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[0:00] David Armstrong: Welcome to Broadway Nation, the podcast that explores the remarkable history of the Broadway musical with a special focus on the immigrant, Jewish, queer, and black artists who invented it.

[0:30] Today, my guest is Gerard Alessandrini, the creator of the long-running off-Broadway hit revue Forbidden Broadway, which recently opened its 27th edition, Forbidden Broadway — Merrily We Stole a Song. On this episode, Gerard and I not only discuss this latest iteration of the show, we also look back at its nearly 43-year history of hilariously skewering Broadway and insightfully spoofing its musicals, its plays, and its stars. As always, before we begin, I want to thank the generous patrons of this podcast who helped to make it possible, with a special shout-out today to Geoffrey Block and Larry Spinelli. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation, I'll have information at the end of the episode about how you too can become a patron. Here we go. Gerard Alessandrini, it is so fabulous to have you today on Broadway Nation to talk about Forbidden Broadway — Merrily We Stole a Song.

[1:39] Gerard Alessandrini: Hi, David. It's really fun to talk to you and to be here. We've known each other for a long time.

[1:45] David Armstrong: Yes. We won't go into dates on that, although we will eventually. Well, I remember you when we both lived at the Beacon Hotel, when it was a low-end residence hotel in the 70s, 1970s. If you were a young actor coming to New York, you could get a nice apartment there for a budget price. And the whole West Side was sort of full of underprivileged young actors and theater people. And now it's a very respectable hotel to stay at.

[2:13] Gerard Alessandrini: Totally. Yeah, I couldn't afford to stay there now, probably. Anyway, let's get to the subject at hand, which is related to that because, of course, Forbidden Broadway starts on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, just a few blocks away from there at Paulson's.

[2:29] David Armstrong: That's right. And that's why, because I lived there and it was nearby. It was all part of the neighborhood. It was a thing to do. And it was becoming the place to go for things like that. There were other small theaters and clubs up there that became sort of the go-to places.

[2:44] Gerard Alessandrini: Right. And one of them was Café Central or Central that was on Amsterdam and 75th, maybe. And it became the really cool place for movie stars to go and especially like the De Niro, Pacino crowd and many others in that era. And they would come over and drop by Paulson's Supper Club. So that became the cool place to go to. Isn't that strange now that I think back on that?

[3:10] David Armstrong: Take us back to the initial impulse for Forbidden Broadway. How did it start? What made you do this? You were a performer, as I remember.

[3:16] Gerard Alessandrini: I mean, I would do a lot of regional things. I was working at Light Opera of Manhattan doing operettas that doesn't exist anymore on the East Side. If you had a pretty good voice, you could work over there for $19 a week. And also, I was singing here and there. Then I'd go out in the summer and do summer stock somewhere. But I was interested in writing and I was part of VMI, the Writer's Workshop. And I was already doing that. So I was trying to write legitimate full-length musicals. And as a side for fun, for friends, I would write these parody numbers that I kept in a folder called Forbidden Broadway. And they were mostly just to entertain friends. And they were shows that I'd go see like Evita or Camelot or Pirates of Penzance.

And I would do exactly what Forbidden Broadway is. I would take the music and put new lyrics to them, which didn't seem like a particularly original idea. I'm sure people have been writing parody songs since Grecian times. It just was fun.

[4:20] And then I had my friend, Norma Ling, who was extremely talented, kind of a genius of comedy and singing. And I had done a show with her, The Unsinkable Molly Brown in Florida, although we weren't the leads. But I wanted to write something for her. So I thought, oh, let's take these Forbidden Broadway parody songs and put them up and start doing them. And at the same time, I was also studying writing. The New School had a program under Aaron Frankel, writing musicals. And he said, oh, why don't you just take these parodies down to a club and start doing them? That's what we did.

[5:00] And with my friend, Pete Blute, he was the sort of musical director of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas that was running at the same time. So he was kind of a big deal. And he was a very smart guy and very insightful and very down to earth about things, which a lot of theater people aren't. So he was very encouraging about doing it. And I did it with him at first in the living room of my friend Peter and Jimmy, who lived on the Upper West Side, and friends liked it. Then we took the material over to Paulson Supper Club one night, late night. They had an open late night mic. They asked us to come perform the show six months further. They said, oh, we have an opening in November. That was June. Would you like to book a couple of nights in November and to do the show, Forbidden Broadway, Noor and I? And we did that.

[5:35] David Armstrong: And what year is this?

[5:37] Gerard Alessandrini: 1981. So that was June. They booked us for two nights in November, in June. And in the meantime, I went off and did Summer Stock. I did Curly in Oklahoma at Keene Summit Theater. And I forgot all about the booking date. And I came back and my friend Peter Brash said, don't you have a nightclub act booked in a couple of weeks? I go, oh, yeah, I have that thing booked at Paulson Supper Club. He said, don't you think you should start working on it or inviting people? And I said, oh, yeah, I should do that. Invite people. And then we're talking like four days before we did it. Pete said, well, I can't. I can't play the show. I have to do Bess in Texas. We didn't have a pianist. And I thought, oh, I'll find somebody somewhere.

So irresponsible. When you're young, you're like that. Noor said, well, I know a pianist. So we went over to see Fred Barton and he thought we were just out of our mind. We came late. I just came with a stack of papers and said, this is what we're doing. Pete Blue came over. He says, I'll show you what they do. And then Fred was appalled at first. And then he immediately, once we started doing the material, started laughing and became part of the company. And we did do the show. I didn't bother to promote it. And to this day, I don't know why, but it was packed. Both nights we did it. I don't know who told who that it was any good, but it was already on the charts.

[6:52] David Armstrong: And this is still just the two of you, you and Noor Mayling.

[6:57] Gerard Alessandrini: Right. Noor Mayling and myself and Fred Barton was playing only because Pete Blue couldn't get off of work. Yes, it clicked. When you look back on it, we didn't have the internet back then. So you couldn't kvetch about a show or state your opinion or have people share your opinions the way you can now. To actually say out loud what people were thinking in the back of their mind was actually something new and different. And even though it was parody songs that people, you know, Weird Al Yankovic, I think he was already around. People were doing it, but nobody had to use Broadway shows to parody the Broadway shows, direct parody like that, probably because it was against the law. But we just went ahead and did it.

