn - Ivy is. Derek also admits to Kyle and Jimmy that he believes in Hit List so much he will even direct the show in a 80-seat blackbox. But it turns out he doesn’t have to - when Jimmy writes Hit List a banger of a new opening called “Rewrite This Story.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

However, that waiting comes with knowledge that even when Broadway opens they may not have a show to come back to. On March 12, there were 457 ensemblists working in Broadway musicals. But as Beetlejuice and then Frozen posted closing notices, 50 of those actors found out they would be out of work even when performances resumed. That’s in addition to the postponement of Caroline, or Change, Flying Over Sunset, MJ… and whatever is announced in the coming weeks and months.

And when Broadway performances finally resume, what will the experience be like? Will audiences be temperature checked on their way into the theatre? Will they be required to wear masks that stifle their laughter? Will the actors be willing to partner each other in lifts or embrace on stage?

I reached out to friends in the Broadway community about what they think the reopening of Broadway will look and feel like. Throughout the episode you’ll hear from six performers who were performing in new musicals when Broadway shutdown: Zach Adkins, Kyle Brown, Britney Coleman, Kaleigh Cronin, DeAnne Stewart and Ricky Ubeda. Here’s what they had to say…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. The other two and a half were original songs from all three of our musicals! Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman delivered us a reprise of “Never Give All the Heart” from Bombshell, and a Glitter-and-Be-Gay inspired number from Liaisons called “A Letter From Cecile.” Lastly, from Hit List we got a new song called “Heart Shaped Wreckage,” written by Julian Emery, Jon Green, James Lawrence Irvin, and Lucie Silvas.

Hit List has booked a spot in the Winter Fringe after all! It’s only two presentations in shoebox, but Jimmy is convinced Hit List is good enough to outshine the venue. Which is good because the show gets picked up by Time Out and “a bunch of theatre people RSVP’d!” 

Back at Bombshell, Eileen has decided to produce the dynamic, technicolor fantasy that Tom and Jerry prefer, much to the schgrin of Julia and Derek. Karen is all lined up to star in Hit List, but Jerry can’t be “introducing Karen Cartwright” if she’s already been introduced at the Winter Fringe, which leaves Jimmy, Kyle and the rest of the Fringe crew understandingly ticked off about Karen’s backing out. 

At a coffee klatch in Madison Square Park, Ivy tells Derek that Terry Falls continues to derail Liaisons into a farce. But he replies that standing out as good in a bad show is a time-honored theatre tradition and to follow her instinct. She spices up the production’s press preview by adding her own brand of humor, but her good work threatens Terry Falls. Only in an 11th hour company meeting does Terry have the balls to invite the company to 

Bombshell’s new producer Jerry Rand continues to meddle with Julia’s script, suggesting they cut the intellectual downer of a song “Never Give All The Heart.” He and Eileen give Tom a challenge: change it into an uplifting song that makes them feel something in the next 24 hours. The composer puts a new spin on the song, making it a cautionary tale, empowered instead of wistful. But Tom’s direction puts Derek over the edge, quitting the show and storming out of rehearsal. And Eileen loves the work enough to crown Tom Bombshell’s new director.

Derek’s departure from Hit List frees up Karen to perform in the second night of Hit List at the fringe, as well as making him available to watch her in it. Derek is taken by the show and the performances of both Karen and Jimmy. Scott Nichols, artistic director at Manhattan Theatre Workshop says the show is actually the kind of project he is looking for. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This pause has been touted as “only intermission” for the theatre industry. And yet, we have no real sense of when we will be able to return to our seats and start Act II. We were first asked to hold for four weeks, then twelve weeks and now 25 weeks. Half a year of sheltering in place without a clear sense of when we will be able to feel the energy of coming together to tell and hear stories.

On the list of what makes a healthy and thriving society, no one would place musical theatre at the top. In a world where PPEs, testing and vaccines are scarce, there are more important things for our society to tackle than the health of the theatre industry. And yet, the arts are what make life worth living. As we’ve sheltered in place and quarantined at home, it is music, dance and storytelling that has kept our spirits up.

But what about the spirits of those who tell the stories? As storytellers are asked to find new and unknown ways to share their time and talents, how are they coping in these uncharted waters? Of course, the path that our performing arts community is on stroon with disappointments. But there must also be glimmers of hope along the path - those worth celebrating in their own way.

I reached out to friends in the Broadway community who were meant to be performing in new musicals this season about how they’ve coping with disappointment and finding moments of hope. Here’s what they had to say...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We asked Tony to share the story of his Broadway debut as well as his experience moving out of the St. James Theatre last week. Here, in his own words, is Tony Neidenbach. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 with tap break, called “Public Relations” by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, and a snippet of Hit List’s “Caught in the Storm” by Pasek and Paul, Jeremy Jordan rendition. We also saw a fantasy sequence to a cover of “Some Boys” originally by Death Cab For Cutie. 

