BROADWAY NATION

Today’s episode is the second part of my recent conversation with author BEN WEST, regarding his his exceptionally comprehensive new book: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL — EVOLUTION OF AN ART FORM. This book traces the American Musical’s creative journey from its 19th Century beginnings through its 20th Century maturation, and on to the turn of the 21st century. Along the way, Ben West sheds new light on a myriad of shows, authors, directors, and performers including a host of often-overlooked women and African-American artists. If you missed the first episode in this series you may want to go back and catch on that before listening to this one. As our previous episode ended Ben and I were discussing the revue form, especially the annual revues such as the Ziegfeld Follies and Earl Carroll’s Vanities. Today we pick up conversation with some of the other forms of musical theater that Ben explores in Part Two of his book, a section that he titles Birth Of An Art Form. Ben Westis a musical theatre artist and historian who created the extensive “Timeline Wall” exhibits for the Museum of Broadway that trace the history of the Broadway stage from 1732 to 2021 and spotlight more than 500 productions and 100 artists. He has worked in various capacities on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally, and created and directedUnsung Carolyn Leighfor Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. West has lectured and spoken at several institutions including Yale University, University of Michigan, the Dramatists Guild, and the Shubert Organization. He is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award. Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! This podcast is made possible in part by the generous support of our Patron Club Members, including our newest member, Taryn Darr. For just $7.00 a month, you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions ofmany of the discussions that I have with my guests —in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions.You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast.All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgment of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is author BEN WEST, who joins me to discuss his exceptional new book: THE AMERICAN MUSICAL — EVOLUTION OF AN ART FORM. This book is a comprehensive history of the American Musical that traces the form’s creative journey from its 19th Century beginnings through its 20th Century maturation, and on to the turn of the 21st century. Along the way Ben sheds new light on a myriad of authors, directors, and craftspeople who worked on Broadway and beyond. In a similar way to this podcast, this book actively addresses the form’s often-overlooked female and African-American artists. It also goes beyond the strict boundaries of Broadway to explore such outside influences as minstrelsy, vaudeville, nightclubs, and burlesque as well as the dynamic relationship between the American Musical and and the consciousness of its country that gave it birth. Ben Westis a musical theatre artist and historian who created the extensive “Timeline Wall” exhibits for the Museum of Broadway that trace the history of the Broadway stage from 1732 to 2021 and spotlight more than 500 productions and 100 artists. He has worked in various capacities on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally, and created and directedUnsung Carolyn Leighfor Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. West has lectured and spoken at several institutions including Yale University, University of Michigan, the Dramatists Guild, and the Shubert Organization. He is a recipient of Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is Jack Viertel who joins us to talk about his delightful new novel, Broadway Melody. This is one of a fascinating wave of novels that explore the history of Broadway though a combination of fictional characters and real-life Broadway figures. Jack Viertel began his theatrical career as a drama critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and then worked as a dramaturg at the Mark Taper Forum. This led to him serving three decades as Creative Director and Senior Vice President of Jujamcin Theaters where he oversaw the production of 50 Broadway plays and musicals. Simultaneously, during two of those decades, he also served as the Artistic Director of the New York City Center’s Encores! series, producing 65 musical revivals. And he was a creative force behind a string of blockbuster musicals including Smokey Joe’s Café, Dear Evan Hanson, and Hairspray. He taught musical theater at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Secret Life of The American Musical. I want to thank all of our Broadway Nation Patron Club members, including our longtime Producer Level patrons, Paula & Steve Reynolds. Their generous support helps to make it possible for me to bring this podcast to you each week. If you would like to support the creation of Broadway Nation, here is the information about how you too can become a patron. Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! For just $7.00 a month, you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions ofmany of the discussions that I have with my guests —in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions.You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast.All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgment of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During an incredible Broadway career that stretched from 1953 to 1998, composer Cy Coleman created the music for 12 Broadway musicals.Unlike most Broadway composers, however, he was never part of an ongoing songwriting team but instead worked with seven very talented but very different collaborators.My guest today is one of those esteemed lyricists -- David Zippel who partnered with Cy Coleman on the score for the 1990 Tony Award winning "Best Musical", City Of Angels the hit musical that altogether received 10 Tony Awards including Coleman and Zippel’s win for Best Score.That show launched David on his own stellar career which has honored with two Academy Award nominations, two Grammy Award nominations, and three Golden Globe nominations. His songs can be heard on over