Modern Era Of Broadway Episodes

TONY Award-winning Composer/Lyricist and Author of NEVER MIND THE HAPPY

My guest this week is Barry Joseph, the author of the recent book, MatchingMinds with Sondheim. Since his death,  there have been so many books about Stephen Sondheim and various aspects of his life and his career, including an amazing number of really terrific books, and I have had the honor of having many of the authors of those books as guests on this podcast. And Barry Joseph ’s book is right up there with the best of them, but it is also a completely unique and original way of looking at S...

Because this is a Broadway history podcast, I don’t usually comment on recently opened productions, since we can’t know yet whether they will be historically significant. The exceptions, of course, are major revivals of Broadway musicals from the past. And since I’ve been around for a while and had the opportunity to see the original 1986 London production of Chess , which ran for three years, as well as the 1988 Broadway production, which closed after only 68 performances, and a few weeks ago, ...

This episode was recorded in 2021 just five days after it was announced that Stephen Sondheim had died and as it happened my friend, colleague and frequent co-host and contributor to Broadway Nation, Albert Evans, was spending the Thanksgiving weekend with me, and so we were together when this news began to break and during the incredible reaction and response this loss over the days that followed. The coverage of Sondheim’s life and legacy in both traditional and social media had been phenomena...

With author DAN ELISH

With author ROBERT W. SCHNEIDER

With author ROBERT W. SCHNEIDER

With author ROBERT W. SCHNEIDER

With special guest DAN KNECHTGES

With authors Irene Sankoff and David Hein

A conversation with authors IRENE SANKOFF and DAVID HEIN

Author of HOW SONDHEIM CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Author of HOW SONDHEIM CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Author of HOW SONDHEIM CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

This episode features David Armstrong who is the author & podcast host of Broadway Nation

Author of HOW SONDHEIM CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Author of HOW SONDHEIM CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

With special guest Albert Evans

This week’s episode of Broadway Nation is the second half of my conversation with author Ron Fassler, whose latest book is titled The Show Goes On — Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements . Among the outstanding Broadway performers and creatives who are at the center Ron’s fascinating stories include Abe Burrows, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Comden & Green, Cynthia Erivo, Fantasia, Frank Loesser, Gower Champion, Harold Prince, Howard Keel, Iva Withers, Jane Russell, Jeff Conaway, Jerry ...

With author RON FASSLER

With special guest Lee Roy Reams

This is the second half of this week's Encore presentation of my conversation with Tony-award-winning lighting designer Ken Billington . Last week, Ken received rave reviews for his lighting design of the new Broadway musical SMASH , which amazingly is his 108th Broadway production. So, I thought it was an ideal time to revisit this fascinating conversation about the history of lighting design on Broadway and Ken’s own tremendous contribution to it. If you missed part one you may want to catch u...

This is a special encore episode of my 2022 interview with Tony-award-winning lighting designer Ken Billington . This past week, Ken received rave reviews for his lighting design of the new Broadway musical SMASH , which amazingly is his 108th Broadway production. So, I thought it was an ideal time to revisit this fascinating conversation about the history of lighting design on Broadway and Ken’s own tremendous contribution to it. This is a two-part conversation and I will be rereleasing both pa...

My guest this week is the three-time Tony award-winning Broadway orchestrator Doug Besterman , whose 31 Broadway musicals include The Producers , Fosse , Thoroughly Modern Millie , and his very first show, the 1991 revival of Damn Yankees , to name only a few. During this current Broadway season, Besterman will achieve something unheard of in his field: he will have three big musicals — Death Becomes Her , Boop!, and Smash — all running simultaneously on Broadway. Making it even more remarkable,...