Bombshell has booked the Belasco! In a walkthrough of their new home, Tom imagines a new second act opener for Bombshell called “Public Relations” which looks remarkably like a song from Catch Me If You Can, down to the plane set and stewardess. Now finishing each other’s sandwiches, Julia and Peter stroll in late to the walkthrough late but thrilled with the new script draft they’ve created together. 

Despite multiple sexual misconduct allegations, Derek has friends in high enough places to get Hit List a spot in the “Winter Fringe Festival.” But with the Festival in just two weeks, Karen and Ana rally Bobby, Jessica and the rest of their ensemblist cohorts join for a read through where they learn that while Jimmy's music is great, Kyle’s dialogue and the characters… aren’t. But after their failed reading, Jimmy, Kyle, Ana and Karen crack the code that could turn into a success: scrap the book scenes and make the show sung through. 

A week into rehearsal for the Broadway revival of Liaisons, Ivy finally meets her co-star Terry Falls. But Terry doesn’t even know his stage left from his stage right, turning “a real drama into Spamalot!” However, Ivy will have none of it - refusing to stoop to conquer and teaching Terry how to act in the process. 

Ahead of a reading of the new Bombshell script, Julia hears rumors that Peter has purposefully upended other shows by feeding the writers ideas bad enough to be fired. But despite those rumors, the reading goes off swimmingly with all parties impressed by the rewrites. So much so that Derek halts his plans to take Hit List to the fringe after all. 

It’s an artistic triumph, but their new producer Jerry Rand says it’s not commercial enough to be a financial hit. With a hung jury of creatives, Jerry, Derek, Tom and Julia leave it up to Eileen to make the decision about which Marilyn musical to bring to Broadway: a sexy, provocative insightful musical or a lush, dazzling spectacle...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So for The Ensemblist’s 300th episode, we are turning the tables. Today, I’ll be interviewing The Ensemblist’s co-creator and host, Mo Brady, about his favorite musical: the 1996 Broadway phenomenon Rent. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Strange Loop follows a black, queer writer creating an original musical as he faces a host of demons. When it premiered Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in May 2019, it resonated with both audiences and critics alike, making a lasting impression on the New York theatre scene.

Here to discuss his experience as an original cast member of A Strange Loop is John-Michael Lyles. Most recently, John-Michael played the role of Toby in the world premiere of Bliss at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre. He contributed additional music to Second Stage Theatre’s We’re Gonna Die  and has performed Off-Broadway in Sweeney Todd, This Ain’t No Disco, and The Flick, among others. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Special thanks to Josh Lamon, Ellyn Marie Marsh and Syndee Winters for sharing their stories with us this week. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had five featured songs in this episode, with only one pop cover this week! Yay! That cover was Billy Joel’s “Everybody Loves You Now” sung by Andy Mientus and Jennifer Hudson. The only other non-original song was “I Got Love” from the musical Purlie, featured both in its original arrangement and it’s more Derek Wills-Esque risqué arrangement. Lastly we had three Shaiman/Whitman originals, “I’m Not Lost,” “Chest of Broken Hearts,” and the titular song itself, “I Can’t Let Go.”

Veronica Moore has got love for her new one-night-only concert, but with a song list of her greatest hits, Derek is afraid the showcase is just “another good girl role for Broadway’s Sweetheart.” As if by kismet, Kyle and Jimmy are looking to get noticed by trying out their material somewhere that counts. That place just happens to be Veronica’s concert, when Derek challenges the duo to present him with a new song for her to debut. 

As the concert’s music director, Tom tells Kyle and Jimmy that while their trunk songs are good, they aren’t right for the concert. Kyle says that they’ll write “Something Ronnie and Derek, Broadway and them” in the next 24 hours (the same time it took Sondheim to write “Send in the Clowns.” But then Veronica’s “Momager” threatens to fire Derek for making the concert too adult, he succumbs and tells Kyle and Jimmy that their services are no longer needed. 

One of the concert’s back-up dancers goes MIA as - “and I quote - ‘my boyfriend requested that I no longer work with Derek.’” Ivy Lynn pinch hits as it turns out she was a swing when Veronica was Audrey in Little Shop. And in the biggest surprise of all, Karen is actually OK with working with Ivy. 

Julia feels hoodwinked when Peter the dramaturg invites her to his NYU class, only to have his students critique her Bombshell script. But after confronting him about his games, they end up day drinking on a weekday and cracking the code to fixing her Bombshell script. 