twenty-five million CDs around the world that include recording by Stevie Wonder, Christina Aguilera, Mel Torme, Ricky Martin, Cleo Laine, Barbara Cook, Nancy LaMott, and include the Original Broadway Cast and Soundtrack recordings of The Goodbye Girl, The Women In White, The Swan Princess and Disney’s Hercules and Disney’s Mulan. David and I first met shortly after we had both arrived in NY in the early 1980’s and have remained friends and colleagues ever since.Today we begin our conversation talking about Coleman’s Russian-Jewish heritage.So many Broadway songwriters -- Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen, Leonard Bernstein to name just a few were the children or grandchildren of Russian-Jewish immigrants. If you enjoy this podcast, I invite to join my Broadway Nation Facebook Group where there is a large and lively community of musical theater enthusiasts.We have a great deal of fun and I feel certain that you will too! And If you would like to hear more about Carolyn Leigh, Dorothy Fields, Betty Comden and other women who invented the Broadway musical, you may want to check out Episode 7 and 8 of Broadway Nation. Special thanks Special thank the Julia Murney and David David Burnham, everyone at KVSH 101.9 FM the voice of beautiful Vashon, Island Washington, and to the entire team at the Broadway Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the second part of my discussion with Tony Award-winning Costume Designer Ann Hould-Ward in which we trace the legacy chain of Broadway costume design expertise that was handed down directly over a 100-year period from Aileen Bernstein to Irene Shariff to Patricia Zipprodt to Ann Hould-Ward, herself.If you missed the previous episode you may want to listen to that first. During our discussion was also touch on the careers of the legendary designers Florence Klotz, Ann Roth, Willa Kim, and Theaoni Aldredge. All in all, these amazing women designed more than 500 Broadway plays and musicals! Ann Hould-Ward is the Tony Award-winning costume designer whose work includes the original Broadway productions of Beauty And The Beast, Into The Woods, Sunday In The Park With George, Falsettos, and the revival of The Color Purple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To celebrate Women's History Month he is the first of two episodes recorded during the pandemic about the history of Broadway Costume design with special guest Ann Hould-Ward. Irene Sharraff is the legendary Broadway costume designer whose incredible 56-year career spanned from 1933 to 1989. She designed the costumes for more than 52 Broadway musicals including As Thousands Cheer, Jubilee, On Your Toes, The Boys From Syracuse, Lady In The Dark, The King And I, West Side Story, Flower Drum Song, Funny Girl, Sweet Charity, and Jerome Robbins Broadway.She was nominated for six Tony Awards and won the Tony for The King And I, and she received five Academy Awards for her designs for the now classic films An American In Paris, The King And I, West Side Story, Cleopatra, and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf. One of the main threads of this podcast is how the arts and crafts of the Broadway Musical have been handed down directly from one practitioner to the next, generation to generation. Irene Sharaff is at the center of a succession of dynamic women that goes back more than 100 years to the earliest days of the Broadway Musical and continues right up to today. All of these women were mentored by one or more of the great female designers that came before them, all of them became Tony Award-winning star designers in their own right, and all of them have passed on the art and craft of theatrical costume design to the next generation. In this episode, I trace the legacy chain of Broadway costume design that was handed down from Aileen Bernstein to Irene Sharaff to Patricia Zipprott to Ann Hould-Ward.I recently had the pleasure of discussing all this with Ann Hould-Ward herself. Ann Hould-Ward is the Tony Award-winning costume designer whose work includes the original Broadway productions of Beauty And The Beast, Into The Woods, Sunday In The Park With George, Falsettos, and the revival of The Color Purple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is Robert W. Schneider who joins me to talk about his new podcast, Broadway Bound — The Musicals That Never Came To Broadway. Each of the ten episodes in the first season of this wonderfully researched new series focuses on a high-profile musical that was on its way to Broadway but for various reasons never made it.Analyzing and identifying those reasons is part of what makes this series so fascinating. Musicals featured in the first season include Arthur, Minsky’s, Breakfast At Tiffany’s, The Baker’s Wife, Juliet Of The Spirits, Busker’s Alley, The Graduate, and The Mambo Kings. Rob Schneider is an original programming producer at 54 Below, where he has produced and directed more than 100 events, and Artistic Director of the J2 Spotlight Theater Company. In addition to Broadway Bound, Rob is the host and producer of two other popular theater podcasts: Behind the Curtain: Broadway’s Living Legends and Fifty Key Stage Musicals, which was inspired by his book of the same title. All three of which can be heard on the Broadway Podcast Network. Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! I want to thank our Broadway Nation Patron Club members, such as longtime members Chris Moad and Judy Hucka, whose generous support helps to make it possible for me to bring this podcast to you each week. If you would like to support the creation of Broadway Nation, here is the information about how you too can become a patron. For just $7.00 a month, you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions ofmany of the discussions that I have with my guests —in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions.You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast. All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgment of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest again this week is authorMaya Cantu who returns for the third and final part of our conversation about her fascinating book:Greasepaint Puritan — Boston to 42nd Street in the Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes. In this episode we focus on Ropes’ 1934 novel,Go Into Your Dance, the third in his evocative backstage trilogy which also includes42nd Street(the source material for both the classic film and the stage musical), andStage Mother,(a sort of proto version ofGypsy).All three of these novels were heavily inspired by Ropes’ actual experiences as a dancer and performer on Broadway and in Vaudeville during the 1920s. To a great extentGo Into Your Danceis a roman á clef of the star dancer & legendary showman George White and his scandals, both professional and personal, including his long-standing relationship with Broadway star Ann Pennington, fictionalized by Ropes as "Ted Howard," who rises from messenger boy to dancer to one of the most powerful figures on Broadway, and his indispensable collaborator, "Nora Wayne." Ted Howard's seriesof "Town Talk"revues become major competition for "Lane's Frivolities"(Ziegfeld Follies), and along the way he interacts with figures from what Maya and I dub the "Bradford Ropes Literary Universe" such as producer/director, "Julian Marsh," dance director, "Andy Lee," and "the Wilson Brothers," a thinly disguised version of the Shuberts). Of perhaps greatest interest are the two gay chorus boys, Arthur and Bobby, who befriend Ted when he joins the chorus of Marsh's musical "Sweet Sally," and play a crucial role in the plot of this remarkable novel. Maya and I also discuss the major themes that tie these novels together, as well as her remarkable six-year journey in unearthing and re-discovering the life and work of Bradford Ropes. If you missed the first two episodes in this series you may want to catch up with those before listening to this one. May Cantu is a dramaturg and historian who teaches on the Drama Faculty of Bennington College and is also the author ofAmerican Cinderella on the Broadway Musical Stage: Imagining the Working Girl from “Irene” to “Gypsy”. Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! I want to thank our Broadway Nation Patron Club members, such as longtime members Kelly Allen and Elizabeth Troxler., whose generous support helps to make it possible for me to bring this podcast to you each week. If you would like to support the creation of Broadway Nation, here is the information about how you too can become a patron. For just $7.00 a month, you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions ofmany of the discussions that I have with my guests —in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions.You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast. All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgment of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest again today is author Maya Cantu who returns to discuss her book, Greasepaint Puritan — Boston to 42nd Street in the Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes. In this terrific new book Maya reclaims the life and work of vaudeville, nightclub and Broadway dancer turned novelist and screenwriter Bradford Ropes, with a central focus on his three long-forgotten backstage novels: 42nd Street on which the classic film and stage adaptation were based, Go Into Your Dance, a thinly disguised fictional version of the career of Broadway showman George White and his scandals, and the one we will focus on today, his 1933 novel Stage Mother. All of which were inspired by Rope’s own experiences as a gay man in show business during the 1920s. If you missed part of our conversation you may want to catch up with that before listening to this one. May Cantu teaches on the Drama Faculty of Bennington College, and is also the author of American Cinderella on the Broadway Musical Stage: Imagining the Working Girl from “Irene” to “Gypsy”. And as you will hear the parallels between Stage Mother and Gypsy are striking. Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! I want to thank our Broadway Nation Patron Club members, such as longtime members Juan J.Nuemeister and Ruth Oberg, whose generous support helps to make it possible for me to bring this podcast to you each week. If you would like to support the creation of Broadway Nation, here is the information about how you too can become a patron. For just $7.00 a month, you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions ofmany of the discussions that I have with my guests —in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions.You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast. All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgment of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is author Maya Cantu who joins me to discuss her new book, Greasepaint Puritan — Boston to 42nd Street in the Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes. In this book Maya reclaims the life and work of Bradford Ropes, the author of the naughty, bawdy, gaudy, sporty, and very gay novel, 42nd Street, on which both the classic film and stage adaptation are based. That’s just the first of his three long-forgotten novels that include Stage Mother and Go Into Your Dance, all of which were inspired by Rope’s own experiences as a performer, and all three of which give us a chance to go backstage on Broadway during the 1920s and experience the lives of gay men in show business. As you will hear Maya Cantu has done a miraculous job of uncovering all of this Cantu is a dramaturg and interdisciplinary scholar who teaches on the Drama Faculty of Bennington College. She is also the author of American Cinderella on the Broadway Musical Stage: Imagining the Working Gril from “Irene” to “Gypsy”. Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! I want to thank our Broadway Nation Patron Club members, such as our newest member Cheryl Hodges-Selden whose generous support helps to make it possible for me to bring this podcast to you each week. If you would like to support the creation of Broadway Nation, here is the information about how you too can become a patron. For just $7.00 a month, you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions ofmany of the discussions that I have with my guests —in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions.You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast. All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgment of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices