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PODCAST

BROADWAY NATION

Broadway Podcast Network

A lively and opinionated cultural history of the Broadway Musical that tells the extraordinary story of how Immigrants, Jews, Queers, African-Americans and other outcasts invented the Broadway Musical, and how they changed America in the process.In Season One, host David Armstrong traces the evolution of American Musical Theater from its birth at the dawn of the 20th Century, through its mid-century “Golden Age”, and right up to its current 21st Century renaissance; and also explore how musicals

history performing arts

All Episodes

45:02

Episode 176: In Memory of CHARLES STROUSE

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/05/20

I, along with the rest of the musical theater world, was saddened to learn that composer CHARLES STROUSE, one of the last of the great creators from the Golden Age of Broadway had passed away last week at the age of 96. Of course, Strouse and his three Tony Award-winning “Best Musicals": Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie — have been discussed frequently on this podcast. So over the weekend, I dug deep into the archives of Broadway Nation and newly adapted a section of my upcoming book regarding

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33:13

Happy Birthday Broadway Nation!: Special Anniversary...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/05/13

It's hard for me to believe that I launched this podcast exactly five years ago this week, and even harder for me to comprehend that, to date, more than 279,000 people, from nearly every country in the world, have listened to at least one, and in many cases all, of the 175 episodes! So, today it seemed fitting to rerelease the episode that started it all — the very first episode of Broadway Nation: George M. Cohan and the Immigrants Who Invented Broadway. As you will hear, at the time, we were

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52:02

Episode 175: THE OTHER GERSHWIN, part 3, with MICHAEL...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/05/06

This is the third and final segment of my conversation with Michael Owen, author of the recent book, Ira Gershwin — A Life in Words. On this episode, Michael and I focus on the period of Ira Gershwin’s career following the death of his brother George, during which he had success on Broadway and in Hollywood with composers such as Kurt Weill, Jerome Kern, Arthur Schwartz, and Harold Arlen, and shows and movies such as Lady In the Dark, The Barkleys Of Broadway, and A Star Is Born, If you missed

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36:32

The Other Gershwin, part 2, with author Michael Owen

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/04/29

This is the second episode of my three-part conversationwith author, historian, researcher, and archivist, Michael Owen, whose recent book, Ira Gershwin — A Life in Words, is the first full-length biography devoted to that outstanding artist who penned the words for many of the greatest songs of the 20th Century. If you missed part one, you may want to catch up with that before listening to this one. Michael Owen is also the author of Go Slow — The Life of Jule London and the editor of The

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51:29

Episode 173: THE OTHER GERSHWIN — with MICHAEL OWEN,...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/04/22

My guest today is Michael Owen, whose recent book Ira Gershwin—A Life in Words is the first full-length biography devoted to the other Gershwin. In this book, Owen at last brings Ira Gershwin out from behind the long shadow cast by his younger and more famous brother, George. Drawing on extensive archival research, Owen often uses Ira’s own words to create a captivating portrait of a shy and retiring artist who, nevertheless, penned the words for many of the greatest songs of the twentieth

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30:28

Encore Episode: Razzle Dazzle: A Brief History of...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/04/20

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 up

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43:13

Color and Light — A Brief History of Broadway...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/04/15

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 parts

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8:14

Travel with Broadway Nation to New York, New York —...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/04/14

Since announcing last week that Broadway Nation has teamed up with Like Minds Travel to create a series of unique Broadway and Broadway history-related travel experiences specially designed for fans of this podcast, I have been receiving a number of questions, so I thought I createdd this mini bonus episode to answer them.As you probably know by now, we are kicking off this initiative with a whirlwind weekend in New York City, September 11—15, 2025, filled with Broadway musicals, Broadway

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59:21

Episode 172: THE ART & CRAFT of BROADWAY...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/04/08

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, two of

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54:45

Episode 171: MALTBY & SHIRE, part 2.

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/04/01

This is thee second part of my conversation with author Joshua Rosenblum about his new book CLOSER THAN EVER — THE UNIQUE SIX-DECADE SONGWRITING PARTNERSHIP of RICHARD MALTBY, JR, and DAVID SHIRE.We dicuss Maltby's work on the musicals Ain't Misbehavin', Fosse, Song And Dance, Miss Saigon, and The Pirate Queen, and the Maltby/Shire shows, Baby, Closer Than Ever, BIG, and Waterfall. Travel to NYC with David Armstrong and Broadway Nation For information this new Broadway Nation initiative, go to:

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48:58

Episode 170: The Six-Decade Songwriting Partnership...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/03/20

My guest today is Joshua Rosenblum, author of Closer than Ever — The Unique Six-Decade Songwriting Partnership of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire.This remarkable new book chronicles the sixty-six-year (and counting) partnership of two of the most gifted songwriters of our time and provides us with full behind-the-scenes accounts of their musicals interspersed with deep-dive analyses of some of their standout individual songs. To tell their story, Rosenblum draws on his extensive experience as