Ivy ends up becoming mother hen to the concert: inspiring both Ronnie and Derek to listen to their guts when it comes to the song list. And that final song list ends up including a new song by Jimmy and Kyle after all: a soaring ballad called “I Can’t Let Go.”

One last coda: Bombshell is freed of its legal troubles and OK’ed to move to Broadway but under one condition: Eileen isn’t allowed to produce it any more. Somehow, that pesky Ellis still ruins everything! 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Special thanks to Erica Dorfler, Megan Sikora and Vishal Vaidya for sharing their stories with us this week. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 score along with our thoughts and critiques of each number. Enjoy!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Sanders and original company member Tracee Beazer. Enjoy...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Little Secret” written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, and a preview of a song from currently-unnamed-show-soon-to-be-known-as Hit List, called “Good For You” written by Drew Gasparini. The episode also featured Megan Hilty singing a cover of Robyn’s ”Dancing On My Own,” as well as snippets of The Wiz’s “Soon As I Get Home” sung by Jennifer Hudson, and Katherine McPhee’s mini-rendition of “They Just Keep Moving The Line.”

Eileen demands that Tom and Julia meet with a dramaturg named Peter Gilman to make the quick fixes she thinks the show needs. Tom thinks Peter could be a shepherd for their play, but Julia is afraid dramaturgs are parasites especially when he reads her for focusing on DiMaggio instead of putting the sex appeal into Marilyn herself. 

Derek knows that new musicals take years to develop, but needs something now, something big. So he’s burning the candle from three ends: staging a Bombshell number for producers, scheming with Veronica Moore to get his job back at The Wiz and agreeing to meet Kyle and Jimmy about the plot that goes around their great songs. 

Ivy talks Smash’s real casting director Bernie Telsey into letting her audition for a revival of Liaisons, but feels like she has little chance of booking up again “real names” like Jen Damiano and Jessie Mueller. When she stops by Bombshell rehearsal to ask Derek for advice, she realizes that she needs to start “dancing on her own.” Tom helps her to realize the Liaisons role is more like Marilyn than she imagined, but the boost helps her win the part. 

Inspired or in spite of Peter Gillman, Julia writes a non-PG number for Marilyn and JFK called “Our Little Secret.” It loses Derek a job on The Wiz but Eileen calls it the perfect direction for Bombshell. 

Jimmy is his usual angry-white-man self, seemingly pissed off at every opportunity Karen and Kyle provide him to share their show with the world. When they finally meet, Jimmy describes the story of their show: a young man who hates the world but has a treasure trove of mind blowing music. Stealing his songs to catapult her to fame, a female fling gets addicted to the fame his music provides - and he lets her even though his love will destroy him. Derek is intrigued enough to pound beers with the team, and they begin their work on the new musical...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We had three featured songs in this episode: one cover of the Eurythmics’ “Would I Lie To You?” And two original songs by two different musical theatre composers: the first by then-up-and-comer duo team Pasek & Paul called “Caught in the Storm” sung by Katherine McPhee, and the second by our home team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman called “They Just Keep Moving the Line” sung by Megan Hilty.

Eileen summons her bruised songwriting team to attend the American Theatre Wing gala, but Julia can barely get out the door let alone put on cocktail attire. But Julia heard from Mary Testa who heard from Jackie Hoffman who heard from Cheyenne Jackson who heard from Harvey Fierstein that she and Julia would be presenting at the gala (a lie that Tom made you on the street). 

In addition to Bombshell being put on ice, Derek gets fired from The Wiz - not only because he shagged a couple of actresses but the five dancers are accusing him of sexual harassment. One of them, Daisy, serves Derek the T in front of Schnippers, saying “You don’t get it. You’re a big shot Director. You’re in a position of power from the mind you wake up in the morning and you don’t treat that power with respect.” Derek second guesses his serial seducing in a dream sequence set to the Eurythmics' “Would I Lie To You?”

Ivy is considering leaving the business, as she’s going in for parts that she would have passed on two years ago. But running into a drunken Derek on a stoop, he leaves her with one nugget of wisdom: “You weren’t my Marilyn, but what do I know?”

Karen Cartwright hunts down the young and unknown composing team. Half of the team, a twink named Kyle, is eager to collab with Karen. But while his songwriting partner Jimmy is cute enough to go to Greenpoint for, he is anything but agreeable. Even her attempts to wow Jimmy with an impromptu performance of one of his songs drives him away. Jimmy retorts that he doesn’t need help to make it big, but decides the next day that he’ll give it a go with Karen for Kyle’s sake. 

