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Sam.
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Hello and welcome to Broadway Radios this week on Broadway for Sunday, February 1st. We're here in February and I always have a problem pronouncing February 2026. My name is James Marino and in the broadcast today we have Peter, Felicia and Michael Portantier. Peter is a playwright, journalist and historian with a number of books. Peter's new Day by day desk calendar, A show tune for today, 366 songs to brighten your year is available at finer retailers. Peter also has columns at masterworks, Broadway, Broadway select in many of the places. Hello, Peter. Hi, Peter. Yeah, I think the first, I think this is the first musical I ever saw.
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Oh, is that right?
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Was Shenandoah and I saw it. I, I think that we, I think that it was the first musical I saw and I saw it at Jones Beach Theater. Oh, on Long island with Guy, Guy Lombardo. Is that.
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Wow. Did run that place. Yeah.
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So, yeah, conducting. Yeah.
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Wow.
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When I saw it. But the show tune for today is.
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What it's called, Freedom, because back in 1949, President Harry S. Truman proclaimed that this was National Freedom Day in honor of what happened on February 1, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln started the wheels in motion for the 13th Amendment that would abolish slavery. So anyway, in the 1975 musical Shenandoah, which is set during the Civil War, a young white woman in a black teen, arm in arm, doing a cakewalk, singing freedom, Freedom, Freedom, freedom. In a big rousing second act opener. One of the ironies is at around that time I was working for a TV station in Boston located in Needham, Massachusetts. And because Shed and DOA had tried out at the Colonial in Boston, everybody seemed to know the song. People were walking around saying, needham, Needham, Needham, Needham. So indicating there was no place else on earth that they would rather be. So I have a fond memory of that. But anyway, aside from that, freedom is a, a terrific song and it's well worth playing today.
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All right. Also with us is Michael Bourtonier. Michael is a theater reviewer and interviewer. He's the founder and editor ofcastalreviews.com and also a theatrical photographer whose photos have appeared in the New York Times and other publications. He writes reviews of cabaret shows for nightlife exchange.com Additionally, Michael is known as a producer and director of shows at 54 below the Laurie Beachman Theater and other venues. Hello, Michael.
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Hello.
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Hello. So some Broadway radio catch up here. Jan Simpson's latest stagecraft has been released to Patreon Listener. She talked with Matthew Libby, who is the playwright of Data that Michael's going to talk about later on this morning. Peter talked about last week. It is in Patreon right now for Patreon, Patreon supporters and it will be available later this week for general public. Also, Matthew Taminini has started a new series called In Review where Matthew is talking about shows that he is seeing. He sees tons of stuff out and about on the road as well as coming into New York, you know, 10, 12 times a year to see all the Broadway and Off Broadway stuff that he needs to do under his responsibilities for Outer Critics Circle and various other organizations. So he reviews Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the national tour at the Dr. Phillips center for the Performing Arts in Orlando. And you can check that out. That's also in Patreon and available to the general public. So Michael, as we were mentioning just a few minutes ago, you saw Data at the Lucy Lortel. Peter talked about it last week. What was your take on this show?