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30:12

Encore Episode: TRUDE RITMANN & THE WOMEN WHO...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/03/13

You may not know Trude Rittmann's name, but you have heard her music. During the "Golden Age of Broadway" (and beyond), she composed music for 33 Broadway musicals, including Carousel, Brigadoon, South Pacific, Fininan’s Rainbow, The King and I, My Fair Lady, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Peter Pan, The Sound of Music, and Camelot. In this episode, Albert Evans and I tell the story of one of the least known, but most significant, women who invented the musical. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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34:34

Episode 169: If They Asked Me I Could Write A Book

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/03/06

On this episode, I have a big announcement, so I asked my buddy, friend, colleague, and Broadway Nation’s favorite co-host and guest host, ALBERT EVANS, to join me today to turn the tables on me and ask me the questions rather than me being the interviewer.As you may have guessed from the episode title, the announcement is that I have a book coming out called BROADWAY NATION (sound familiar?) and the subtitle will be similar to what you've heard before as well: HOW IMMIGRANT JEWISH, QUEER AND

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78:30

Episode 168: ACADEMY AWARD WINNING MUSICALS — The...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/02/27

On this episode, Albert Evans retuns to Broadway Nation to discuss a topic we don't often broach on this podcast: Movie Musicals. Of course, movie musicals go hand in glove with Broadway musicals and many film musicals originated as Broadway musicals including several we talk about here because our principal topic is Movie Musicals that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Coming up this weekend we, of course, have the possibility of the blockbuster Wicked becoming another Broadway musical to

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35:36

Episode 167: HELEN MORGAN, part 3

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/02/20

My guest again this week is Christopher S. Connelly, author of the fascinating new book HELEN MORGAN — THE ORIGINAL TORCH SINGER AND ZIEGFELD'S LAST STAR. On this episode, Christopher and I look at Helen Morgan's life and career during the 1930s, both in Hollywood and on Broadway. And we delve a bit into her personal story, including the love of her life and her several marriages. we end by looking at her extraordinary legacy, including the two filmed biographies of her life that both came out

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36:12

Episode 166: HELEN MORGAN, part 2.

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/02/13

My guest again this week is Christopher S. Connelly, author of the fascinating new book HELEN MORGAN — THE ORIGINAL TORCH SINGER AND ZIEGFELD'S LAST STAR. The topics discussed in this episode include: Morgan's follow up to Show Boat, the 1929 hit musical Sweet Adeline — a star vehicle created especially for her by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. The 1932 revival of Show Boat and subsequent tour. Morgan's career as a nightclub hostess and entertainer at a series of night spots named

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45:53

Episode 165: HELEN MORGAN — THE ORIGINAL TORCH SINGER...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/02/06

This week my, guest is Christopher T. Connelly, the author of the fascinating new book HELEN MORGAN — THE ORIGINAL TORCH SINGER AND ZIEGFELD'S LAST STAR. There are a number of individuals who were very big Broadway stars back in what I call the Silver Age of Broadway (the 1920s and 30s), But who today are mostly overlooked and left out of the conversation. Performers who were on a level with Jolson and Cantor and Fanny Bryce, but whose fame has almost entirely faded. Of course most musical

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30:29

Special Encore Episode: BROADWAY COMES OUT!

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/01/30

The progressive and disruptive social movements of the 1960s and 70s had a huge impact on the Broadway Musical and were reflected back into the culture by them. These include the Civil Rights movement, Women’s Liberation, Black Power, and the Gay Liberation Movement.The Stonewall Rebellion in 1969 brought gay issues into the mainstream and during the 1970s LGBTQ+ people would become “out, loud, and proud” in significant numbers. Of course, it makes sense that this new visibility and feeling of

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32:45

Episode 164: THE MYTHS & LEGACIES OF GEORGE M. COHAN

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/01/23

This is the final episode of a three-part conversation with author Elizabeth T. Craft regarding her recent book, Yankee Doodle Dandy — George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage, the first book major work about Cohan in fifty years. If you missed the first two episodes in this series, you may want to catch up with those before listening to this one.In this episode, Elizabeth Craft and I discuss the final decades of Cohan’s remarkable career, during which he continued to establish and define the very

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35:37

Episode 163: George M. Cohan —The Man Who Owned...

BROADWAY NATION ·

2025/01/16

This is the second of a three-part conversation with author Elizabeth T. Craft regarding her recent book, Yankee Doodle Dandy — George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage, which is the first book about Cohan in fifty years. If you missed the first episode in this series you may want to catch up with that one before listening to this one.This week, Elizabeth and I begin with a discussion of Cohan, the entertainer. He was, without a doubt, one of the first brand-name celebrities in the modern sense,

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