The American Theatre Wing gala becomes an embarrassment for the Bombshell crew, when Tom gets caught in his lie about presenting and Eileen is asked to leave by the League president. But she decides to leave the industry with a parting shot to remember: an announcement that Bombshell is coming to Broadway this season followed by Ivy Lynn giving a stunning rendition of a never-before-heard tune called “They Just Keep Moving The Line.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The premiere featured 6 songs: three original songs by our original team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, which were the good ol’ “Let Me Be Your Star,” a new song from Bombshell called “Cut, Print...Moving On,” and a new song from a different musical altogether, called “Mama Makes Three” from the show Beautiful (no, not that Beautiful) starring JHud. The two covers in this episode were the titular song “On Broadway” by the Drifters, and “Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House. Most notably though, the Season 2 premiere marks the introduction of composer Joe Iconis, who wrote the song “Broadway, Here I Come!” Iconis was the first of many musical theatre composers who were able to feature their work throughout the second season of Smash.

After closing the pre-Broadway run of Bombshell, Producer Eileen Rand assembles her growing team to announce her goal of booking a Broadway theatre by the end of the week. She’s also planning a soirée for potential investors and invites Karen to pick her three back up singers (Her selections do not include the libertine Ivy Lynn, who Karen is still angry with for sleeping with her ex-boyfriend.)

Derek takes Karen to see his former leading lady Veronica Moore tear the roof off of the St. James in a musical called Beautiful. However, this is not the Carole King biomusical but a rousing gospel show. After the performance, Veronica tells Karen “Someone’s always waiting to take you down, honey. But if the work is good, they won’t be able to.”

Disdain for Ivy seems to be growing within the production; While other pre-Broadway ensemblists gave received offers for Broadway, Ms. Lynn is still waiting to hear. At rehearsal for the producer soirée, Ivy asks Julia advice. The lyricist tells her, “Maybe you apologized to Karen, but you were apologizing for the wrong thing.” 

On their way to the event, composer Tom congratulates his boyfriend Sam on getting offered the General in The Book of Mormon tour. Sam says he would rather stay with his ten lines in Bombshell in order to be close to Tom. But as they canoodle down Central Park West they spot Julia’s husband caressing a coworker, effectively the final straw in ending her dissolving marriage. 

Covering for a truant Jordan Roth at the investor event, Veronica and Karen duet on an impromptu rendition of “On Broadway.” Afterwards, Derek tells Ivy that she won’t be joining the Bombshell cast on Broadway. However, the real drama happens after the performance, when Eileen tells Karen and the creative team that Bombshell is being investigated. While the government is looking into how Eileen received the financing, Bombshell is effectively on hold for the foreseeable future. 

The next day, Derek commiserates with Karen about how they’re both out of work, telling her “call me if you hear about something else.” But later that night while nursing a drink at a Restaurant Row piano bar, Karen meets a team of musical theatre songwriters who may just be Derek’s “something else.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 know when it comes to describing what makes a theatrical moment work. We had a spirited conversation about the trends she saw on stages, as well as her favorite musical and visual moments. Here’s the first half of our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We think that we, having been on the show and thus invested in it seven years ago, can now look at the show objectively and see how it resonates with us differently than it may have then.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No covers this week! Instead, rounding out the season was all music by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman. Just like last week, we had various snippets of the Bombshell songs, but most notably were a fully-staged production number (complete with Ivy cutaways) of “I Never Met a Wolf Who Didn’t Love to Howl,” and the thrilling last-minute finale of Don’t Forget Me, sung by season 1’s understudy-turned-leading lady Karen Cartwright.

It’s 15 minutes til places and the theatre is buzzing. Tom and Julia are feverishly finishing rewrites to give to their new Marilyn. But who is it? Karen or Ivy?

We are transported twelve hours earlier, where Derek, Eileen, Tom and Julia are arguing about how to move forward now that Rebecca has left the production. But in Derek’s mind he continues to see Karen as his Marilyn, so he makes the decision to put Ms. Cartwright on as Ms. Monroe. 

The day is spent putting Karen into the show, altering costumes and updating her on rewrites. And as the rehearsal progresses, Karen proves herself adept at the part. But even while she is being put in there are whispers that Ivy already knows most of the show, most notably from Ms. Lynn herself. 

When Ivy confronts Derek about why it wasn’t her, he finally admits to her that he’s always seen Karen as Marilyn in her head. She’s not the only one who is #TeamIvy; Even Eileen is pushing Derek to put Ivy on. When Karen learns that Ivy and Dev hooked up she takes her wig off and goes missing. Ivy goes as far as getting into Marilyn’s costumes but Derek gets Karen to channel her personal angst into the role and get back into rehearsal. 

And with that we are back at the evening preview with Karen shining as Marilyn Monroe, debuting Tom and Julia’s new ending to the show, a stirring ballad called “Don’t Forget Me.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Ensemblist loved sharing stories from its 22 ensemble members over its year on the Rialto. Luckily many of its cast joined us in the studio over the year to record those stories, and we’re happy to reshare a couple of them with you today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since this episode included Bombshell’s first preview, we heard snippets of all our favorites by Shaiman and Whitman: Let Me Be Your Star, The 20th Century Fox Mambo, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking, and a reprise (finale?) of Secondhand White Baby Grand. One newcomer to the original Smash catalog was (get ready for it) the titular song of Smash! sung in its entirety by Megan Hilty and Katherine McPhee. Two covers in this episode were Kurt Weill’s September Song, sung by Anjelica Huston, and Donnie McClurkin’s Stand, sung by Leslie Odom Jr. and Katherine McPhee.

The first preview of Bombshell and while Derek doesn’t want to jinx it he thinks the show is in pretty good shape! But Bobby the Soothsayer tells us: ““You go out of town and all hell breaks loose.”

He’s right, as Derek and Rebecca continue to canoodle, even after Karen tells her that Derek is seeing Ivy. Michael Swift is back in the show, arriving at the theatre only to be greeted by Julia’s entire family. But despite the backstage drama, the show goes on.

In a never-before-seen number, Ivy and Karen lead the female ensemblists in a number that feels wildly reminiscent of 9 to 5 (down to use of a mustachioed Marc Kurdish.) All in all, the show goes well but ends to crickets instead of wild applause. 

What’s the problem? Ellis hits the nail of the wig-prepped head, saying “It’s Rebecca. She’s good and all but she’s not landing any of the numbers.”

When Ivy finally confronts Derek about his dressing room antics, he tells her “Rebecca needs my attention, and I’m giving it to her. Is there any other approach?” (Spoiler alert: there is.)

After accepting Dev’s second take at a marriage proposal, Karen comforts Rebecca about the first preview audience’s poor response to the show. But as she is confiding in Karen, Rebecca has an allergic reaction to her smoothie and gets sent to the hospital. 

With previews for the weekend cancelled, but the creative team is plotting about their game plan if Rebecca doesn’t recover in time. The understudy, Karen, hasn’t had any time on stage, but Ivy knows the whole show. Yet, neither gets the chance when it is announced that Rebecca recovered. 

And yet while the drama seems high, it all seems to absolve by Sunday morning when Sam gets the entire Smash family goes to church! Wrongs are absolved, sins are forgiven and Karen unexpectedly leads a gospel number. But after the service, Rebecca calls Karen to say that even though she’s not going back into the show and that the production will have to crown a new Marilyn after all! 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cast member Elliott Mattox was gracious enough to join me on the phone to talk about how he heard the news and how he is grieving a show he didn't realize has already ended. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many theatre artists, including ourselves, RENT was a formative part of their creative identity. Like South Pacific, How to Succeed and A Chorus Line, RENT spoke to a specific part of life in America at the time it was written - ticking every box in the Pulitzer committee’s requirements. RENT’s impact lasted far beyond the show’s 5,123 Broadway performances- this little show about a slice of life in Manhattan’s East Village has been presented all around the world, and twice on film. 

At its debut, RENT felt like a completely new kind of storytelling, something that hadn’t been seen on Broadway in at least decades, but perhaps ever. But RENT’s connection in its spirit and staging to the Broadway musicals that paved the way for it may surprise you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Songs this week mainly featured non-Smash properties: we got an opening montage set to Cole Porter’s “Another Op’nin’, Another Show” sung by Christian Borle, and a cover of Rose Royce’s/Mary J. Blige’s song, “I’m Goin’ Down,” sung this time by Megan Hilty. The other two songs we heard were snippets from tech that we heard in previous episodes: “History is Made at Night” and “The 20th Century Fox Mambo.”

It’s “another openin’ of another show” for the company of Bombshell. The company makes the journey from New York to Boston for the show’s pre-Broadway tryout. The Ensemblists are joyously rolling their roller bags through Grand Central Station, Linda the stage manager is ushering costume racks into the dressing rooms. 

With the first preview two days away, the show is… not ready for an audience. Derek is on the verge of having a stroke, with the show’s technical elements barely coming together. 

The number one rule of tech is: nobody has any time! Derek doesn’t have time to tell Rebecca that her leading man has quit the show for a TV pilot. But when she hears that Eileen is thinking of bringing Michael Swift back, Julia gives an ultimatum: she can have Michael or her on the production but not both. 

Rebecca admits to Karen that she’s nervous about performing Marilyn for an audience. For the first time Derek seems to direct, telling Rebecca to “use her star power” in her performance. But he uses and abuses his own star power, giving her shoulder massages that lead to a dressing room make out session. 

Ivy goes through her own emotional rollercoaster, starting with Derek saying he loves her before standing in for Marilyn, to being relegated to changing Rebecca’s gloves and listening to her and Derek make out from outside her dressing room.