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Well, I think it's one of the best plays I've seen recently and I would make another headed to Broadway prediction. I don't know when, how, where, but I think you are going to see this play on Broadway sooner rather than later if there's any place for it to go. Obviously, really fantastic play by this Matthew Libby, directed by Tyne Raffaele. And as we said, Peter talked a lot about it last week. So I don't have much to add. And also I don't want to give away too much. There's an element of the plot that some of the reviewers gave away and others did not. It's arguably not a spoiler in the sense that you find out what it is fairly early on. But I still think it's better not to know what this, this plot point is until you experience it during the show. And to to, to describe the play in a nutshell, there's this young fellow named Manish who works in a tech company in Silicon Valley Valley, it's called Athena Technologies. And he's, you know, he young, he's 26 and he works in what is called the user experience team. He's on that team, which is sort of the somewhat lower level area of the company. But everyone else, including this woman he usually went to school with named Riley, played by Sophia Lillis. She is amazed that he's not working for data and data analytics, which is the higher level of the company, the people who do the real, you know, the real serious programming and stuff, because he's obviously very brilliant and so it's really interesting as we learn why Manish does not want to work in that area. He's a really interesting character, very well written and very well played by Karen Brar. B R A R. His mentor, even though he's younger than him, is a fellow named Jonah, played by Brandon Flyn Lynn, who's perfect for the part. I and I enjoyed him in that play about Marlon Brando and Tennessee Williams some time ago. Yeah, he was great in that. He's really up and coming as a star. So one more reason to see this play. And then, as I mentioned, Sophia Lillis plays Riley, Manisha's former classmate and now coworker. And maybe the best performance of all is this fellow, Justin H. Min, whom Peter singled out. He really is. I mean, the way Peter phrase it was that he does not seem to be acting. And I would phrase it the same way. He's like exactly what I would expect to see if I walked into one of those companies as the fellow in the. Well, in the pilot seat, I guess the. Pretty much the boss. His character's named Alex. So just a little bit of background. Manish had come up with a program that was able to predict probability fairly accurately or astoundingly accurately, I guess you would say. And he was using it, his example was baseball, to predict, you know, which players would do well and how well they would do based on their prior, their prior stats and everything else, every other variable they have about them. So the question here is that this company, Athena Technologies, wants that program, but they want to use it for what I think many, many people would view as a nefarious purpose. And that's the part I'm not going to reveal because again, I think it's better if you experience it while the show is happening. I do urge you to see it if you can get a ticket at the Lortel, but if not, I feel fairly confident that you will see it on Broadway again, hopefully sooner rather than later.
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All right, so data at the Lucy Lortel is running through March 29, 2026, and crossing all our fingers and toes that we can get to see again a little bit uptown. So, Peter, you were over at 59 East 59 to see the New Jersey Repertory Company's production of the bookstore. So tell us about this.
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Well, for one thing, as somebody who was seeing plays at New Jersey Rep in Long Branch, New Jersey when they started, it's a tiny 62 seat theater and. But they were devoted to doing new plays. That's all they were interested in. Okay. When they met Kim Hunter and they said, would you like to do something? And she said, yeah, on Golden Pond, they. They did have that happen, but virtually everything else has been a new play. And it's so wonderful to see them moving up literally in the world several miles north of Long Branch to come to see this play called the Bookstore. And it's exactly what you would think it would be, because after all, it better be a bookstore. And it's a beautifully, beautifully appointed bookstore. I will say that the bookstones seem to be organized in. In a fashion that you might see in a bookstore, but it's a casual bookstore. It's a tiny bookstore. And there are. If you look very, very closely, you will see that there are tiny, tiny tags saying, like, non fiction or something like that. But it does seem Helter Skelter now. Indeed, a friend of mine who said it does remind you of you've Got Mail, which was a tiny bit of a rewrite of Shop around the Corner. It's not about going out of business, though you would think that this book still would be going out of business because you never see one real customer, not one, and there are not one, not two, but three people working the bookstore. I do think it would profit from having another character who comes in in different guises, one after the other, you know, being customer. And that could be fun, seeing somebody play different characters. And that would be amusing. I do believe this is a play that got a laugh on its first line, that the playwright never expected to get a laugh because the owner of the bookstore comes in and she is freezing from the weather, and she says to herself, oh, my God, it's so cold out. And of course, we all laughed because we can identify with that at these moments in time. So that has to be the first inadvertent laugh that I've seen in a long, long time. All right, so what's the story here? Well, indeed, we have Jenna Zarish playing the owner of the store. We have Ariel Goldman playing a Yale graduate who's. Who's a writer. And that's what she does on the side. She gets up early in the morning, five o' clock in the morning to write. She wants to write a thousand words a day. She's going to get it done. There is a surprise coming from the