BROADWAY NATION

Latest Episodes:

Episode 42: Fifty Years On Broadway with Lee Roy Reams!, Part 3 Oct 21, 2021

Show notes

This is the final part of my conversation with Broadway actor, singer, dancer, director and choreographer Lee Roy Reams, at least for now. I am sure I will have Lee Roy back for another discussion in the not so distant future. There is no end to the amazing insights and classic show-biz stories that he has locked in his memories. If you missed the first two parts you may want to listen to those episodes first.

We begin this episode with Lee Roy sharing his experience playing "Cornelius Hackle" in the 1978 Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! which was directed by an amazing woman named Lucia Victor. During her 45 year career on she was involved in more than 30 Broadway shows as a performer, producer, Casting director, stage manager and most significantly as the Production Stage Manager, Assistant To Gower Champion, and/or Production Supervisor on the original productions of Hello, Dolly, I Do, I Do, and 42nd Street.

Along the way you will hear hilarious and heartbreaking stories about Carol Channing, David Merrick, Marge Champion, Bob Fosse and more! And most thrillingly Lee Roy takes us inside the creation of the smash his Broadway musical 42nd Street, illustrates the genius of its director & choreographer, Gower Champion, andshares all the incredible drama of its legendary Opening Night!

Broadway Nation is written and produced by me David Armstrong.

If you enjoy this podcast please follow, rate and review the Broadway Nation on apple podcasts or wherever you listen. This will really does help other people who may be interested to discover the show as you have. Special thanks to KVSH 101.9 The Voice of beautiful Vashon,, Island, WA, and to the entire team at the Broadway Podcast Network..

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Episode 41: Fifty Years On Broadway -- with Lee Roy Reams! Oct 14, 2021

Show notes

This is the second part of my conversation with Broadway actor, singer, dancer, director and choreographer Lee Roy Reams whose nine Broadway musicals span from Sweet Charity in 1966 to The Producers in 1996, and as you will hear – he is still going strong!

If you missed Part 1 you may want to listen to that episode first. We left off there with Lee Roy leaving his job as a dancer on the Carol Burnett Show in Hollywood and heading back to NYC because he was determined to move out of the chorus and start playing principal roles.

The many shows, stars and Broadway creators that we discuss include Richard Rodgers, Agnes DeMille, Gemze De Lappe and the 1969 Lincoln Center revival of Oklahoma!; Lauren Bacall, Penny Fuller, Bonnie Franklin, Ron Field and the Tony Award winning Best Musical Applause; as well asCarol Channing, Comden & Green, Joe Layton, Ernie Flatt, Peter Gennaro, and the musical Lorelie. And more!

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Episode 40: FIFTY YEARS ON BROADWAY! with LEE ROY REAMS Oct 07, 2021

Show notes

I recently had the delightful opportunity to chat with beloved Broadway actor, singer, dancer, director and choreographer Lee Roy Reams whose nine Broadway musicals span from Sweet Charity in 1966 to The Producers in 1996, and he is still going strong having recently celebrated his 79th birthday with performances at 54 Below and The York Theatre Company!

Our conversation ranges from his childhood dancing schools in his hometown of Covington, Kentucky, to college in Cincinnati, to his dancing with the stars in summer stock, nightclubs, and on most of the big TV variety shows, and along the way working with many of the greatest directors and choreographers in Broadway history.

Hang on to your hats – talking with Lee Roy is always a wild and irreverent ride!

You can see Lee Roy dance the "Cool Hand Luke" number that is mentioned in this episode (along with several other of his fabulous TV appearances with Gwen Verdon and other stars) on YouTube -- and I have included links to those in the Broadway Nation Facebook Group.

Next week on October 13 and 14 the Fosse-Verdon Legacy will present a piece entitled the “Sweet Gwen Suite” as part of the New York City Center Fall for Dance Festival. This new dance piece is adapted from three dance numbers that were performed by Gwen Verdon on television including “Cool Hand Luke”.

On the next episode of Broadway Nation we will follow Lee Roy back to NY where he will indeed break out of the chorus and make history playing one of the first openly gay characters in Broadway musical history.

Broadway Nation is written and produced by me – David Armstrong. If you enjoyed this podcast, you can help other like-minded people find Broadway Nation by rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. I thank you in advance for helping to spread the word about Broadway Nation.

Special thanks to KVSH 101.9 the voice of beautiful Vashon Island, WA and to the entire team at the Broadway Podcast Network.

Note: This episode contains some salty language as well as a vintage lyric that includes a nickname for Broadway dancers that many consider to be offensive today.

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Episode 39: Carolyn, Dorothy, David and More: Cy Coleman's Lyricists Sep 30, 2021

Show notes

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.

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Episode 38: 100 Years of Shuffle Along, Part 2 Sep 23, 2021

Show notes

This week I continue my conversation with author Cassen Gaines whose fascinating new book Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way tells the story of how in 1921 four talented and determined young black vaudevillians -- Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles -- against incredible odds, teamed up to produce a runaway Broadway hit that ushered in a vibrant decade of Black Musicals on Broadway.

If you missed the first episode of this series you may want to go back and listen to that before you continuing with this one.

Although we now know that Shuffle Along became a giant, unprecedented hit -- no one, except for possibly the shows four creators, could have expected that it would have any chance of success. There had not been a black musical on Broadway in more than 10 years, and some people were even suggesting if Shuffle Along opened it might insight a race war! That's where we begin out conversation.

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Episode 37: 100 Years of SHUFFLE ALONG!, Part 1 Sep 16, 2021

Show notes

This year marks the 100th Anniversary of Shuffle Along! The groundbreaking musical that kicked off a decade of vibrant black musical theatre on Broadway which included more than a dozen shows created by black songwriters, black bookwriters, black producers, black directors and choreographers -- and these shows brought hundreds of black actors, singers, dancers, and musicians to Broadway.

This landmark event is being celebrated with the release of two wonderful new books – including the first full biography of Shuffle Along’s composer titled -- Eubie Blake: Rags, Rhythm and Race by Richard Carlin & Ken Bloom

And Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way by Caseen Gaines.

I have had the great pleasure of interviewing the authors of both of these books and you have the opportunity to meet all three of them in a series of upcoming episodes.

This week it is my honor to introduce you to Caseen Gaines whose extraordinary book, Footnotes, tells the story of how four young black artists -- Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles overcame poverty, racism, violence and the legacy of slavery to produce a runaway Broadway hit that ushered in both the Harlem Renascence and the “Jazz Age” on Broadway.

If you pay close attention to Broadway, as I know many of my listeners do, you will remember the that in 2016, writer and director George C. Wolfe created a star-studded Broadway musical which he tittled “Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed”. As that title suggests, this was not a revival or revisal of the of the original show but instead it attempted to tell the behind-the-scenes story of the making of Shuffle Along. You will also remember that it closed rather abrubtly and unexpectedly less than 3 months after it opened.

There was, however, at least one positive outcome from the early demise of that show -- and that’s where my conversation with Caseen begins.

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Episode 36: Everything Sondheim: Inside the Creation of The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia with author Rick Pender Sep 09, 2021

Show notes

Author Rick Pender takes us inside the creation of The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia.

Rick Pender is a longtime member and former chair of the American Theater Critics Association. He first began reviewing theater in 1985 for a public radio station he managed at Northern Kentucky University. He later became the theater critic for CityBeat – Cincinnati’s alternative weekly newspaper -- and eventually became its arts and culture editor. He also often contributed articles to The Sondheim Review, a quarterly magazine that I know many of you remember fondly, and for 12 years, from 2004 to 2016, he served as its managing editor. His latest venture, The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia, is a 638 page overview of anything and everything related to Sondheim’s work, life and career. It was published earlier this year and has been selling briskly and receiving rave reviews.

The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia is available in hardcover and e-book from Rowman & Littlefield. However, if you go to Rick Pender’s website, rickpenderwrites.com, you will find a code that will provide you with a 30% discount.

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Episode 35: "Sensory Abundance!": or, Why We Are Hooked On Musicals Jan 22, 2021

Show notes

Why are the great Musicals so unforgettable? Why do musicals have so much power and impact? How is it that they are able to live in our hearts and memories for a lifetime?

Musicals are experiences that get embedded in our psyche. We remember them forever -- vividly and in often in great and specific detail. And they get embedded in our emotional and physical memory as well. Our bodies and nervous systems recall how we felt when we experienced them years, even lifetimes later. In this Season One finale Episode Albert Evans and I tell our own stories of when, how, and why we fell in love with Broadway Musicals and suggest why this happens to so many of us.

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Episode 34: Community: The Major Themes Of The Broadway Musical, part 3 Jan 14, 2021

Show notes

Over the past two episode we’ve explored the principal themes that underly the greatest number of Broadway Musicals. Two weeks ago we looked at “Transgressive Women”, last week it was “Equity, Justice and Inclusion”, and today we explore “Community”.

The Musical theater is a very effective form for dramatizing entire communities of people – and often the community itself becomes a major character in the drama. Because of this natural ability, dozens of Broadway musicals - including many of the most popular, acclaimed and influential - focus nearly as much on the triumphs and tribulations of the community in the story, as they do the of the individual central characters. In these shows the fate and fortunes of hero and heroine are completely tied into , and dependent on the ability of the community to thrive and function – and visa versa.

In this episode I explore the ways in which Community central to the musicals Fiddler On The Roof, Oklahoma!, Brigadoon, A Chorus Line, Pippin, The Music Man, Cats, Sweeney Todd, Come From Away and more!

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Episode 33: Equity, Justice & Inclusion: The Major Themes of the Broadway Musical, part 2 Jan 07, 2021

Show notes

At the beginning of each episode of this podcast I state that the Broadway Musical was invented by various marginalized and disenfranchised people, and that in the process of creating it, they transformed American culture as well. This is the second of several episodes in which I demonstrate exactly why I think that is true, and how it happened.

When we consider the people who created the musical it certainly should not be surprising that there are at least 30 popular and successful Broadway musicals that have stories, plots and themes that explicitly deal with Equity, Justice, and Inclusion in regard to Race, Ethnicity and Culture.

People are sometimes surprised when I tell them that this is one the Broadway musical’s principal themes. They don’t think of musicals in that way. But as we have seen over the past 32 episodes -- musicals have always closely reflected American culture, and from the very beginning, these issues have been at the center of America’s story and our country’s many attempts -- and recurring failures -- to fulfill and achieve its founding principal -- that all people are created equal.

The great musicals that I profile today include The Red Moon, As Thousands Cheer, Show Boat, South Pacific, The King And I, West Side Story, Fiddler On The Roof, Cabaret, Ragtime, Hairspray, and Wicked.

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