Jessica says “No civilians during tech. We’re in the middle of a war. They don’t get it.” Dev comes up anyway, and while out at a romantic dinner admits proposes to Karen. The following is the verbatim conversation between Dev and Karen after he pulls out the ring:

DEV: “Will you marry me?”

KAREN: “Marry you?”

DEV: “Yeah, it’s not all that crazy, is it?”

KAREN: “Of course not, I just don’t know what to say.”

DEV: “Say yes.”

KAREN: “I’m in tech.”

DEV: “...is that the same thing as a yes?”

KAREN: “I’m sorry, Dev. I’m just under so much pressure now. Tech is so crazy.”

DEV: “It’s sounding more and more like a no.”

KAREN: “It’s not a yes or a no. It’s I’m in tech.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Chorus Line. Without question, this show changed how ensembles were written, cast and perceived by audiences. Opening on Broadway in 1975 after a sold-out run downtown at the Public Theatre, it ran an unprecedented 16 years at the Shubert Theatre, as well as tours and companies around the world before coming back to Broadway in 2006.

On this episode, we dive into the legacy of A Chorus Line - how exactly it took the ensemblist experience and made it so universal, and how it became one of the most popular and best loved musicals in history.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There were certainly been musicals in those 18 years with ensemble step out features, as anyone who has played Gertie Cummings in Oklahoma! or Mrs. Schuyler Adams in Annie Get Your Gun could tell you. However, most of the chorus tracks were still relegated to the titles of “Ensemble Singer” or “Ensemble Dancer” (and rarely ever both).

That’s just one of the reasons why South Pacific was so revolutionary. Based on James A. Michener’s book Tales of the South Pacific (which, coincidentally, won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) the New York Daily Mirror wrote “It boasts no ballets and no hot hoofing. It has no chorus in the conventional sense. Everyone in it plays a part. It is likely to establish a new trend in musicals."

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nasia Thomas is the dance captain and plays Radio 1 in this Broadway revival of Caroline, or Change. She spoke to me over the phone about how she heard about both the shutdown and postponement, as well as what's she's doing in the meantime. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There were three featured songs this episode, which may have been my favorite episode soundtrack of the season. One cover of “Run” by Snow Patrol, and two original songs: the Bollywood-inspired original “A Thousand and One Nights” and shadow Marilyn’s ballad of “Secondhand White Baby-Grand,” both written by Marc Shaiman and Scot Whitman.

Derek calls Karen into rehearsal early to ask her to continue looking over the leading lady material, saying “I think you’d make a brilliant Marilyn.” Rebecca invites Karen to go out together in order for Ms. Duvall to “check out the competition.” When Karen slays Snow Patrol’s “Run,” Rebecca tells her “You are not an understudy, you are a star!” 

But Rebecca Duvall continues to give notes on the Bombshell script and score, including to ut one of the show’s only romantic duets “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” When Tom and Julia write a new song called “Second Hand White Baby Brand,” Rebecca says it should be given to one of Marilyn’s “shadow selves”: Karen! Rebecca continues to ingratiate herself with the company, making smoothies with Linda the stage manager, and becoming BFFs with Karen - taking her clubbing and giving her designer clothing.

Everyone’s having dinner dates: Ivy at drinks with Sam and Tom, Eileen and her bartender boyfriend out at BAM, and Karen out to Indian food with Dev and Rebecca, who end up passive-aggressively arguing about what Karen wants her future to look like. In her mind, Karen transports herself to multicultural Bollywood where Dev and Karen challenge each other to prove their love is longer than “A Thousand And One Nights.”

The number features 30 dancers including current Broadway performers Ericka Hunter, Nina Lafarga, Nathan Lucrezio and Katie Webber. The fantasy sequence is performed in an Indian wedding venue as scores of multicultural dancers in tunics and saris pitch their thumbs and middle fingers together and push flexed hands towards the corners of the room. In curtained corners of the hall, Rebecca, Tom, Eileen, Julia and the rest of our leading players pose in tableaus that reflect the song’s quandaries.  

Back in reality, Julia’s missing son turns out to be sleeping on a friends’ floor, but the search for him causes Julia and her husband to come back together. Her son’s return also brings Tom and Sam together, cementing their budding relationship with a sweet and subtle kiss.

Ivy watches Ellis relegated to making Rebecca Duvall’s smoothies, and concocts a plan to get both Rebecca and Karen in trouble by feeding them misinformation about the rehearsal schedule. When Rebecca returns 15 minutes late from a 10 minute break, Derek lambasts her. But when Karen doesn’t return to rehearsal at all, Derek gives Karen’s new song to Ivy. 

Ivy crushes her first run of “Second Hand Baby Grand,” which includes staging that rolls Rebecca Duvall upstage as Ivy’s Shadow Self takes downstage center. But the moment the company applauds Ivy for her spectacular performance, Rebecca tells the room that she thinks Marilyn should sing the song.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our plan is to release these re-edited versions from our season on The History of The Ensemble once a week for the next five weeks, so stay tuned for our episode on South Pacific in your podcast feeds next week.

Thank you to Jennifer Ashley Tepper for allowing us to reshare her stories with us this week.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s nothing more heartwarming than hearing these stories. So I brought together five actors who made through debuts this year together to share the stories of how and when they booked their first Broadway shows. Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode had three featured songs total, though one could argue that that spoken-word version of “Let Me Be Your Star” should count for half! Wow. The other two were one original song by Shaiman and Whitman called “Dig Deep,” and a cover of “Our Day Will Come” by Ruby & the Romantics.

Everyone in the Bombshell rehearsal room is abuzz about movie star Rebecca Duvall, especially her new understudy Karen Cartwright. But as the company sits in her first sing through of “Let Me Be Your Star,” they realize she’s not a vocalist like Karen or Ivy Lynn. You see, “Everyone said she could sing,” but nobody on Bombshell bothered to check first hand. Eileen asks Derek, Tom and Julia to come up with “constructive solutions.” Derek advocates for bringing Ivy back into the show, just in case they need her. 

All that Karen can wonder is what Ivy’s return means for her. But once Rebecca showcases her ineptitude, Ivy and Karen begin to conspire together. Ivy teases Karen, prodding her that “you’re counting the minutes until she implodes, and if you’re not you’re in the wrong business.”

Rebecca Duvall confides in Derek that she wishes Bombshell could delve into the story of Marilyn with “a little less singing and dancing.” The writers try adding in a short scene for her at the Actors Studio, but she is still perplexed by the idea that a character would break into song. Eileen advocates for Rebecca, demanding a new “extra long scene” for her Marilyn. 

Eileen imparts an old adage to assistant Ellis, “Keep your friends close, celebrities closer, and their assistants even closer still.” For Eileen, this includes Rebecca Duvall and her many, many, many ideas for script revisions. But in a late night work session with the creative team, Rebecca turns out to be surprisingly candid about her own limitations, asking for keys to be lowered and ballads to be cut. Based on the collegial session, there’s a new jazzy version of “Dig Deep” added that references Stanislavsky, childhood drama and Sigmund Freud.

At a screening of Rebecca Duvall’s new movie, Ivy and Karen talk about their hot-headed boyfriends and catch each other sneaking out of the boring movie. They share a laugh followed by Ivy announcing “She’s annoying. She stole our part. We hate her. Let’s go drinking.” After a few, Ivy tells Karen “When Rebecca Duvall goes down, everything’s up for grabs. You’re going to have to pry that part of my cold dead hands.”

In other news, Julia and her separated husband Frank come together to get their son to improve in calculus. Ellis gets caught trying to pull one over on Rebecca Duvall’s assistant. And Tom’s date with “chorus crush” Sam stops short of physical intimacy because “he’s old-fashioned and believes in God.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we speak with Tara Tagliaferro, who was performing in the Maltz Jupiter Theatre production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying when the show was postponed. She shared how the theatre has been taking care of their artists in unique ways. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we speak with Jane Bunting, who was in Dallas performing with the national tour of Come From Away until performances were cancelled on Thursday. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I’ll take a page from their stump speech and share with you that a spark file is a place where one consistently collects creative inspirations and fascinations. Laura and Susan are on the hunt for fresh ideas, images and inspiration that spark creativity and peak curiosity. Things that inspire all of us to get up off of our asses and make something! Plus, they have a kick ass theme song that makes my butt bounce every time I hear it. 

I’ve been obsessed with The Spark File since its launch last fall, but when I heard this conversation with Phillipa Soo I knew I had to share it with you. In this selected short, Phillipa, who you probably know for originating the role of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton in Hamilton, takes about the disappointment she felt during her next Broadway outing, Amelie, and the lessons she learned from it. Here’s their conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we speak with John Tupy, who spoke to us from Palm Desert, CA where he was supposed to performing with the national tour of Chicago until performances were cancelled Thursday morning. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we speak with Christopher Henry Young, who is currently in San Francisco performing in the "And Peggy" company of Hamilton, about how COVID-19 has affected the state of live performance in the Bay Area. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The announcement comes as venues and performing arts organizations around New York City and the country have announced closures of their own amid rising concerns about the global coronavirus pandemic.