character played by Ari Demboresky, who. Terrific. And seems to have no ambition whatsoever. We'll see if that's true as time goes on. But then there's also a character played by Quentin Chisholm, and indeed, he's a young man who comes in and the owner of the bookstore takes a shine to him and he to her, even though she's substantially older. And they become great friends. It's established that he's gay, but great friends, Great friends indeed. And this consternates the two employees who really feel that what's going on here? And to paraphrase. Well, to actually quote a line from Bessel Horror, I was there's nothing dirty going on. I mean, they're just having a wonderful friendship and, and good luck to them. Now, every now and then one of the characters will turn fourth wall and start talking to us. Okay, that's fine. That's the time on a convention, no problem whatsoever. Good luck to everybody. But, but I do believe that there's a big mistake made by the playwright Michael Wallach, who's done a very good job in writing the play because he has the owner of the bookstore be the first to do that and tell us information that would be far better if it were kept from us because we just know how this is going to turn out from what she tells us. And we don't need to know that information right there and then. It would be much better if it were a surprise as time went on. But indeed, because she spills the beans, by the time it happens, which she has told us, we're not the least bit surprised and we've been expecting it. So I don't know why that happened. I also don't think that there's much to be learned from these characters looking out at us and talking to us. But if you want to keep that, okay, fine. But don't, don't give away something so important. It really is the thrust of the play. So it's very nice to see three employees get along very well. Though as time will go on, there will be something that will be a. Another barrier between the two other employees. And it's a good one, it's a very smart one. But, but, but William Carden, who has directed that, you know the famous expression 90% of it is casting. Good Lord, what a cast. Each person is perfection beyond belief. It is just something. And you really believe they've been working together for a long time. So everybody is quite, quite wonderful. And if the play isn't a four star winner, it's close to it. So things may bother you as they did me, but by and large it's quite wonderful. And I really do recommend anybody who's interested in books and I bet that's most of our readers and listeners Indeed, you'll have a. A good time relating to people's love of books, recommending books, mentioning authors, favorite moments, all that kind of stuff. We all have them and so do the three people who are in the bookstore.
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Okay, so New Jersey Repertory Company's production of the bookstore at 59 East 59. We'll run through February 15th. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. Michael, you got on the Long Island Railroad and headed out to the Argyll Theater in Babylon, New York to see a production of Newsies. So tell us about this.
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Yes, I went last night, which was the opening, and it's a fantastic production. One of their best, I would say, and one of their most professional, it seemed to me. A couple of shows recently I thought were disappointing because in my view, the mistake that was made was that they hired a choreographer to direct the shows. Also, one of them was Greece, that I remember. And I. And I did not think that person had the directorial ability, so. But here, I'm happy to report there is a separate director and choreographer. The director is Tommy Ranieri, who I believe is making his debut with the theater, and the choreographer by someone named Trent Soyster. And they both did excellent jobs. So that was a great plus to begin with. And then the cast is just fantastic. Nary an equity person in the thing. Let's see. Catherine, the main female role, was played by Kara Rose DiPietro and she is an equity member. But other than that, let's see the role of Henry McLean. Rhine. Oh, Joseph Pulitzer. Pulitzer was played by Andrew Foote. F O O T E and a couple of.
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I'm sorry, I know that actor. Yeah, he's.
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Yeah, yeah, he was, he was excellent at the part. I, I hate the way that part is written, but that's another story. Yeah, that's another story.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. This, this production really reminded me how unfortunately unfortunate so much of the book is, in my opinion, the book that Harvey, far as Steam wrote around the. Well, you know, based on the original film musical. But regardless of that, everyone here did a superb job. Jack Kelly, someone named Mason Ballard, who could not have been more perfect for the part in terms of looks, voice, acting ability, type, did the perfect, perfect, perfect old time New York accent, crutchy. Jeremy Dermot. I'm sorry, this is a really tough one. Jeremy Dermotian, D E R capital M O V S E S I A N. Really excellent. Michael DeLeo, race, Carson P, Zach, Albert Emmanuel, Amalio Rodriguez specs, etc. Etc. Really, the choreography was superb and I would say the execution of it was for the most part superb. Also, I did notice a few turns that weren't together, but you know, but basically it's, it's really kind of amazing. Michael Cassara is the casting director there and, and to, you know, casting is never easy in most cases, but to come up with a cast of very young looking guys who can sing and dance really, really well and act well, and especially if again, we're talking about mostly a non equity pool, that cannot be easy. So it's almost miraculous to me to see a show like this where all of these amazing guys are up on stage doing incredible stuff. So I would highly recommend it. I enjoyed it thoroughly, even though I have major problems with the book and some of the score, some of the new songs that were written by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman as opposed to the ones that came from the movie itself.
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So.
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But if I enjoyed it, if you, someone who is a big fan of the show itself, I think you really have to put this on your must see list because it's, it's just so, so, so well done.
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In the book I have coming out called Musical Makeovers, Suggestions for Broadway's flops and hits, I make a suggestion for King of New York. I think all those kids should be singing about the King of New York, but I think Jack Kelly should be the one who says because he's the leader, he should be a cut above them and he should say, look, it's one day in the newspaper. Tomorrow nobody will remember it. They'll be wrapping fish in it. You know, let's keep our eye on the ball and get something done. It's, it's something he, a leader should be doing.
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So news is at the Argyle Theater is running through March 22, 2026. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. Just a total side not here is that the Argyll Theater website has absolutely no information about the cast or creative team. And that's, I find that very, very annoying.
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Yeah, I think they, I think they usually don't. And I agree with, I do have to agree with you that that is unfortunate.
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So I'm going to put all of this information from the press release from Joe Trent Acosta. I'm going to put copy and paste it into the show notes so that we can get everybody's names from the cast and creative team in here to memorialize it in some ways so that we can refer back to it. You know, that's a shame because some of these folks that are in the cast are Going to become the Broadway stars of the future. And we want to be able to refer back and say, you know, if you search through the Internet in five years, you'll have no idea that these folks were in Argyle's news. And that's not long term thinking from Argylle.
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Anyway, on a positive note, I completely agree with you. But on a positive note, they do have a full printed program, full color, you know, with of course, all the cast list and full bios, which not all theaters have anymore. So that is a plus. And also I think I noticed, I think this is true, that, that even the theater itself looks like it's getting more and more professional. They have, I believe, what is a new led.
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B
Yeah, no, no, no, they, they did, they did a huge makeover, spent a ton of money about a year, maybe 18 months ago.
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Okay.
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The LED front of the theater is beautiful. It's. It's a great addition to downtown Babylon and there's great restaurants right there, a little good coffee house right around the corner. So please get out to the Argyle Theater in Babylon. It. It's such a up and coming place. I love it.
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Yep.
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I hope it, I hope it's the next paper mill.
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Next up is Prince of Egypt, which I'm sure a lot of people will be interested in that because. Not done very often.
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B
Yeah. So. All right, and let me see. Prince of Egypt is. Do they have the dates? It starts April 16th. So. Yeah, so throw that in the show notes too. Peter, you were over at Theater Row to see Hans Litten, the Jew who cross examined Hitler. So tell us about this.
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Yeah, that's the long and unwieldy title of it. And it is based on a genuine incident. There's a note from the playwright that says, this is a true story. The events here represented here are grounded in historical facts. So. And indeed we are talking about a time when Hitler is trying to get going and has been incarcerated for. And now indeed here's Hans Little was part Jewish and he is a lawyer and he is going to do exactly what the title says. He's going to cross examine Hitler on the in, in court. Okay. Very, very powerful. But what happens is that of course Hitler comes to power and he doesn't forget who his enemies are.
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C
Who does that remind you of?
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You know what's really even amazing? One of the Nazis that's cast looks quite a bit like Donald Trump.
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Wow.
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Yeah, I'm. I can't believe that was accidental. But anyway, yes, indeed, he's terrible to his enemies. He makes sure that he goes to a concentration camp and things don't work out well there either, needless to say. So the parallels are amazing with what we seem to be witnessing today. And it. It certainly is a play for our. Under those circumstances. I wish that the playwright Douglas Lackey knew that. As my buddy Roger says, you have to earn a blackout. I think that's a very important thing, that you have to have a line or a moment that is so galvanizing that almost like the blackout takes your breath away. That. That's a lot to ask for, I'll grant you, but that you really are. Whoa. You know, And. And I'm afraid that very few, if any, of the scenes do that. They just end. So it's. It's a playwright who I'm looking for a euphemism for. He doesn't quite have the talent, but I can't find one. And. And that's really a. A problem. It. It does seem to be somebody who heard the story and said, okay, let me. There wasn't much style or imagination, and it was pretty perfunctory. And that's really the problem there. Much of the acting is, too, what's really something. And there's nothing wrong with this, but Zach Calhoun, who plays Hitler, it was really something at the curtain call to see Hitler come out and smiling, you know, like crazy. I mean, there's just something about that, because he does. He does look like him quite a bit. And you can't fault the actor because at that point, he's Zach Calhoun. He's not Adolf Hitler. So, I mean, you can't begrudge it. But there's something strange about it, I have to say. Well, at least, you know, I stayed till the end. But if I'm talking about that. So the acting is not of tremendous proportions by the supporting cast, but you got to give Daniel Yahilu Y A I U L L O a good deal of credit for doing what we talked about, what Michael was talking about earlier, what I talked about earlier, the type of acting doesn't seem like acting at all. He's somebody who really is. The character is so pushed into a lawyer, being a lawyer, because his father is just demanding he do something with his life. So he isn't even particularly drawn to it. But the more he gets into it, the more he really gets into it. And so. And the. The arc that this actor gets through is really, really something. So it's a fine performance, and I look forward to seeing him again in plays that are better written.
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B
All right, so Hans Litten the Jew who cross Examined Hitler at Theater Row is running through February 22, and we'll have a link to that in the show notes. Michael, you got got back to Radio City Music hall for the rescheduled. Was it snow delayed? Snow delayed?
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Yes, it certainly was. It was supposed to be on Sunday, which was, you know, ground zero.
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B
Yeah. So the New York Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel at Radio City Music Hall.
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A
So.
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Oh, Michael, tell us what heaven this was.
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Well, it was pretty historic because, you know, the Philharmonic and Radio City both have.
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B
Yeah.
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Great histories, but they have never played there. You know, I think this. No. Nope.
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Wow.
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Well, you know, they were at Carnegie hall for decades, and then they moved to their own space, and they just didn't. There was a time that time when. When what is now Geffen hall was being renovated into Geffen hall, and they might have played there then, and maybe there were plans for that. But of course, what happened was then the pandemic happened, so they didn't need to play anywhere during that period. And that. That was, you know, the pandemic was a terrible thing, but it was great for that hall because it allowed them to do all those renovations while nothing was happening anyway. And now it's just a magnificent redesign of that hall, what is now Geffen hall, anyway. But y. The Philharmonic's debut at Radio City, I'm sure a lot of the. This was urged by Gustavo Dudamel, who's the incoming resident music director of the Philharmonic, because he is very much about expanding the reach of the orchestra and having it play in, you know, maybe in places where it has not played before and for audiences for whom it has not played before. I would imagine, I'm going to guess that there were many people in Radio City Music hall who had never heard the New York Philharmonic live. And that is a wonderful, wonderful thing. It was also. It marked the debut of. They have a new state of the art immersive sound system that they used again for the very first time on this occasion. Now, you know, in most situations, an orchestra as large as the Philharmonic would not need to be amplified at all. But radio city is 6,000 seats, and so they. They wisely felt that it did need to. And that was interesting to me because, of course, I have heard the orchestra many times live, including later this past week, I heard them in another concert at Geffen Hall. So I know how they sound live, and I know how they sound in that hall. And so for the first, I would say, 20 seconds of the first piece that they played at Radio City, which was the Wonderful Town Overture. It took my ears literally about 20 seconds to adjust to the new sound. And then after that I thought, oh, this sounds really great and this is a wonderful thing that they've done. So it was a great program that included an eclectic selection of music. There was some Aaron Copland, there was the entire American in Paris of Gershwin. And I guess what it turned out to be a little mini Bernstein evening. Because it started with the Wonderful Town Overture which is not normally excerpted. I mean I don't know if I've ever heard that that played on any program by a symphony orchestra. So that was, that was really special. Then we had the. Got the Times Square Ballet from On the Town. On the Town is. Has been played and recorded by symphony orchestras before. But it was great to hear that again. I was wondering. The program itself was great and then I was wondering. I just had it in my mind that they were going to do an encore. And my guess was that it was going to be the Mob Mambo from West side Story because as I think many of us know that there's that incredible world famous clip of Dudamel conducting the mambo from west side Story. And it's just a. It's just a thrilling, thrilling video. So I was hoping to get to hear this happen live, you know, with the orchestra and then the. Also the, the audience yelling Mambo at the appropriate. Mom. So that was really great. That was one encore and then there were like two other encores. And then do you know what happened as the. One of the encores? Bernadette Peters came out my. And did the conga from Wonderful Town.
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A
Wow.
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C
With the orchestra, you know, some of the orchestra singing the, the parts of the. That's supposed to be Brazilian sailors that I think. Yeah. So that was. I mean the audience was just thrilled to see her totally unexpected and unannounced looking phenomenal. And that song, the, the, the. The musical. The vocal requirements of that song are not intense or anything but so she sounded great as well. And it was just a wonderful, wonderful historic night. And even though it was rescheduled from the day of the snowstorm and even though the night of the rescheduled Tuesday was also was freezing cold, it looked pretty packed to me. So. Wonderful, wonderful. Notable thing that happened this past week in the cultural life of this city.
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B
All right, that was a one night only thing. But I have a link back to the Philharmonics website for more information about it. I'm sure that I knew this information at some point or read about It, But I can't recall right now. Do either one of you know how they assemble the orchestra for the Tony Awards?
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A
No.
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B
I wonder if. Are they made up of various musicians that play pits around or, or are they an orchestra that plays together all the time or things? We have to look into that and see.
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C
Oh, I, I assume that, you know, whether it's at Radio City or elsewhere and, and we know that it is going to be at Radio City again this year on June 7th, right? Yeah. You know, there's a contractor who does that and I. Yeah, yeah. Assuming that they, they, they do it heavily from the, the Broadway pit orchestras, which of course are all free that night.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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C
So they have their pick of the cream of the crop, I suppose.
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B
All right, so next up, our last review of the morning. Michael, you were over at MCC to see Blackout Songs. So tell us about this U. S. Premiere of the Olivier nominated play.
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A
Play.
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C
Yeah, I think I would say the idea of the play to me was a lot better than the reality of it and the execution of it. It's about two young, youngish people, a man and a woman, who meet in, and hopefully in recovery at Alcoholics Anonymous and they, they become really very passionately involved with each other. But we see scenes from their relationship and they're not. Aside from everything else, they're not in chronological order, so that made it difficult to follow as far as I'm concerned. Something that unfortunately made it even more difficult to follow is that the woman character played by Abby Lee had a thick British accent. And I'm usually pretty good with accents, but I don't know if it was a combination of her particular accent and also the, the pitch of her voice. I would say I missed at least 50% of what she said during the entire show and that really, really frustrated me. Owen Teague, who plays the male character, by the way, they're. One of the. The effective things about the play, I thought, is that they're only identified in the program as him played by Owen Teague and her played by Abby Lee, and we don't actually hear their names until the very final scene. I, I think that can be very effective when plays do things, things like that, when something is revealed to us at the end that we didn't know previously.
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B
So.
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C
But his character has had an American accent, so I had no problem understanding him. And both of their acting was excellent. Please don't get me wrong. It's just I had that huge problem with her accent and I didn't like the structure of the play. And I also felt like, I mean, I guess this was part of the point, but I felt like we kept seeing, seeing kind of like the same things happen over and over again. The same types of things in terms of people falling in and out of recovery and having really bad behavior because of that and having a very volatile relationship because of that. There are quite a few similarities, as you might guess, to Days of Wine and Roses. But, you know, no music here. Not, not in this version. So I, those are my huge caveats about the play, which was written by someone named Joe White. I, I, the, the, the fellow seated next to me, I started talking with him and he was a Brit, so he said. I told him that I, I unfortunately could not understand about half of what Abby Lee was saying. And he said, well, he said even I had a problem at the very beginning. He said, but, but my ear adjusted to it. And so I. A lot more, more than I did overall for that reason. Because of course, if you can't understand half of what's happening in a play, that's going to severely hamper your enjoyment. Plus the other flaws that I mentioned. So that's my report on Blackout Songs, but two really excellent actors. I had seen Owen Teague in something else in a, in a little independent movie and he's another person to keep. Keep your eye on.
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B
All right, so Blackout Songs at MCC is running through February 28th. We'll have a link to that in the show notes, a few little newsy things to talk about. We got our April through first week of June schedules locked in this week where April 26 is both the Tony Award and the Drama desk cut off. April 29 is the Drama Desk nominations. May 5 are the Tony Award nominations. May 17 are the Drama Desk Awards at Town Hall. And June 7 are the Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall. So sort of locking up our schedule there, isn't it?
- [40:43]
A
Now, may I add Tuesday, June 2nd for the Theater World Awards.
- [40:51]
B
Second.
- [40:52]
A
We're negotiating a theater now, but it that it's going to be in the afternoon. We've had such problems in the past on Monday nights, right. Fighting with this event and that event. So we're returning to what John Willis originally had, which was an afternoon ceremony and a party to follow afterwards. So we know when we'. Clicked and we're not good. We're not going to indeed compete with anybody because life's hard enough.
- [41:23]
B
All right. Thanks for including that. Michael. You had mentioned before we started that there was people were not liberated at Liberation until 20 minutes after the Curtain.
- [41:41]
C
Yeah, yeah. This is really, really hard to believe. Well, I guess hard to believe, but I believe it. Someone named Reverb, I mean go, who goes by the handle Reverb, posted this on all that chat on the 28th, which was last Wednesday. And I'll read the whole thing. It's not long. I am posting this because I've read other posts about this happening to others in the last few weeks. Obviously the situation has not been remedied yet. Yet here's my experience. Tonight I went to see Liberation. I arrived at 6:40pm to a very long line that didn't seem to be moving. Much to my dismay and disappointment, I didn't get seated until 7:22pm the show obviously started at 7. I mean, I assume there was the usual 7, 7 minute delay. But yeah, the easy part was putting my phone into the yonder pouch. For people who didn't see Liberation, you were required to put your phone in a yonder pouch because there was nudity in the show. The hard part was getting into the theater. When I finally got to the theater lobby, I saw that the main doors were closed. They told me that they had already started the show. I totally understand that they can't hold the house because the delay would be costly. Several people around me were quite miffed about not getting in for curtain and went to the ticket window to exchange their tickets for. My question is this. What is going on at the Jones for people to not be seated in time for Curtin? The show has been running a while. This should not be happening. So I don't know what's going on. And it is apparently, I don't know how chronic it is, but it wasn't the only time this happened. I don't know if there's a specific problem at that specific theater. Maybe the weather had partly attributed to it, but I don't know. I mean, to me there's absolutely no excuse for that whatsoever. And I, I can't believe that there wasn't even more of an, of an uproar. This particular person who wrote apparently just went in and, you know, was fine with missing the first 10 or 15 minutes of the show and did not ask for their money back or for a, you know, to be rescheduled. So I've encountered several instances late lately and not so lately of audiences not being treated very well. And I think that's obviously very, very dangerous and counterproductive because I mean, without an audience, there's no theater. So I, I hope these things get solved. I really, really do.
- [44:34]
B
All right, and finally, with the cultural zeitgeist of Melania the Movie being such a box office smash, what do we think about a Broadway transfer? Will they be Melania the Musical? What do you think?
- [44:55]
A
Somebody wants it. It'll happen.
- [44:59]
C
I don't know, but I'm enjoying the memes. Like, if this movie was shown on the plane, people would still walk out.
- [45:07]
B
Still walk out. Yeah.
- [45:09]
A
Great line.
- [45:12]
B
All right, so that wraps it up for this week. Before we get on to our brain teaser and our musical moments, I want to remind everybody that you can subscribe to these broadcasts by going to the front page of broadwayradio.com, this is subscribe link. That way, each and every time we have a new episode of this week on Broadway, it'll be automatically downloaded to Apple Podcasts podcast for you. Of course, you don't have to listen to us in Apple podcasts has many ways to get us. As I mentioned at the top of the show, Patreon P A t r e o-n.com Broadwayradio is one place that you can get us earlier than everybody else. And a few bonuses and and support all of the Broadway radio shows like Matt Tamonini specials that he's been doing, as well as Jan Simpson's series and and all the other stuff that Broadway radio does. Contact information for Peter, for Michael and me, can be found in the show notes@broadwayradio.com as well as links to some of the things we've talked about today. So, Peter, do we have an answer to last week's brain teaser?
- [46:13]
A
This performer debuted on Broadway in a Sondheim show, not in the original cast, but as a replacement. There's a later Sondheim lyric that has that this performer might well have sung while auditioning had Sondheim not waited to write it 11 years later. And we're talking about a performer currently appearing on Broadway who's received enthusiastic reviews from critics, influencers and the public. We're talking about June Squibb now getting deserved raves and Marjorie Prime. And she got a lot of press for having been a replacement in Gypsy. Everyone mentioned that she was Electra, but she also had the role of maid. So while auditioning, had Sondheim not taken 11 years to write Broadway Baby June might well have signed Young. Hell, I'd even play the maid to be in the show this week. Sean Logan was first, Paul Witty second, Tony Janicki third, followed by Fred Abramowicz, Ingrid Gammerman and Brigad. This week's question on November 7th, 2025, the result of a game in the National Hockey League could be said to somewhat describe, somewhat describe what happened in a very famous Tony losing Broadway music. What was it?
- [47:28]
B
Okay, if you have an answer for this, email us@triviaroadraveradio.com we'll let you know if you're on the right track. So, Michael, what do we have in this week's musical moments?
- [47:39]
C
Well, as I mentioned, the New York Philharmonic at Radio City Music hall turned out to be a sort of a mini Leonard Bernstein tribute. So I thought we would feature two of those pieces here. The opener is the Wonderful Town Overture, but this is a record recording conducted by Lemon Angle for a Columbia album that was titled Another Opening, Another show, Broadway Overtures. And that album was released in 1959. So I think it was the first time that many people, or maybe any people got to hear those overtures in stereo. Oh, no, let's say Bells Are Ringing is on it. And that was already recorded in stereo. But anyway, it's a fantastic album with about 10 different overtures on it, one of which is the Wonderful Town Overture, which we're offering as excerpt of here. And the closer is the Times Square Ballet from a recording conducted by Bernstein himself conducting the New York Philharmonic. So, yeah, please enjoy these two excerpts of Leni. Gustavo Dudamel did speak briefly with a microphone phone during the Radio City concert. And he, he said, thank you, Lenny, because he was talking about, you know, the, not only the music they were playing, but the fact that Bernstein was, was associated with the Philharmonic in one way or another, including its director for many decades. So, yeah, they have a, they have a historic connection and it was a wonderful night. So please enjoy these two pieces by Bruce.
- [49:29]
B
All right, so on behalf of Michael Portantier and Peter Felicia, this is James Marino saying thanks so much for listening to Broadway radios this week on Broadway.
- [49:38]
C
Bye bye, bye bye.
- [49:53]
A
Sam. Ra.