[7:32] And then at first it didn't really catch on. We had a few small audiences and then Paulson's asked me if I would add two people to it to make it more of a review. So we expanded the show, which wasn't hard. I already had material for other actors to do and it was nice to do like quartets and trios and things like that. But we expanded. At first, it wasn't really the hit that it became. We were doing a few nights a week. Now, at the same time in November 1981, Merrily We Roll Along opened on Broadway to great anticipation. And you might remember that it didn't do well at first.

[8:07] David Armstrong: I remember it very well. I was there on the closing night performance of that.

[8:12] Gerard Alessandrini: A week after it opened. Yeah. And Simon had such a string of great shows. Everybody assumed it was going to be this perfect, fantastic show. But they didn't take it out of town. They may have fared better. They opened in previews right away. I think the show needed some work. But in the show, it's about three young people sort of clawing their way up the ladder. And I didn't even think about it. But in a way, we were like that. We were like the characters in the show. For our poster, which was just a flyer, I drew a parody of the Merrily We Roll Along poster of the actors. Instead of pointing to the stars, they were thumbing their nose at the stars. So that was our parody poster. And that way, we were sort of connected to the show.

But I didn't do any Merrily spoofs in the show because it closed. It wasn't running by the end of November. I was focusing the parodies on the shows that were running, like Pirates of Penzance, Evita, Dreamgirls, things like that, Cats. Well, they were just about to come. But fast forward a little bit to November. No. November, we were doing it sporadically. We were doing performances here and there in December. The few people that came enjoyed it. We weren't really getting any press. Bob Enzel, one of the co-owners with Sella of Paulson's, got Rex Reed to come in, who lived down the street. Because one of our original funny numbers was a spoof of Lauren McCall, who was doing Woman of the Year at that time. And it just won a Tony, her second Tony for Best Actress in a Musical. So she was the reigning musical comedy diva at the time.

[10:06] Gerard Alessandrini: Lauren McCall would sing like this. So I wrote a parody of one of the songs she did, I'm One of the Girls. I mean, I'm One of the Girls is really a boy. I'm one of the girls who sings like a boy. My voice is as low as the tunes I destroy. I'm one of the ladies who sings like a bass. My voice is as deep as the lines on my face. Bob Enzel brought Rex Reed in to see the show. And he really loved it. He was sitting there laughing and crying through the whole show. He loved more than that number. But we didn't hear anything. We didn't hear anything for a while. And then slowly, the audience started to fill up, not just with people, but with major celebrities. I mean, like major movie star celebrities, Carrie Fisher, Elizabeth Taylor, Cher.

They'd come into the show and there were like limousines in front of the theater. And then this very nice gentleman, I always wondered who he was, grabbed me up and said, do you know why that all these stars are coming to see you in the show? I said, well, not really. He said, because Rex Reed has called up every celebrity he knows and told them that they better come and see Forbidden Broadway and get their tickets now because once he writes his review, you won't be able to get in for a year. And sure enough, in early February, a full page review came out, which was a respected line of column in the Daily News at that time, praising Forbidden Broadway and making it sound even better than it was. The review was so funny. And then we sort of hit the jackpot going forward from that.

[11:11] David Armstrong: I remember that well, and I played a tiny little part in that because I had done Summer Stock with Fred Barton this summer. Before that, I remember getting a call that day from Fred. We'd remained friendly. I remember getting a call saying, Rex Reed is coming to the show tonight. We're trying to fill up the house. Please come. And so I was there that night that Rex Reed was there. That was my first exposure to Forbidden Broadway. Whoever was there that night, you know, fell out of their chairs because it did seem like it's what you said. There was nothing that was entirely original about the idea because we'd all known Alan Sherman and those kinds of things. And yet somehow the bold, audacious take you had on Broadway and sort of the no holds barred approach really felt like it was something that we had not seen before.

[12:01] Gerard Alessandrini: And when I came east to star in a show, my friend Julie Andrews said, you sing too low. But Kander and Ebb had a ballad or two originally written for Len Carrié. And now every night comes sunshine or fog. I put on my sequins and croak like a frog. And now I'm on Broadway. And don't give a damn. I sing like a boy because that's what I am.

[12:37] Gerard Alessandrini: Right. And I didn't even think of it as something new back then. I just thought, well, doesn't everybody do this sort of thing? Isn't Julius Muck, isn't that still going? I thought because that's what the show looked like, you know, the upstairs at the downstairs. My mind, I was in a different era. Maybe I still am. But I know it was it was a fluke, but a good fluke. And as I talked about on this podcast and in my upcoming book, this is a tradition of Broadway that goes way back to Weber and Fields, who would do almost exactly what you were doing in Forbidden Broadway. They would take the latest shows and spoof them and make ridiculous fun of them, especially the more serious they were, the more they would make fun of them. This is something that's sort of baked into Broadway and to American entertainment. And you just found a way to really seize the moment with it.

[13:26] Gerard Alessandrini: Right. It's sort of a mystery. Right. I knew that. Like I said, I thought people were still doing this sort of thing. Who's the actress that performed in front of Lincoln at Ford's Theatre during the assassination and cradled his bloody head? What was her name?

[13:40] David Armstrong: Charles Bush were to play about, right?

[13:42] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah. Yeah. I looked her up and she did this, too. Part of her thing was having a company that made fun of Broadway shows. I don't know.

[13:50] David Armstrong: Yeah. It's an old, old American theatrical tradition, actually British as well. People like Lydia Thompson brought that burlesque idea to America in a way.

[13:57] Gerard Alessandrini: I was just lucky that people had forgotten it and needed it. We were glad to embrace it when we got there. I mean, also, I must say, you know, Nora, Bill Carmichael, Chloe Webb was in it originally. We all had great voices, so it was good musical entertainment as well as funny. Yeah, the cast was sensational, and it was truly hilarious. Let's talk about the casting of it for a moment, because I don't know how many actors have been in Forbidden Broadway now over the many years since then, but it's not an easy show to do. As you found out, I'm sure, having to do it, once you got to doing it eight times a week or however many, yeah, that's a challenging thing to take on. Every number that you do is the 11 o'clock spot of some Broadway show.

Yes, that's true. That is true. That is still true today. As a matter of fact, when my actors were complaining last week, putting up the new show, I said, I'm not asking you to do anything I haven't done myself. So, you know, anyway, it's true. Every number is an 11 o'clock number. There's fast change. There's different music styles, especially as the show progressed through the years. You'd still want to do the Rodger Hammerstein era, but not only would you want to do that and Cole Porter, but you had to do rock. You had to be able to do stuff like from Rent and the British musicals, all different styles of music. So that in itself is a challenge. So some actor has to do Mimi in Rent and Ethel Merman 30 seconds later.

[15:14] Gerard Alessandrini: And probably also Mimi in La Boheme. Exactly. Yeah. Rent. You have to do some of La Boheme too. So some of these actors have fabulous, fabulous voices. The talent level is always incredible. And from that very first cast on. Right. But I must admit that at first I just cast a lot of my friends.

[15:34] David Armstrong: You had talented friends, so that worked out. What do you look for when you're casting the show when people come to audition?

[15:38] Gerard Alessandrini: Are they funny? That's hard to find. Just find somebody who's really naturally funny. They don't always come along, but you want to look for that. And then the voice, you know, do they have phenomenal, versatile voices? Then do they have a charm to them besides being good actors and singers? Are they charming on their own? You know, the best of actors that we found do this are rare and they're quite spectacular in that way. Now, what else do we look for? Oh, do they have a good ear? You know, they don't have to come in with a bag full of imitations. We can teach them to them. If you have a good ear and a good sense of what to look for, you can teach almost anybody to imitate anybody else. But besides being an imitation, they have to bring something of their own, almost like could they have their own TV series?

Are they of the same cloth that Carol Burnett is cut out of, that they could have a whole series of their own? And many of them are like that. Not many of them have gone on to that since it's from a different era. But for example, when I had Jason Grah on the show, you think like, oh my God, he could have his own TV variety show. Christine Petty is another great actress that we've had do it. The other thing, David, that's important is they kind of have to be good actors. You can't just get up there and, oh, I'm going to be funny. You have to be able to approach it from an acting point of view to be really funny. And in a way, they have to play that part fully and then make fun of it on top of it.

[17:02] David Armstrong: Right. Have a little wink on top of it.

[17:07] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah. But they have to be somebody who could have played the part on Broadway. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them could have. Or it's even better if you're like Norma Link. You see her in the show and you think, oh, she would be better playing the part on Broadway than the girl who is doing it now. So there's that element. But also, I've learned over the years that if you try to be funny, you're not going to be funny. And I see it everywhere, not just on Forbidden Broadway and Broadway shows, but on TV and stuff like that. Trying to be funny is one of the most unfunny things you can do. You have to approach it from an acting point of view. Like I always think when I see an old episode of, do you remember the show, I Love Lucy?

After watching many episodes over the years, I think, oh, Lucy was actually a great actress because she can make that 10-foot loaf of bread look really real. Right. And then you go through it in her mind. You think, oh, this is hysterical because, you know, she's making this ridiculous situation real.

[18:49] David Armstrong: Totally. And she famously was not a funny person in real life.

[18:54] Gerard Alessandrini: She was not. I gather from what I've heard. Well, that's the other thing. Oh, I only realized this a few years ago. I think during COVID, I was watching one of them and I realized, oh, I Love Lucy. It looks like such fun. And then I realized, no, no, these people are working really hard. They're working really hard. And they actually did make a movie about that. Right. Yeah. It's the other side of it. It's so interesting. At what point did you understand that this was now an ongoing proposition that could go into multiple editions and without you as a performer, necessarily?

[19:29] Gerard Alessandrini: Yes, I absolutely did at two different points. I think I realized, well, kind of from the beginning, because I remember when I was trying to think of a show to do when I was writing other shows, book shows, I thought, oh, and I was thinking, would this be a good idea for a show to have been Broadway? I thought, oh, yeah, I always thought there should be something like the Broadway Melody. You know what that is? That's an old movie series from MGM in the 30s.

[19:53] David Armstrong: Sure. We do a new version every couple of years.

[19:56] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah. Broadway Melody of '35. I want to do something and come up with it like that can renew itself. So shortly into the run, maybe six months into the run, I realized we could start renewing it. I also realized to my heart that it dates. Maury Estin recently told me, Gerard, you're in the fresh fruit business. You got to keep putting the fresh fruit out there. Nobody's going to buy last year's fruit. He told that to me like six months ago. I realized, oh, that's really true. I've had some really funny numbers that just weren't funny after six months.

[20:44] David Armstrong: Do you remember the first number that aged out? Either the circumstances changed or it was just no longer?

[20:49] Gerard Alessandrini: Actually, the number that was probably at the time and the original, the funniest number, Lauren McCallum, the Woman of the Year. After she left, it wasn't really quite as funny. I think Nora was distressed about that. And also right at that time, new shows started to come in like Cats and Dreamgirls. It was like the show missed them because we weren't doing them. So we added them one by one. That is actually the very frustrating and hard part of it.

[21:19] David Armstrong: Oh, I actually experienced that just last week. Do you want me to zoom ahead to this show?

[21:23] Gerard Alessandrini: Sure. Yeah, go ahead.

[21:25] Gerard Alessandrini: So last year, we did a different version of the show. It was called Forbidden Sondheim, Meryl, We Stole a Song. And I took all the Sondheim numbers that we were doing over the years and put them together. And then I updated it. We had a spoof of Josh Groban in Sweeney Todd. We call it Sweetie Todd. And Chris Collins-Bazanda did a great job at it. And it was one of the highlights. Now, as I put this new edition together, I realized like I hate saying this, but like Sondheim is a thing of the past now. He didn't die this year. He died last year. So he's not as topical. So we started to pull out all these numbers. But the Sweetie Todd number was like a real bullseye. And he did it really brilliantly.

And about two weeks ago, I realized this is dated. So we pulled it and put something new in. It was one of the best Forbidden Broadway numbers we ever did. But they date. I'm trying to think if there's anything that hasn't really dated. They all switched out eventually. So I'm in the first business.

[22:49] David Armstrong: Yeah, I mean, I feel like the Les Mis sequences is probably the things, although you've updated those many times over the years, but they...

[22:54] Gerard Alessandrini: Well, I wouldn't do that now because it's not there.

[22:59] David Armstrong: Because it ran for 35 years.

[23:01] Gerard Alessandrini: Right. They gave you a gift by running the show for that long.

[23:07] David Armstrong: Well, and also because the nature of those shows is so serious. There was one time period where I feel like you and Forbidden Broadway struggled because Broadway had co-opted Forbidden Broadway to such a great extent.

[23:19] Gerard Alessandrini: Oh, yeah, that's true. I know the producers was a hard one to parody because it was already a parody. We did get a real home run parody out of that. I got something I thought was funny. But yes, that's true. That's true. And that still is true. You're in town, something rotten. Those aren't in the same year. But that period of time where Broadway started spoofing itself so often and so much. I think I remember you saying it's impossible to spoof a spoof.

[24:01] Gerard Alessandrini: That's true. And it did damage Forbidden Broadway. But now that I think of it, maybe one of the reasons why this new edition is working, because we had so many shows this year that took themselves seriously, like The Outslaughters and Lempicka and The Great Gap.

[24:17] David Armstrong: Yeah, I'm sure that's true. You have so much to work with in terms of shows that are self-important and serious. Now, maybe not as overblown self-important as the British Invasion shows, but still, that's so much more satisfying to spoof than a comedy is usually.

[24:35] David Armstrong: When did that change on Broadway? We slipped into another era. After Something Rotten or after the pandemic, maybe? When did the spoofs go away, basically, the Broadway spoofs?

[24:45] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah, I think to a great extent after the pandemic, that era was over to a great extent. Not only did I revive Forbidden Sondheim, but they were literally reviving a lot of Sondheim, and that's how we spoofed them all.

[25:00] David Armstrong: Right, exactly. Over the years, how have you chosen what to spoof? Is it just you feel like you have to do everything that's on Broadway? Within those shows, how have you selected what to comment on or what to make fun of about these shows?

[25:12] Gerard Alessandrini: Well, that's a tough question. I struggle with that sometimes. Sometimes, if a show's a big hit, you just feel like you have to do it, but that doesn't always mean I'm going to come up with a funny number. Well, like The Producers, when we did that, it was a long time ago now, but we felt like we had to spoof it, but how could I come up with something? But an audience couldn't go to Forbidden Broadway and not see a producer spoof, because it was the biggest thing on Broadway at that moment. Right. And then sometimes things will hit, and I just don't like the musicals that much. I always had a better chance of coming up with something funny if I liked it a lot. Like, I like Les Mis. I like the Sondheim shows.

For me, they're easy to spoof. Sometimes when a new show comes up that I'm not interested in, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around it, but I do the best I can. And I've also felt like you pick up on what the buzz is about a show, not necessarily what you think about the show, but what people are saying about the show.

[26:10] Gerard Alessandrini: Sunset Boulevard. Sing out, Louise! Excuse me, I'm working here. Sing out! Sing out! Sunset Boulevard. What kind of a song is that? What kind of a voice is that? What are you doing? Hey, listen, what's this black growth on your forehead here? It's my microphone. Oh, that's that new Andrew Lloyd Webber disease I heard so much about. Sunset Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard. Stop! Sounds like bullshit-vard to me. You call that singing? Times have changed, Miss Merman. This is how we sing nowadays. I took your Justin Love from Call Me Madam, one of the big Ethel Merman songs, and put it together duet. I keep singing though my voice is air. I keep going when there's nothing there. There's a big black lump inside my hair.

You wonder why? I'll tell you why. I keep walking through the show each night. But in spite of that, you'll hear all right. Stars like me seem ever tireless thanks to my wireless head microphone. Kid, in my day we didn't need microphones. We had voices then. You don't need amplifying. You'll be loud as a lion. Be like me, use your diaphragm. Take that thing off your forehead. It looks like a nuke warhead and you sound sheepish as a lamb. If today I got hired, I would sweat.

[26:44] David Armstrong: Oh, totally. Well, first of all, when I go to a show, I never think, how am I going to parody this? I just want to either enjoy it or not enjoy it or understand what it is. But I tell you, I eavesdrop all the time. I'll go to theater places and restaurants and listen to what people are saying, and a lot of those eavesdropping things get into the show. It's great to eavesdrop around 46th Street, Joe Allen's, at the library. I was at the Broadway Flea Market the other day. You hear a little comment here and there, and you can come up with a funny idea. For example, in this version, I give him credit. Probably didn't have to, but I had this friend, he goes to all the Broadway shows. I don't know how he affords it, but he goes to see everything.

And then once in a while, he'll send me something like, oh, I saw Suffs. Hamilton plus Annie equals Suffs. I'd get these little texts from him that would go like that. So I thought, oh, these are funny. And I came up with a lot myself, too. And I would send them back, but I thought, oh, I'm going to put these in the show. So we have Dr. Joe Valfati's Broadway math book where we go through all these shows and show you Suffs plus Suffs equals this. And the audience embraces that.

[27:48] Gerard Alessandrini: That's totally eavesdropping and stealing from a friend. I do feel like I gave you a line one time. I said something and it ended up in the show. And I have to think about what it was.

[27:54] David Armstrong: I know an idea that you gave us that was very good and we used for years.

[27:59] Gerard Alessandrini: OK. In Forbidden Broadway Strikes Back, Sunset Boulevard was on Broadway and Christine Petty was in the show and Christine wanted to do Ethel Merman, although Ethel Merman was not on Broadway in 1996. So she said, can't you put Ethel Merman into Sunset Boulevard? And I thought, well, I don't know. And then I thought, oh, yeah, I know how to do that. I came up with this number where the actor from Sunset Boulevard sang, did his spoof, singing the way they do, sort of a sadaboche. Sure, I came out here just all with Glenn, acting so cool, looking for fame. I lost my Tony, though unluckily. But after a year, this show is hell. Hydraulics made a rancid smell. No one is bitchier than Buckley. Sunset Boulevard, Big Set Boulevard, ticket-buying tourist, be wary. Sunset Boulevard, miscanned boulevard, lucrative and dull, a little scary. And then Ethel came out and chastised him for not singing out.

[27:55] Gerard Alessandrini: Hit the Bullseye was great, but as we talked about before, things date. So Sunset Boulevard, like in a year, was gone. But the whole concept of them was great. So you said to me, do you remember this? Why don't you change it to The Phantom of the Opera and Ethel Merman? And we did, you know, singing with this microphone, I changed a few words. We did that number for 20 years. It's still one of the most popular numbers. To see The Phantom of the Opera and Ethel Merman do a duet together is hysterical.

[29:05] David Armstrong: I don't remember that, but I loved that number. I loved it in both versions, but it was even funny with The Phantom of the Opera. Well, you know, this year, talk about pretentious, Sunset Boulevard is coming back. And we actually did this in the show during previews. We did a spoof of the new British Sunset Boulevard. I call it No Set Boulevard. We did it, but I have to say, we actually got ahead of ourselves. A lot of the audience was, what? Why are you doing this? We'll save it for a couple of weeks. We'll see that soon, I bet. That's hilarious. And that's an interesting topic of just timing these numbers. And when does the audience know enough about the show, even if they haven't seen it, to laugh at the spoof?

I remember I had a ragtime spoof early on, and the audience wasn't particularly laughing. But the show opened, and then the next week it was funnier. The next week after that it was funnier. The next week after that it was funnier. By about four weeks into the run, you could tell everybody was going to see ragtime. So it was suddenly funny. The fruit had ripened. From the very beginning, it seems like it wasn't just the shows that were getting spoofed, but the stars. I think in that period, that was still the era of Broadway stars. I mean, I'm going back to the Golden Age. But they were still around and with us, even if they weren't on Broadway. Ethel Merman was still a presence, even in 1980.

And Mary Martin, these are people who theater people felt like they knew and were exposed to frequently. And then don't forget, there was a revival of The King and I with Yul Brynner. They started doing revivals, Rex Harrison and My Fair Lady. And then, of course, there's movie versions of these. So everybody knew exactly what we were doing. And then when they got to, do you know about 42nd Street and David Merrick and Les Mis and all that? When he did 42nd Street, he wouldn't put the actors' names above the titles. Who had figured it out that if the show was a star, then you don't have to worry about the replacement. And that's what was true of Phantom and Les Mis. The era of the billing box, they called it, where it came in, where now you're in the billing box and you get your billing, but you don't get it on the marquee or even on the posters.

I can see how that was a great relief to producers because I'm sure David Merrick had a hard time finding all those dollies to do Hello Dolly. And didn't that sort of kill, not kill, but sort of slow down the success of the producers? Because if they didn't have the right stars, it wouldn't play. That was part of it. They'd made such a big deal out of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick that when they did replace them, even with, you know, like in Los Angeles, quite big names, somehow people were disappointed not to see the original stars.

[32:04] Gerard Alessandrini: Right. So I think we're in an era of the show is the star, not the star is the star. There are still some stars, but that certainly has changed. And are stars as distinctive as they were, which makes it harder to imitate them. Right. One of our biggest stars right now is Audra McDonald. She's brilliant. She's amazing. But when you come to imitate her, you don't have as much to work with as you do with Ethel Merman, for example. Right. Thank God we still have Patti LuPone and Bernadette Peters.

[32:27] David Armstrong: Exactly. The quirkiness of the stars, the distinctiveness of them. And I must say, they won't believe me, but I love both of those stars. I have tremendous respect for them. They're great actresses and singers. And, you know, over the years, we've had more spoofs of Patti LuPone than anybody else. But that's just how much I love her. But she probably doesn't think that.

[32:45] Gerard Alessandrini: Well, let's talk about that, you know, with Patti LuPone from the first edition, you were doing Evita. Although we weren't doing a specific, she wasn't the Patti LuPone we have nowadays. So it really, we didn't do an imitation of her per se. But more and more over the years, I think by the time Patti LuPone got to Anything Goes, everybody knew who she was and exactly what she sounded like. In olden days, this show was shocking because Merman would keep them rocking, but now they've bowed. Patti LuPone! Good critics, too, who used four-letter words, now have to search for better words. How she's grown! Patti LuPone! And so am I!

[33:26] Gerard Alessandrini: And very famously, most of those stars would come to Forbidden Broadway to see themselves. Ann Miller, I think, was there one night when I was there.

[33:41] David Armstrong: Ann Miller, yes, she came, yes.

[33:46] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah, and they weren't, to be honest and fair, the spoofs weren't too pointed. They weren't really any meaner than anything you'd see on The Carol Burnett Show, which is still good. So Ann Miller could come. And Mary Martin and Ethel Merman came. Actually, Mary Martin came with Carol Channing. And at that point, we did not have a Carol Channing number in the show. And she says, wow, why not me? And her husband, Charles, called me up and said, you need to put a Carol number in the show. And I thought, oh yeah, I probably should. We did. Call on Carol. She's the one producers recommend when they're producing Dolly either Broadway or Somersault. She'll play Dolly Levi from seven to twelve o'clock.

Call on Carol. She'll do Hello Dolly any time. Tell us, Miss Channing, what's in all of this for you? It's a living, Miss Allison Dweedy, Mr. Carmichael. Some people sing, some people dance, some people act. I do Hello Dolly. I played Lorelei, and I've done modern Millie, but Dolly is a girl's best friend. And once I did show up, I looked awfully silly as a millionaire, with Woolworths wigs instead of hair. Roles are few and far between, and talk shows I don't recommend. But why should I grieve? I can play Dolly Levi, and Dolly is a girl's best friend.

[35:28] David Armstrong: You did that for many years, and Carol was a big fan of the show. I think she would come to the show. And this is true of other stars, because when they were young, they did spoof reviews themselves. Carol Channing was known for doing Marlena Dietrich. Chita Rivera, who often came to the show, told me that she became noticed in New York because she did a very mean Marilyn Monroe in one of the Ben Bagley reviews. So they understood where the young actors were coming from.

[36:03] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah, that's so interesting. Were there stars who you have made mortal enemies of with the show in any way?

[36:09] David Armstrong: Oh, I don't know. Now, a lot of stars came, but wouldn't come when they were in the show. For example, Bernadette Peters, Rex Harrison, Lauren Bacall did come eventually. You know, they enjoyed the show. They liked it, but they waited till their spoofs were put aside. So have I made an... I don't know. Nobody reacted negatively to me, to my face.

[36:19] Gerard Alessandrini: No one's thrown a drink in your face or anything like that?

[36:21] No, no. I recently met a person who should stage that. Do you know the movie, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, with David Niven and Doris Day?

[36:31] David Armstrong: Of course.

[36:31] Gerard Alessandrini: And there's this scene where he's supposed to be Walter Kerr, and he insults Janice Page in a show, and she walks into Sardi's and slaps him in front of everybody at Sardi's. And I said, oh, I wish that could happen to me. I wish like, slap me in front of everybody in Sardi's, and the photographers could take the pictures.

[36:51] David Armstrong: It's not too late, Gerard. It's not too late. We can make that happen.

[36:55] Gerard Alessandrini: Have there been any numbers that you decided were too mean and took out of the show?

[37:00] Oh, I just did that, and I couldn't believe I did it. Well, now that I'm older, the show's getting a little denser, should we say? So I have this, without giving it away, I have this sketch about Kelly O'Hara, Brian Darcy James in the future, and they're now robots. AI robots. And I said something mean about them, and the audience would go, they would laugh, and they'd be like, oh. And I thought, I don't want to do that. These are great performers. Okay, I get a laugh, but so I softened it and turned it around. I softened it a lot. What else have I gone through? I'm sure I have.

[37:32] Gerard Alessandrini: The show was so successful over the years that it had several spinoffs. You had Forbidden Hollywood for a while.

[37:36] David Armstrong: Yes.

[37:38] Gerard Alessandrini: Which you had a lot of success with.

[37:40] It didn't do well in New York. Again, that's the fresh fruit thing. We did it in LA with a good budget with Jason Grodd, Jerry McIntyre, Christine Petty, Suzanne Blakeslee, Brad Ellis at the piano, great cast, had a great time because we had a good amount of money to put it up. Alan Colt did these fabulous, fabulous costumes, and it was Hollywood, so it was right up to date. You know, it was like, what's nominated for best picture? We went through them all, and it was really, really funny for about four months. And then it dated because the movies went away and new movies came out. And the numbers that did sort of still work were old movies, but it certainly didn't work in New York and certainly not by the time we brought it here.

We've done it once in a while on the road, but it has that problem, like it's not up to date. And other people do spoof movies a lot. But the original one of that was one of the best Forbidden Broadways. It just looked great. We have top-notch talent. We had a great time putting it together in Hollywood. In New York, it became more difficult. There was that. I did a Forbidden Vegas.

[38:35] David Armstrong: I forgot about that one.

[38:36] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah, me too. You know what was funny about that one was you talk about the shows that make the funniest spoofs, you take them seriously. Well, there's nothing anybody really takes very serious in Vegas. So how do you spoof that? We tried. And then also, it's funny, I remember thinking at some point when we would do the show in Vegas for a Vegas audience, I was thinking, oh, I think these people would have enjoyed Forbidden Broadway better. So we've been back there with Forbidden Broadway. I had Forbidden Christmas, we did a few times. And Spamilton was another spinoff, right?

[39:08] Gerard Alessandrini: I was very proud of that, very successful. And we still do that. It doesn't have the lasting power that Forbidden Broadway did, but we still send it out on the road. It's a different animal than Forbidden Broadway, because it's got a lot more movement. Jerry McIntyre did the choreography, spoofing the Broadway show. There's not a lot of costume changes. They're in the basics that they do Hamilton in, and it's all rap. You know, most of it's rap, not all. And I had a problem at first trying to figure out how to do that. But I think that I did. We had fun doing that. And it had a couple of Forbidden Broadway type stars in it, like Bernadette would drop by and Patti LuPone would drop by. So what I used to think of it as, rather than a Forbidden Broadway show that had a Hamilton spoof, it was a Hamilton spoof that had a little Forbidden Broadway stuck in it here and there. It's certainly in the same universe, the Gerard Alessandrini metaverse.

[39:55] Gerard Alessandrini: Another reason that worked, I have to pay tribute to Lin-Manuel, because when you really start to look at what he writes and wrote, you realize what a large palette he has. So I could see like, oh, he's actually using part of Rodney Hammerstein. As a matter of fact, he actually had a line from South Pacific. Or that's Hoagy Carmichael. Or that's a little bit of Mozart. Or that's Sondheim. It allowed for a much bigger sounding show than if it was just all rap.

[40:23] David Armstrong: Absolutely. Because his palette is huge. Goes everywhere.

[40:28] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about this current edition. Have you counted the editions? How many have there been?

[40:32] Gerard Alessandrini: Well, it's impossible to count because we were updating as we went along. But I think if I counted correctly, now not counting Forbidden Hollywood, not counting Forbidden Christmas or Vegas or Spamilton, I think there have been 27 Forbidden Broadways. But that does include two editions that we did outside of New York, one that was designed particularly for London, and one we were in LA for a couple of years. 27, I would say.

[40:51] David Armstrong: Wow. If you could go back and tell Gerard Alessandrini on the opening night in Paulson's, or the night Rex Reed was there, that you were going to be doing this for the rest of your life so far, what would you tell him?

[41:01] Gerard Alessandrini: Oh, I would tell him, stop it immediately. You know, I mean, because, you know, I had talent to be a writer and performer, and I probably should have done more. Although there was a point where the other actors had to get work, Jean-Claude got work in movies, other Jean-Claude got work in Broadway. I thought, well, maybe I should move on. And I thought, well, no, this is a bird in hand. So I should feed a little birdie. But it's been a two-edged sword. And very often I do this show because I have to. It's like a job. I mean, because I have 27 auditions and we've been received well by the press and awards. Very often people think I'm very wealthy, but I'm not. You know how they say in theater, you can make a killing, but you can't make a living.

You know, you can write a hit show and make a killing or be a star, but you can't, like, sustain yourself from year to year. Well, I made a living, but not a killing. That said, I have done other things. Nobody's just noticed, you know? Nobody's even.

[41:53] Gerard Alessandrini: Well, it's always the challenge, because Forbidden Broadway! has been so noticed. Against all odds, you've been able to repeat that success over and over and over again, which is an incredible achievement, I have to say, because hardly anybody has been able to do anything like that with comedy.

[42:10] David Armstrong: Well, being Italian, I'm a good fruit salesman. I've got that push cart, and I'm getting those new bananas and apples every week, and they're fresh.

[42:17] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah, but you've been somehow able to grow that fresh fruit every time.

[42:21] David Armstrong: Yes, I have a lot of bananas.

[42:23] Gerard Alessandrini: You're not only the pusher of it, you're the farmer of it. You've got to create it. I'll tell you a secret. The easiest thing for me to do in the show is to write it. And I hope this doesn't sound like I'm bragging, but I can write some of this in my sleep. There's a really good number in this one that I woke up and I had dreamt it, and I just went downstairs and wrote it. The hard part is getting everybody together to do it, getting a cast and getting rehearsed, convincing the actors to do it, trying it out. That's the hard part.

[42:49] David Armstrong: Well, and this edition had some challenges. You were announced to go to Broadway, and you are now not on Broadway. I assume that's probably a good thing in the long run, but that has to have been trying.

[43:00] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah, I'm going to tell you the whole story, and I think it's okay. Last year, I turned 70, and I've been doing this since my 20s. I thought, oh, and COVID had come and sort of put us out of work, as everybody else. We'd been doing Forbidden Broadway, The Next Generation, and also Spamilton, and that sort of put us out of work. And then Sondheim passed away. I was at a Spamilton rehearsal, and they had a sort of memorial to him outside where they sang Sunday, the song Sunday.

[43:24] David Armstrong: Oh, yeah. I've seen that on the video.

[43:26] Gerard Alessandrini: It was Lin-Manuel. It might have been Lin-Manuel who wrote goodbye to Sondheim and said, you know, Sondheim was so secure in his own talent that he could go to Forbidden Broadway and not be offended, something like that. And I thought, oh, yeah, that's right. He would come certainly every new edition, sometimes more. I thought, oh, yeah, how many Sondheim numbers can we do? And I thought, oh, there was this and that and that. And I thought, oh, we did about close to 60 Sondheim numbers. Not all were funny. And I thought, oh, I could put a whole Forbidden Sondheim together. So I thought, okay, I'm going to do it once more. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do Forbidden Sondheim. I'm going to do all the Sondheim stuff, and then that'll be my swan song.

As I was putting it together, I was very much enjoying it. We took numbers that we had done before, but then I thought, oh, we need to have Elaine Stritch do a Sondheim number. Oh, we should have a Sondheim number of this. And then they started to revive them, like Josh Groban's. So it ended up being a whole new edition of Sondheim spoofs. And I did some rewrites of things, too, now that I could do it better. That was like an underground success. We did it at Don't Tell Mama. Then we did it at an unused cabaret space called the Green Fig near the Green Room. And we were getting a lot of buzz. And I have to say it was really good. And I think that triggered people to feel like, oh, somebody should put Forbidden Broadway on Broadway.

And at first I said, no, I want to do Forbidden Sondheim, because we hadn't opened it for the press. And I said, I think they'd like Forbidden Sondheim. And they said, no, we like the Merrily We Stole a Song subtitle. Do it about modern Broadway. And I struggled with that. I said, no, I think I'd rather do Forbidden Sondheim. But everybody was saying, no, this is your chance to do it on Broadway. Do it on Broadway. You could win a Tony Award. And I said, well, I already won a Tony Award for Forbidden Broadway. You know, a special one. And I didn't want to do it. But everybody was very encouraging and excited about it. So they scheduled Forbidden Broadway to go on Broadway. But we haven't let the Sondheim part of it go.

They wanted it to be about modern Broadway. And then for whatever reason, they didn't get it together. I think they, I'm going to venture into, maybe I shouldn't say, I don't think they could raise the money, because it was a lot of money. And then I thought, gee, that much money to do Forbidden Broadway? You know, we did the last one, Next Generation, for, I think, $60,000, which was a little under budget, but we did it. But it proceeded, then it sort of snowballed, and people got very excited about it. And I started to write it, started to do spoofs of The Outsiders and Hell's Kitchen and all that. I thought, oh, this could be good. And then they canceled it right when we were about to leap forward.

I wasn't disappointed. I thought, $3 million to do, that's just not right. It's just not right. I felt bad that we weren't going to do a new Forbidden Broadway of the material I had written, because there wasn't any pending production. But then Eric Krebs, who had Theater 555, which used to be the second stage theater, and that's on 42nd Street, and it was empty, he said he would finance it if we put it up for a lower amount, a much lower than $3 million. And I said, yeah, we can do that. And we're ready to go. So we did it right away. So then we got it mounted. I mean, it was supposed to open on Broadway, like, August 1st. So we were to come in, like, six weeks late. But I had all this material, and it wasn't Forbidden Sondheim anymore.

It was something new. But we still liked the Merrily We Stole a Song subtitle, because Merrily had been a hit on Broadway. So we proceeded. But then I quickly thought, oh, this is correct. This is the way to do it. We've got to be submersive. We've got to be off the beaten path. We've got to be, you know, small budget so that we can make it back, and all of that stuff. So it was actually very fortuitous that we didn't go to Broadway. It just seems like the show is the epitome of an off-Broadway show. It's supposed to be outsiders, to a certain extent, criticizing the insiders. And that has always been the motor behind the show, I think.

[47:00] David Armstrong: And it should be young people. And we do have a young cast. You know, upstarts doing it. That's what it really is. No, I'm glad. I was very happy with this production. But yet, it's so brilliantly designed by my husband, Glenn, who was going to design the Broadway set. He redesigned it for off-Broadway. And it looks, the colors and the design and the actors and Dustin Cross did a great job with the costumes. And Jerry McIntyre did great parody choreography. It looks like you would sing it on Broadway. So you're getting to see a Broadway-caliber show off-Broadway for a fraction of the price. That's been good.

[47:33] Gerard Alessandrini: What are your favorite numbers?

[47:35] David Armstrong: Well, my favorite number is actually one of the ones I dream. It's the Lincoln Center number. I have a whole Lincoln Center segment. I don't want to explain it too much because it won't sound as good as seeing it. But I thought, oh, you know, that's Broadway, too. You know, they do all those revivals of the plays and opera and ballet. They are theater, right? And Lincoln Center's got this library and everything that Bartlett Sher does every year. So we did a Lincoln Center section, really snooty and coming from the Upper West Side like you. I love doing it. And I use some Tchaikovsky music and a little bit of this musical and that musical. And it also fit it right in because this year, the Tonys were at Lincoln Center.

So it all fits in. We do a spoof of the Tonys. So that's my personal favorite. But the audience, they love the outside or something, which is correct, because that one best musical. So that's good. The Softs number, you know, I love that one. So I'd put those in the top three.

[48:23] Gerard Alessandrini: And is there one that surprised you that turned out to be funnier than you thought it was?

[48:28] David Armstrong: Yes, the Hell's Kitchen number. I had a hard time because I don't know Alicia Keys music a lot, not like I know Cole Porter. So it was a little hard to come up with a parody for that. And first, I completely went the wrong way. And we got it together and it goes over like gangbusters. And I think, oh, I'm surprised I got that. There was stuff I couldn't use. Regretfully, one was from the Sondheim show. It was the worst shows from London, a parody of the worst pies in London. And Christine Petty did it as Angela Ansboury. That is my favorite Forbidden Broadway spoof that I've ever written. But we couldn't quite fit it in the show because you want to be there for four hours singing Forbidden Broadway.

It's not going to work. And also, it came with the London section, like I mentioned, Sunset Boulevard. We do do the new Cats section was going to be part of that. I had to put some of my favorite things aside to keep the show unified. I must say this edition is really well paced because this is just my opinion, not always the press's opinion. I thought, wow, there isn't one number that dips. If it does, it dips because it's a different style. And then we get back into upbeat number. It works on that level. So I'm very proud. This is the first Forbidden Broadway I've done, but I think the order is correct.

[49:37] Gerard Alessandrini: Well, talk about that. Talk about the routining, because with the review, famously, the order of those pieces is probably the most important part of the success or failure of a show.

[49:43] David Armstrong: It is certainly one of them. Yes, it is because it's like playing three-dimensional chess. You have to make a number funny. That may be dictated on who the star is or how many actors you want to use. You know, if you're doing The Outsiders, you need the brothers. You need three actors. So who's changing offstage? I have to think of that. Like how long do they need to change? How long does the number need to be so they can make the change? That's one level. Then another level I have to think of is you can't put all the ballads in a row. It's a musical review. You have to vary the music. So I have to work on that level. And I think we've done that successfully. We do have a Sondheim section with only two numbers of Merrily Rowland and Patti LuPone and company, and they're very dry.

You know, they're in their tuxedos, the low lighting, stuff like that, as they should be. They're appropriate and they're funny. But you think, well, now the audience has been watching two very dry, talky, dense numbers. What do they need? So we put this really wild, jellicle cat's ball number after it. And it's exactly right. It not only is the number funny by itself and what Jerry did, but it's exactly right, routining-wise. So that's what I'm proud of in this edition. And that's true of many of the songs. We do a couple of very successful spoofs right off, and the audience is very high-pitched. But you've got to bring them back. What are you bringing them back with? Because they can't do that for an hour and a half.

So even if you could line up all the great numbers. So I thought, oh, we need something charming here. And I had a lot of Bernadette numbers. And I thought, well, Jenny does this great. We'll have her do just a charming Bernadette song. And I thought, it's got to be a song that is appropriate for that point of the show. So I thought, oh, Waiting for the Girls Upstairs and Follies is very melodic and kind of even-tempered. So even though I didn't need to, we had other Bernadette Peters numbers. I wrote that for her, and it fits exactly right in that plot. Now, it's not a bring-down-the-house number, it's a charm number. And she does it very charming. You know, I have to say this. We have a bona fide star in this version, Jenny Lee Stern.

I hope she gets a Drama Desk nomination, because I have never in anything seen anybody so versatile. She's certainly the best actress we've had in many, many years in the show. And I think sometimes people overlook how brilliant she is, because you can't even believe it's the same girl. She does all these great mimicry things. Patti LuPone, you would think it was Patti LuPone on stage, right? Lindsay in Merrily Rolling, one after another. And then after she does the Patti LuPone number, she comes on and she does numbers. It's like you're watching Vera Ellen in one of the old Amazon musicals. She's like dancing and doing splits. I think people don't understand the range of her talent. It's unbelievable.

[52:13] Gerard Alessandrini: In spite of the rapier wit that you apply to these shows and the sometimes hilariously debunking nature of what you do, the show Forbidden Broadway, I think, has always come off as a celebration of Broadway. Ultimately, it is a tribute and a valentine to Broadway through this sort of lens of let's make fun of it all. Where does that come from?

[52:39] David Armstrong: I don't know, but that's exactly correct. And I think it every day. I want people to feel joy about going to the theater. I think it comes from my own love of musical theater, that it brings such joy to me. And as I say in the show, it feeds the soul. That's all. I just wanted to see people like at this great party celebration of Broadway. And that's exactly what I want to do and hopefully what we do every night.

[52:58] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah, I think sometimes people get confused about there's a nature of theater people to make fun of things that they're in, that they're around. People would always make up sort of negative names for the shows that they're in. They'd rewrite them. I remember being in summer stock and people would call, you know, South Pacific, South Pathetic, and things like that. Not terribly funny. But I think there's something about that is still celebrating the show that is somehow paying homage to it. And I think that can be confusing for people. But I feel like when you go to Forbidden Broadway, you come out of it going, oh, I want to see, I want to see Suffs. Because a lot of times you have audience members who have not seen these shows. Probably the majority of the audience has not seen most of the shows.

[53:40] David Armstrong: That's true. I forget that sometimes. I mean, that's why when I write it, a lot of numbers have to be self-explanatory. You have to identify what it is, identify what it's about, who's in it. If it's a star, you have to sort of tell the audience who they are. So that's true. And yes, I want them to go experience these things on Broadway, just like I did. I absolutely think of it as a celebration of Broadway. You're absolutely right. That's a time-honored tradition of people in theater being able to make fun of themselves, which I think keeps them more real and more humble than people in films and maybe some other medias.

[54:13] Gerard Alessandrini: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. Gerard Alessandrini, it has been such a pleasure to talk to you and reconnect today. And I can't wait to get to New York to see Forbidden Broadway, Merrily We Stole a Song.

[54:27] Gerard Alessandrini: Thank you, David.

[54:28] David Armstrong: Forbidden Broadway, not on Broadway. We'll turn Tommy on a flight and purify Cabaret.

[54:41] David Armstrong: As you might imagine, Gerard and I went off on several entertaining tangents during our discussion that were not directly related to the subject of this episode. But I've made that additional 10 minutes of outtakes available exclusively to patrons of Broadway Nation. If you'd like to hear them, here's the information about how you too can become a patron.

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[55:38] David Armstrong: Broadway Nation is written and produced by me, David Armstrong. Special thanks to Pals Mox for his help with editing this episode, and to the entire team at the Broadway Podcast Network.