Few musicals have captured the hearts of audiences quite like Disney's ALADDIN. But did you know the beloved stage adaptation of the classic animation almost never came to be? This podcast pulls back the curtain on the untold story of ALADDIN's journey from conception to Broadway triumph. Join 11-time Emmy Award winning entertainment journalist for NY1 and NY1OnStage host Frank DiLella on an in-depth exploration that begins with the initial spark of a stage adaptation. We'll delve into the chall...
Sep 20, 2024•11 min
Join us for an extraordinary deep dive inside the most transformative decade on Broadway through gripping behind-the-scenes accounts of shows such as Sunset Boulevard, Rent, Angels in America, Chicago, The Lion King, and The Producers - shows that changed the history of the American theater. Host Michael Riedel, author of the best-selling book Singular Sensation: The Triumph of Broadway, has created a companion podcast featuring his never-before-heard, taped audio interviews with legendary artis...
Jun 13, 2024•11 min
Making one’s Broadway debut is a momentous occasion for every actor lucky enough to do so. Sometimes it happens years into a long run on a seemingly ordinary Tuesday, and other times, it happens on opening night of a highly anticipated Broadway juggernaut. On this episode of My First Time, we invited Carleigh Bettiol into our virtual studio to chat about making her Broadway debut in the original cast of Hamilton in 2015. We discussed how Hamilton came into her life, her incredible memories of wo...
Oct 10, 2023•18 min
No bones about it, Shoshana Bean is a force. She’s a Recording artist, having released four studio albums. She’s mastered the art of YouTube, creating and participating in striking collaborations that feature her powerful voice. A Broadway girl by heart, she’s received acclaim for her portrayal of Jenna in the Sara Bareilles musical Waitress. But before Waitress, before Beaches, before Wicked, Sho made her Broadway debut in a little show called Hairspray. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ...
Oct 06, 2023•23 min
What do you get when you cross Dracula with a podcast? Bite-sized episodes that will have you howling with laughter! Welcome to the official companion podcast for off-Broadway’s Dracula A Comedy of Terrors, now playing at New World Stages. Hosted by blood curdling Broadway veteran Andrew Keenan-Bolger, this podcast takes you inside the show’s (teeny tiny backstage) world with interviews and games featuring the cast and creatives that helped bring this hilarious comedy to life. So grab a wooden s...
Oct 05, 2023•1 min
Usually, our “My First Time” episodes feature Broadway stars looking back at the very first time they stepped on a Broadway stage. But on this episode we are going to hear about a series of firsts from one of the biggest hearts on Broadway, Marisha Wallace. Since making her national tour debut in 2012 with The Book of Mormon, her career has been filled with firsts in quick succession: her Broadway debut in Aladdin in 2014, to her 2017 West End debut in Dreamgirls. She joined me in the studio dur...
Oct 03, 2023•20 min
Nobody has climbed the Broadway ladder with as comprehensively as Desi Oakley. Fresh off a run as Jenna in the national tour of Waitress, when we spoke she was starring in Chicago on Broadway as the iconic role of Roxie Hart. But that stardom comes on the heels of experience, after standing by for the role of Eva Peron on the national tour of Evita, as well as swinging two Broadway musicals: Annie and Wicked, her Broadway debut. Here’s our conversation... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ...
Sep 29, 2023•16 min
Todrick Hall is a trailblazer in the world of video. His work has always sought to entertain and engage, uniting his love of music, theatre and Disney with unparalleled production quality. Blasting open the possibilities of online video, he’s also created studio albums, live touring productions and award-winning music videos. But Todrick’s first love was Broadway, as is obvious from the number of times he’s trod the broads on the mainstem. Last week, he finished a run as Ogie in Waitress the mus...
Sep 22, 2023•26 min
Michael Berresse made his Broadway debut in the 1990 revival of Fiddler on the Roof. Since then, he's performed in multiple Broadway companies, directed a Broadway musical - even performed on Broadway as the director of a Broadway musical. He currently plays Bob Mackie and Robert Altman in The Cher Show. Here's our conversation... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 19, 2023•27 min
Hi, listeners! Enjoy this throwback to 2019 and the very first guest from our My First Time miniseries. Our first guest for this miniseries was Ben Crawford. In April 2018, he started creeping ‘round the Majestic Theatre as the title character in The Phantom of the Opera. But before headlining this show, before Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish and Shrek, he was a replacement in the first Broadway revival of Les Miserables, covering both the roles of Valjean and Javert. We discussed...
Sep 15, 2023•17 min
She’s defied gravity as an Elphaba standby, “werked!” as Angelica Schuyler, and controlled minds as Allison Hargreeves on Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy. But before taking on these roles, Emmy Raver-Lampman had the unique experience of performing in the ensemble of the 2010 national tour of Hair, which ending up playing a Broadway theatre the following summer. Emmy joined me in the studio to chat all about making her Broadway debut and how her experiences as an ensemblist shaped her later work a...
Sep 12, 2023•21 min
Ashley Park's portrayal of the hilarious but lovable Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls earned Park nominations for seven separate theatre awards last season. But as I found out when I sat down to speak with her, those are qualities that she also portrayed in her first Broadway outing five years earlier, is an ensemble member in Mamma Mia! during the show's 12th year on Broadway. Here’s a conversation... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 08, 2023•19 min
Over the next five weeks, you’ll hear one at a time from the complete ensemble of the newest Tony Award winner for Best Musical, Hadestown, about the characters they’ve created and the careers that got them there. Afra Hines joined the company of Hadestown fresh off of her performance in the ensemble of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical where she also received the Legacy Robe. She was previously in the original companies Soul Doctor, Motown, Ghost and In the Heights. Afra has toured the country i...
Sep 05, 2023•23 min
Over the next five weeks, you’ll hear one at a time from the complete ensemble of the newest Tony Award winner for Best Musical, Hadestown, about the characters they’ve created and the careers that got them there. Timothy Hughes made his Broadway debut in the 2012 production of Chaplin. However, he is probably best known for his role of Strong Man in the film The Greatest Showman and creating the role of Pabbie in the Broadway musical Frozen. In Hadestown, he plays Worker #5 and covers the role ...
Sep 01, 2023•22 min
Over the next five weeks, you’ll hear one at a time from the complete ensemble of the newest Tony Award winner for Best Musical about the characters they’ve created and the careers that got them there. Ahmad Simmons has performed in three original Broadway companies in the last four years: Cats, Carousel and now Hadestown. In addition to performing choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler and Justin Peck, he was also featured this spring playing Ben Vereen on the F/X miniseries Fosse/Verdon. In Hades...
Aug 29, 2023•23 min
Over the next five weeks, you’ll hear one at a time from the complete ensemble of the newest Tony Award winner for Best Musical, Hadestown, about the characters they’ve created and the careers that got them there. John Krause made his Broadway debut as a replacement in the company of Fun Home. He’s toured in American Idiot and Wicked, as well as playing Drew in the Las Vegas sit-down production of Rock of Ages. John plays Worker #3 in Hadestown as well as understudying the role of Orephus. Here’...
Aug 25, 2023•22 min
Over the next five weeks, you’ll hear one at a time from the complete ensemble of the newest Tony Award winner for Best Musical, Hadestown, about the characters they’ve created and the careers that got them there. Kimberly Marable recently completed a five-year residency in the ensemble of The Lion King on Broadway. Beforehand, she had made her Broadway debut as a replacement in Sister Act. In addition to her work onstage, she’s one of the co-founders of Broadway Serves, an organization for comm...
Aug 22, 2023•21 min
In honor of Black History Month, we're revisiting our July 2019 interviews with the original ensemble of the Tony Award-winning musical, Hadestown. Host Justin Mock looks back at The Ensemblist's interviews with three of the original company members: Afra Hines, Kimberly Marable and Ahmad Simmons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 18, 2023•23 min
Replacing an original company member in a Broadway show is a feat for any performer. But being the first person to replace in a show comes a set of joys and challenges all their own - ones that only get magnified when the show is a huge success like last season’s Tony Award-winning musical, Hadestown. Anthony Chatmon II was deemed that honor when he joined the company earlier this fall, replacing actor Ahmad Simmons as a member of the show’s ensemble. He shared with us what the experience has be...
Aug 15, 2023•21 min
“Hell on Earth” premiered on April 2, 2012 (Happy...April Fools?). It was written by Scott Burkhardt and directed by Paul McGuigan. The episode was viewed by 6.03 million viewers, which is again down, this time by .11 million. Oof. Featured Songs? Again, no Bombshell music, unless you count the snippet of the “Arthur Miller Medley” that Brian d’Arcy James sang at the piano, but we did get an original song by Shaiman and Whitman from Heaven on Earth, called “The Higher you Get, the Farther you Fa...
Jun 23, 2023•22 min
“The Coup” premiered on March 26, 2012. It was directed by Paris Barclay, and written by show creator Theresa Rebeck. This is the first episode Ms. Rebeck has been credited with writing since episode 3. Upon premiere, the episode was viewed by 6.14 million, which is down .42 million from the week before. It just keeps going down… This is the first episode where there is zero music by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman, which makes sense since the workshop’s over. Instead, we have the original song “...
Jun 09, 2023•21 min
“The Workshop” premiered on March 19, 2012. It was written by Jason Grote, and directed by Mimi Leder. The episode premiered to 6.56 million viewers, down about half a mil from the previous week. Being the workshop presentation, we basically saw excerpts of all the original music from Bombshell by Shaiman and Whitman that we have seen thus far, but we also saw a new original song called “On Lexington and 52nd Street” in its entirety which closed out the presentation. We also saw a cover of Colbi...
May 26, 2023•19 min
“Chemistry” premiered on March 12, 2012. The episode was written by Jacquelyn Reingold, and was directed by Dan Attias. It premiered live to an audience of 7.04 million viewers. The featured songs in this episode included two covers — Shake it Out by Florence & The Machine and Who You Are by Jessie J — and one original song by Shaiman and Whitman called “History is Made at Night.” Oh yeah, and Karen massacres “Hava Nagila,” if we wanna count that. Changes to the script and score are being ma...
May 19, 2023•18 min
“Let’s Be Bad” premiered on March 5th, 2012. It was written by Julie Rottenberg and Elisa Zuritsky, and directed by Jamie Babbit. As performers in the Bombshell workshop are warming up for the start of a rehearsal day, Derek uses Karen to work on a new sequence for the bridge sequence. Ivy walks in and clearly startled asks “am I late?” Eileen is anxious about the script developments, interrupting Tom in a date with a handsome lawyer who he’s just not that into. But it’s really Julia who is stal...
May 05, 2023•19 min
“The Cost of Art” premiered on February 27, 2012, and was the first episode in the series NOT written and directed by show creator Theresa Rebeck and Michael Mayer. The episode was written by David Marshall Grant, and directed by Michael Morris. At premiere, the episode was viewed live by 6.6 million, but including DVR recording, was viewed by a total of 9.05 million viewers. There was a lot of music in this episode: Two original songs (History is Made at Night and I Never Met a Wolf Who Didn’t ...
Apr 28, 2023•22 min
“Enter Mr. DiMaggio” premiered on February 20, 2012. It was written by Theresa Rebeck, and directed by Michael Mayer. It’s only three weeks until rehearsals begin for the workshop of the new Broadway-bound musical Bombshell. However, other than a great idea (that may or may not have been stolen from composer Tom Hewitt’s assistant Ellis) the writing team only have eight songs and half a book ready to go. Up and upcoming ensemblist Ivy Lynn wonders if the only reason Derek gave her the part for t...
Mar 31, 2023•20 min
Episode 2 is titled, “The Callback,” and it premiered on February 13th, 2012. It was written by Theresa Rebeck, and directed by Michael Mayer, both of whom also wrote and directed the pilot. The episode begins with the Bombshell creative team mulling over they are #TeamIvy or #TeamKaren. Tom and Julia are playing with the show’s structure, moving songs around, as director Derek takes Karen and Ivy through dance auditions. Tom tells Ivy “I would have just given it to you.” Karen stays late for a ...
Mar 27, 2023•25 min
The first episode of Smash is aptly named, “Pilot.” The episode premiered on February 6th, 2012. It was written by the show’s creator Theresa Rebeck, and directed by Michael Mayer. The pilot premiered to an audience of 11.44 million people! This episode featured seven songs, three of which were original songs written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman: “Never Give All the Heart,” “The National Pastime,” and the show’s anthem “Let Me Be Your Star.” The other four were covers of “Somewhere Over The...
Mar 17, 2023•21 min
On January 5, 2020, Broadway will dim the lights on one of its most delicious confections: Waitress. During its more than four years and 1,544 regular performances on Broadway, The Ensemblist has shared many stories from its talented company. We share with you today two completely new stories from to podcast as well as some of our favorite Waitress audio from the past year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 21, 2023•26 min
In our recent episodes about Touring Broadway, actors Josh Burrage and Sabrina Imamura shared with us some of the joys and struggles of touring with A Bronx Tale, Newsies and Hamilton. But while they each have significant experience in the road, one thing neither of them were able to speak to was going on the road as a parent. That’s why I found this Mama’s Talkin Loud so intriguing. Mama’s Talkin Loud is a new parenting podcast hosted two of the co-founders of Broadway Baby Mamas, Cara Cooper a...
Feb 14, 2023•44 min