Early morning, I spoke to Jessica Rush from the cast of Broadway's Tina: The Tina Turner Musical about how she heard the news and how she is coping with the prospect of being out of work for a month. Here's our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam is currently one of two actors playing Sven the reindeer in Broadway’s Frozen. Prior to clopping around Arandelle, he performed in the ensembles of Chicago and Cinderella on the Mainstem. He joined me in the studio yesterday to talk about how the coronavirus is affecting artists like him working on Broadway. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just yesterday, Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state, officially banned gatherings of more than 250 people. Of course, that includes theatre performances. As a Seattle native myself, I’ve been curious how the coronavirus is affecting the city’s theatre industry. And luckily, I knew just who to call.

My best friend Jason Kappus is currently in tech rehearsals for the 5th Avenue Theatre’s production of Sister Act. Well, he was supposed to until Governor Inslee announced the ban on large gatherings. After the announcement, I spoke to Jason over the phone to ask him about how COVID-19 is affecting theatre artists - and if the show really can go on. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Songs this week featured one cover of Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway” and two original songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman: a sort of reprise of Marilyn’s very first song in the series, but this time Katherine McPhee singing “Never Give All the Heart,” and a new song featuring stand-in Christian Borle called “Don’t Say Yes Until I Finish Talking.”

The episode opens with a room of cast, creatives and investors waiting to start a reading of the Bombshell script. Waiting, that is, on Hollywood star Rebecca Duvall - who misses playing Marilyn in the reading because she’s stuck in Cuba. In Rebecca’s absence, Tom, Julia and Derek come to Karen telling her that “they want her to understudy Marilyn.”

Many of her ensemblist cohorts giggle with Karen excitedly, but Bobby and Sam note that “she’s never going to hack it - especially after Ivy breaks her kneecaps.” Ivy is furious that Karen has been given the job, even when Derek tells her that her outburst at Heaven on Earth means he can’t “even hire her for the chorus.”

Derek verbally assaults Karen in rehearsal, which causes Bobby and Jessica and place bets on whether Karen will cry. Later at her apartment, Ivy shows a moment of kindness and advises Derek that “the only directors that were ever successful with Marilyn were the ones who babied her.” She continues her rebranding campaign, joining Karen and the ensemblists of Bombshell for appletinis after rehearsal and bringing her once-rival a pair of Monroe-inspired sunglasses. 

Back in rehearsal, Derek calls the cast to run “the Zanuck number” about Darryl R. Zanuck, producer of All About Eve and The Grapes of Wrath. When Derek asks “Where is Zanuck?,” Tom replies “You don’t want to know, but I’m standing in today.” The steam room-inspired number is performed full out by Manuel Herrera, Curtis Holbrook, Keith Kuhl, Spencer Liff, Leslie Odom, Jr., J. Manuel Santos, Phillip Spaeth and Wesley Taylor, One run through seems to be good enough, as Derek gives no notes and quickly moves on to Karen to guide her with kindness.

When Rebecca Duvall’s return is imminent, Derek shows up at Karen’s apartment to thank her for her good work. Not only that - he apologizes to Karen for his behavior back in the pilot episode. When Karen’s boyfriend Dev sees Derek walking out of their building, the two men get into a sidewalk fist fight. Dev floats the idea that she quit the show to avoid Derek. She argues back, telling Dev “Marilyn is everything I came to this city to do - everything that I want to be.” She goes to rehearsal the next day, covering the role of Marilyn until Rebecca Duvall shows (played by real life star Uma Thurman!)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What can make the challenge all the more daunting is when you’re joining a long-running show as an understudy as was the case with today’s guest, Jeff Heimbrock. For more than two years, he’s performed in the show’s ensemble while covering the role of Boq. I was curious about the challenges of bringing yourself to a character that has almost 16 years of history baked into its movements, vocals and infections - especially one that he only goes on for sporadically. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ryan Steele has a long history with the Broadway musical An American in Paris. After developing the show in its pre-Broadway workshops, he spent a year traveling on the show’s first national tour. After some time back in the city, he signed on for the production’s international tour which took him to China, Taiwan and France. Ryan came into the studio to talk about the differences in theatre audiences around the world - and how An American in Paris became the gift that kept on giving. Here’s our conversation…

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the course of this mini-series, we’ll dive into these questions and hear from some of the talented artists who have put their stamps on Queer Characters on Broadway. 

Today, we’re going to take a journey through time, looking at the evolution of queer stories told in Broadway musicals. So, jump into your time machines, and let’s head back to 1969.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of those actors is Jessica Rush, who plays the featured role of Rhonda Graam. Rhonda has been friends with Tina for more than 50 years, starting as the road manager for her and Ike Turner. Over the decades, they became close professionally and personally. So how does Rush, a veteran of six Broadway musicals over the last decade, take half a century of life and turn it into a small but featured character? Here’s our conversation...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices