So Much Stuff to Sing

The end of the 70s and, in some ways, the end of an era. Starting with Cabaret, we have traced the changes happening in theater in the wake of the end of the Golden Age. More mature themes and language, less traditional...

1975. The Broadway musical is maturing and evolving, and while it's probing deeper than ever before, this new style of musical has yet to produce a record-breaking smash. Enter A Chorus Line . The first show to set any...

We enter the 1970s: the era of Sondheim and Prince, of a modern Broadway for modern audiences, and of something new and vital that comes to take the place of a Broadway musical formula that had ceased to please...

The 60s roll on, and we come to the show that, more than any other, defines the 1960s musical: Hair . The ultimate hippie musical that broke barriers and box office records, Hair has become synonymous with the late 60s...

And so, with a seemingly endless wash from the cymbals, we enter the modern era. It's 1966, Hal Prince has taken to directing instead of producing, and John Kander and Fred Ebb are going to give life to his vision of a...

The 1960s would eventually completely revolutionize huge swaths of the American cultural landcape, including Broadway. But as is often the case, the early part of the decade looks a lot like the decade before: talented...

As the 1950s came to a close, Broadway continued to push and expand what could be done in a musical and what was expected of a night at the theater. Stars were becoming less powerful and less of a draw, though some...

As the 1950s moved on, new talents were emerging, taking up the challenge laid down by Rodgers and Hammerstein to create integrated musicals featuring real characters dealing with real issues. Among others, Jerome...

Rodgers & Hammerstein ushered in a new style with Oklahoma! in 1943, and soon, the old styles died away, putting up various degrees of resistance as they did so. Irving Berlin and Cole Porter both adopted a more R&H...

There's something deeply symbolic -- perhaps almost too much so -- about the Golden Era of the American Musical being ushered in by a song called "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'." But sometimes history is not subtle in...

Time marches on, and so does our exploration of the American musical's first century. In this episode, we say a bittersweet farewell to the musical comedy as it existed in the 20s and 30s, the era of the Great American...

Stop 2 on our 100 year trip through the history of the American musical: 1935 and Porgy & Bess . With music by George Gershwin and lyrics by his brother Ira and original Porgy novelist Debose Heyward, Porgy & Bess was...

Welcome to 2026, where we're going to go through the first 100 years of the American Musical from its earliest days until the present to track the changes along the way. As a musical once said, the beginning is a very...

After another plague of delays, we finally complete our miniseries on aging with the darkest and most brutal depiction of it we've seen. Once again, we return to Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812 by Dave Malloy...

Another grandmother joins us for this installment in our songs about aging, though Abuela Claudia isn't just anyone's grandmother, she is everyone's grandmother. Her solo "Patiencia Y Fe" is one of the standout moments...