April 24, 2025 • 47 mins
Broadway is a street in NYC, but more than that it's a term for the NY theater district. They say the neon lights are bright there. Who knows?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is a good
old fashioned toe tapping, feel good event of the century
that we like to call stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I cannot stop singing. They say the neon lights up
ride a broad Way.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
That's one of my least favorites. Is that from a
chorus line.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I don't know I was singing that earlier. I was singing,
give my regards to Broadway.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Wow, you haven't been singing the one I've been singing.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
What have you been singing?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
There's no bitess like show business, like no business. I know.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
That's great. I do not know the neon lights when
I should have looked that up, but I do know.
Give my regards to Broadway. Is from Little Johnny Jones
from nineteen oh four, written by Georgiam Kohen.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Neon Lights is a kraft Work song. You're way off,
Oh well, Little Johnny Jones is the most like nineteen
twenties play title or musical title I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I didn't know craft Work, uh as they say, is
the neon lights so bright? Nowthers go.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's a little different. Okay, it's really good though. I
think it's actually the best song about Neon lights.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Oh that's a bold statement.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I know. I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
By the way, this is a listener suggestion, so big
thanks to Sarah Nagy for sending this in.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh nice, thanks Sarah. We should probably say, for anybody
who didn't bother looking at the title, we're talking about
Broadway today. Broadway as in the American home of musicals,
the Great White Way, you know, where musical theater goes
to live and thrive and give it a shot at stardom.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It's right and non musical theater.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
True. True. I'm more of a play guy than a
musical guy myself. I remember going to see La La
Land in the theater and being like, I had no
idea this is a musical. Luckily it turned out really well,
but okay, good. At first, I was like, you gotta
be kidding me, kind of like you know when you
go to drink take a sip of water and it
turns out to be coke, but it's really shocking, but
(02:26):
then you're like, oh, okay, cook's fine. It was a
lot like that. The movie version of that.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, I think I've detailed this a little bit. But
I've gotten more into musicals and I enjoy musical theater
and Broadway, and we try to go to a show
and we're in New York and now we're doing an
annual Broadway only trip, like where we go see a
few of them.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
That's a pilgrimage, Yeah, pilgrimage.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
But I do love the plays. And we are in
fact going to see Glengary Glenn Ross in May.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Haven't you seen the movie?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I have? But this has got that killer cast on Broadway.
I don't know if you've heard about it or not.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
No, I haven't, Honestly, I haven't kept up with Broadway lately.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, this has got Glen Garrett, Glenn Ross with Kieran
Culkin and Bill Burr and Bob Odenkirk and others.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Wow, that is a killer cast.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So I grab tickets for that right when they went
on sale, and I'm going and my friends are like,
ohd you get tickets, man, You're still lucky. I'm like,
I just logged on and got them when they went
on sale.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
You logged onto your internet?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, you know, just get on a if you're into
that kind of hanging. You just jump on a little
like a Broadway Direct email list and then you'll get
the aps on all the apps.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So you mentioned T is it t TKT Oh?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, the TS booth?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yes? Are they online too? Or is that like a
physically stand there in person kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah. That is the ticket service run for the not
for profit Theater Development Fund, And that is if you're
in New York and you're like, man, I wish I
could go to a show, but I don't want to
jump on a resale site and pay a ton of money.
There are booths end Times Square and satellite booths at
South Street, Seaport and Lincoln Center where you can get
day of You can go get day of tickets for
(04:11):
people that are like, I can't go Broadway. Can you
help me sell these?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah? And apparently if you go with like an hour
or so before the booth opens, the line once it
does open will only be about an hour. That's how
long it takes to clear out typically, And people who
are in line know what they want to see and
they want the best seats, and that's what they're going for.
That's why they're standing in line. But if you're like Hey,
I'm in New York. Let's catch a show. I don't
(04:36):
care what show. You can just show up, like a
couple hours after the thing opens and walk right up
and pick a show.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, And I got to say, and you know, we'll
get to this, or I might as well say it now.
The largest Broadway theater. If you've never been, you might
be used to like Broadway in your hometown at like
the five thousand seat theater or something like they have.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Here at the Performing Arts Center, yeah, or.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
The Performing Art Center. But in New York they're they're
pretty small. The largest one is the Gershwin Theater at
nineteen hundred and thirty three seats. The smallest of the
how many theaters is it? Total?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Forty two forty seven forty one theaters forty one The.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Smallest is the Haze at five ninety seven. So you know,
if you're in town, you want to check out a
show in most of those theaters. Most of the seats
are pretty great and it's fairly intimate.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I don't know much about it lately. Like I left
off with Phantom of the Opera, that was probably the
last musical I was ever really into. So but I
know that since I've been into it, like they've become
blockbuster productions, Yeah, very much, along like the Marvel Cinematic
Universe movie franchise stuff where it's like, just put a
(05:48):
ton of money into it, Yeah, and people come from
all over and you'll make ten times what you put
into it. Yeah, and that I mean, that's that's fairly
fairly new development. Is Is it like that basically across
the board now? Or surely that's like a handful of
powerhouse shows and the rest of them are more normal
and hence ticket prices are more normal, do you know, I.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Mean from my experience stuff. You know, if you go
to see some of the classics, they're you know, they're
big productions, but they're not maybe not as like special
effects heavy. They definitely I feel like have jazzed them
up a lot more in more recent years, with more
sort of jaw dropping moments of like kind of I
can't believe they did that live kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Like when the Salesman from Death of a Salesman flies
out over the crowd at that one scene.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
But like, for instance, last time we went we saw
the that's the best thing we saw. One of the
ones we saw was the new Ish Death Becomes Her,
which is I can't recommend enough. It is one of
the funniest musicals you'll ever see. But it wasn't some
lavish production, but they had a couple of very well
(06:58):
placed sort of special effects that were very fun and
so I think you need to sort of wow the
crowd a little bit more these days.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Okay, So you're not going to find like a nineteen
fifty sixties style musical comedy that isn't relying at all
on special effects there anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
M No. I mean, but maybe not special effects, but
the sets are still very big and there's a lot
of money poured into it that your plays are you're
going to be a little more like stripped down.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So okay, last question. Ticket price is, from what I've seen,
are like eye popping.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Pretty Yeah. I think Wicked was the most expensive. It
was two ninety average price.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Man out, So there's got to be tickets that are
like that the normal person can afford, right.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the average ticket price. So
the cheaper seats for like a show like Wicket or
I don't know, probably in the one hundred and something,
which is still I mean, that's a lot of money,
but I don't know that you can go, like if
you're a question is can you go see a Broadway
show for like forty five bucks?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yes, that's my question.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I don't know, and I doubt it.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, all right, well that's a bit of a shame
I have to say.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Although I'll have to look at my Glengarry tickets. I
don't know that those were like crazy expensive, but I'll check.
Why you talk?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Okay, well I'm going to start talking about the history
of Broadway.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
So Olivia helped us out with this. Kudos to her
because this was a huge, huge topic and she wrangled
it greatly. But the street itself, Broadway is really really old.
It's actually built on an old Lenape tribe trail that
connected the tribes along the thirty miles of Manhattan, So
(08:41):
this is like pre contact. Yeah, Broadway was already in
existence when the Dutch showed up and they said, this
is New Amsterdam. Eventually we'll rename it New York.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
They called it daher Strat, Yeah, which is Gentlemen's Way.
So apparently here with two e's in the middle means
gentlemen in Dutch. If you want to impress people at
your next party. Yeah, but they just called it bread
vague or broad way broad road in the English said, well,
where's going to call that broadway from now on?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, So that's the street Broadway. The theater district is
between Times Square to fifty third Street and then the
side streets from six to eighth Avenues. And like I said,
it's forty one theaters. And with that smallest one, the Hayes,
being five ninety seven, they're all at least five hundred,
almost six hundred. I mean, can you squeeze three more
(09:35):
seats in there Hayes?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Maybe standing room moment.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And like I said, the Gershwin is the largest at
nineteen thirty three. And you know that's where theater happens.
And we're going to talk a little bit about sort
of the early theater days, because if you're talking New
York theater, you're gonna have to go back to seventeen
thirty two to see the first or at least the
first record of a performance of a play there. It
was called the Recruiting Officer mm hmm, and that was
(10:01):
some Londoners traveling through town, and it was the New
Theater on Nassau Street. But that was near Broadway, but
not anywhere close to the theater district. It was way
way downtown and what would now be the Financial District.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You're not going to mention the name of the owner
of the new theater.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Building, Governor Rip van Dam.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Which is a really great hotel. Check in name.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, that's good, included just with the governor.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, governor, governor, Okay, I'll give you a special treatment.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So, yeah, you said that was in what is now
the Financial District. So slowly but surely it started to
kind of move to what was called the Long Acre Square. Yeah,
but before that, there was a lot of theaters that
had opened up sporadically away from what we now consider Broadway.
And I think the first I don't know if we
(10:53):
said it or not, because you corrected me when I
said like musicals. You're like, well, plays too, But most
people when they're talking about Broadway things, think they're thinking
about musicals.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So the first musical, as far as anybody can tell,
that was performed in New York. It was called The
Beggar's Opera. It was about thieves and sex workers. It
was a musical comedy. It sounds like it was somewhat
like one of the plays that would come in the
nineteenth century, or one of the musicals where there were
like kind of breaks in between where they some stand
(11:25):
up comedian would come out, or a juggler maybe, or
somebody would perform a song, but the songs didn't have
much to do with the story, if anything at all.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, and we'll get to that. That was sort of
the way it went for a while. It was sort
of like songs and sketches and stuff like that. That
was what a musical was. But we wouldn't have any
of this stuff it hadn't been for some pretty notable people.
The first one, well, he's actually the first Oscar Hammerstein.
What would be two notable Oscar Hammerstein's.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, this is Oscar Hammerstein. I, that's right.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
He moved from Germany, of course, to New York City
in eighteen sixty four and was a cigar factory floor
sweeper until he invented a cigar machine and made quite
a bit of money doing so, such that he could
start funding the opening of his passion, which was opera.
So he opened the Harlem Opera House first in eighteen
(12:19):
eighty nine and then that very first one in long
Acre Square, which will be notable in about a minute
and a half because you will learn what that became.
Hammerstein's Olympia Theater at Broadway and forty third and forty fourth,
and then after that the Republic Theater was in eighteen
ninety nine, which is still there but is now the
(12:41):
new Victory.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Theater, Gotcha, which I think is for young audiences, right,
is it? Sure? Yeah? I'm almost positive it.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Is like really body kids plays, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Like Avenue Q.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
So within like a decade, Oscar Hammerstein the first built
like three major theaters in New York City, and he
helped pretty much establish this theater district or the concept
that New York had a theater district. Yeah, or it
was a theater town, I guess. Plus, and this is
(13:15):
probably a fairly overlooked component of it. The Inner Borough
rapid transit system the train helped too, because it could
get people around New York much more easily than before.
So with those two things Hammerstein and the irt converging,
New York suddenly had like everything it needed, all the
ingredients to become like a world class theater destination.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, for sure. So the riding was on the wall.
He opened those theaters, other people are like, hey, we
can invest money in this now that it's becoming a thing.
The New Amsterdam Theater and the Lyceum Theater were both
built around the same time in the early nineteen hundreds.
And then, oh boy, we're probably more than a minute
a half after I promised it. But in nineteen oh five,
(13:57):
long Acre Square was renamed for the newly relocated New
York Times offices, and thus it became Times Square.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
That's it, that's it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I was like, was it New York Times Square?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And I was like, no, dummy, Just Times Square.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Just Times Square. And it was around the same time
that these three brothers, Lee, Samuel and Jacob Schubert, a
very popular theater named to this day, they opened up
a bunch of theaters in New York and elsewhere. And
the Schubert Organization still owns and operates seventeen of those
forty one theaters.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's a bunch. That's almost half of the theaters on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
They got it locked down, baby.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So all of this hubbub and activity of building theaters
and attracting like really good performers and plays and musicals
by the time World War One rolled around, like New
York was on the map for theater and Broadway was
the theater district for New York by this time. And
(14:58):
one of the things that really helped things along kind
of picked up where Oscar Hammerstein the First and the
Irt left off to really like give things a real
goose was the Zigfield Polly's, which I know we talked
about in our episode on Vaudeville in November twenty twenty two.
We talked about that a lot. But the idea that
like you could go to the theater and you could
(15:21):
see some amazing performances and hear some funny comedy and
see some crazy dances or great dances like that drew
people the theaters like everyday people who might otherwise not
have gone through the theater.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, some of the some
of the songs that you you know, even if you're
not a fan of this kind of thing, just kind
of leaked into the public consciousness. Like give my regards
to Broadway from George Cohen. He also wrote Yankee Doodle
Dandy and over there. During World War One, this is
when Irving Berlin came around. One of it as you'll see,
(15:56):
kind of a series of poor Jewish immag grant families
that came to New York and the children of those
families ended up being like these amazing Broadway writers and composers.
He wrote things like Annie, get your gun and There's
no business like show business, your old favorite.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That's right. He also wrote White Christmas, which I read
is the best selling Christmas song of all time.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Which was not on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
No, well, it ended up on Broadway. It was in
the movie Holiday Inn, and then they retro created a
musical based on the movie.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
They retconned it right.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Another pair that were really huge at this time, where
George and Ira Gershwin brothers, another Jewish immigrant family. They
created Funny Face Girl, Crazy Porgy and Bess and some
of these, as we'll see, we're pretty kind of groundbreaking,
especially at the time. But they also launched some stars
careers like ethel Merman. Do you think of when you
(16:53):
think of somebody singing there's no business like show business?
I think ethel Merman.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, in the movie Airplane, right exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
That's where that's where I first learned about it. Ginger Rogers,
Greta Stay are of course Greta Garbo Dance on air.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And it wasn't just musical theater at the time. This
sort of post World War two era also had some
pretty legendary plays like the Iceman Come Up from Eugene
O'Neil and Lorraine Hansbury's Raising in the Sun. Of course,
but it was times Square after all. So in World
War two, that's when you started seeing some you know,
(17:28):
the usual thing that would happen was like burlesque theater,
eventually peep show, maybe regular movie theater, and then porn theater.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, and you better know the difference. Yeah, I say
that we we take a break and we come back
and we talk about the establishment of Broadway shows as
we know them.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Let's do it, Stoffy Jaws.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
So okay. So one Hammerstein did some amazing stuff, uh
with Broadway, creating Broadway. But this family was showing off
and they produced Oscar Hammerstein the Second, who was the
grandson of Oscar Hammerstein the First, and he got together
(18:31):
with a composer named Jerome Kern and they just started
making some amazing groundbreaking for the time, especially new kinds
of musicals that just they gave us Broadway as we
know it today.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, Like, if you go to a musical today, not
you're not assured to, but more than likely you're gonna
be seen what's called the book musical. And that is
when the musical when like the songs are central to
the plot in the storyline and moving things. It's not
just like, and here's a song to add to this
musical review kind of thing. Right. They still have those
(19:06):
some you know sometimes, but it's kind of a throwback
like these days. The book musical as a direct you know,
descendant of Hammerstein too and Jerome Kern is sort of
the way to.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Go, right. They came up with a Showboat Together, which
was an enormously groundbreaking show. It combined both white and
black performers on the same stage, which, if you remember
a Harry Belafonte episode that was a no no well
into the fifties and sixties. These guys made this show
in nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, I mean that people were not doing that at time.
At the time. They also had blackface in that review
because that was something they were also doing at the time.
But it was also pretty you know, progressive in some
ways by like having an integrated cast.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, and I mean a lot of the themes were
about racism, and it just kind of took it head on.
It was a serious, dramatic story. It wasn't like, you know,
feel good forget your troubles, come on, get happy kind
of thing.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, and just to be clear, it was truly integrated.
I wasn't saying the blackface was integration. They had real
integration and also blackface, which I don't quite understand.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
But I don't either.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, I don't know how they were doing things in
nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Like when a woman is in an episode of Monty Python,
it's like, why are you guys in drag?
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Then?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Exactly, So Hammerstein is doing his thing, doing pretty well.
Jerome Kern's great, but all of a sudden a dude
lopes onto the scene named Richard Rogers, and Hammerstein said
Rogers and Hammerstein, that sounds that has a nice ring
to it. They're old buddies, old former classmates from Columbia
years earlier. And Rogers approach Hammerstein and said, hey, there's
(20:52):
this play Greengrow the Lilacs from Lynn Riggs. Why don't
we turn that into a musical, and why don't we
do a little different like why don't you write the
words to this thing first, I'll write the music and
I don't know, let's use an exclamation point in the title,
and let's just call it Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Oh Oklahoma. Right sure? So this show, this established Richard
Rodgers in Oscar Hammer's sign like this is nineteen forty three.
It set a record for the most performances at the time.
It's long since been just totally demolished, but it had
a record performance total of twenty two hundred and twelve.
(21:30):
That was just unheard of back then. So imagine, like,
you know, you've got some pretty cool stuff under your belt,
but all of a sudden you get together with this
new collaborator and you create the show that has the
longest running or the largest number of performances ever, just
right off the bat. That's kind of like what these
guys became. Like they were just the stars of Broadway productions.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, I mean giants to this day of the industry,
South Pacific, the Sound of Music, the King, and I
I mean It's It's their names are basically synonymous with
musical theater.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I read Chuck also that at one point they had
three of the longest running plays or shows on Broadway
at the time, and three other shows in production to
be adapted to films all at the same time. Giants Giants. Yeah,
we could have just left it at that now that
(22:22):
I think about it.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
So there were some like huge, huge shows of the
late twentieth century that sort of helped redefine Broadway. West
Side Story was one. This was what kind of where
the idea of the triple threat came along because they
didn't have you know, for a while there there was
like a separate chorus and that like did the dancing
and stuff. And West Side Story was one of the
(22:46):
first ones in nineteen fifty seven to be like, hey,
you're the lead actor, you're also singing, you're also dancing,
because that's all part of it, and all of a sudden,
the triple threat was a thing, and that was the
real start of another giant abroad Way.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Steven Sondheim, Yeah, who would go on to direct Contagion,
which we mentioned recently too.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
No, he wrote the lyrics. And then another name he
might have heard of, Leonard Bernstein, was a composer for
West Side Story.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, he's great too. Cabaret was another one by this time.
This is nineteen sixty six. Today you think of Cabaret
and it's just a cult classic musical, But at the
time it was groundbreaking in that it introduced a new
kind of musical to Broadway, which is actually kind of
a throwback to how it used to be. It's called
(23:33):
the concept musical. And rather than you know, a through
line story where the songs advanced the story and everything,
this was more like there was a theme. The theme
was the show was said at the kick Hat Club
in Berlin, I think in Weimar era Berlin. Yeah, and
through the songs that all kind of have this share
(23:55):
this kind of same theme, this concept is created. I
think the theme was seen Cabaret, but I believe that
it was a meditation on the rise of Nazism during
the Weimar Republics kind of swinging days.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah. Yeah, I always wanted to see Cabaret.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, well, let's go see it together for the first time.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Then I don't know that it's is it running? Is
there a revival going on?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Oh man, I'm gonna get myself killed. I'm talking about
the movie. There's movies for all of these pretty much,
so we can just see the movie.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
There really is. There's two West Side stories in fact.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, Steven Spielberg did one.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, it was good hair. We have to talk about
hair from nineteen sixty eight. This is a musical that
and Livia points us out it wasn't just commenting on
what's going on in history at the time. It really
helped kind of shape it in real time. It was
the first rock musical something I'm a big, big fan of.
Oh yeah, like the jukebox music. Juke juke box. I
(24:54):
have such a hard time with that. Musicals are okay,
not my favorite, but those seventies Jesus Christ super Star
and Joseph in the Amazing Technical or dream Coat and
hair like that stuff is so groovy and so cool
because it's like sixties and seventies.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, no, it is super groovy hair. If there's one
word to describe hair, it's groovy, Yeah. If the other
there's If you want one more word, it would be nude.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, or murkin' because that was in all the whole
cast was nude, very famously in one scene. But it
did help launch the careers of Diane Keaton was in
that original production, as was meat Loaf, a man whose
house I have been at.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Oh, of course, so I have no follow up questions
whatsoever to that? Instead? Well, okay, what were you doing
in Melof's house?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
I'll tell you offline.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Okay. Cool. So Stephen Sondheim, who you already mentioned he was.
He made a name for himself by writing the lyrics
of West Side Story, but apparently his big breakout was
something called Company, which was a bunch of vignettes about
romantic relationships. I have not seen that one either. I
feel like a rube talking about all these things that
(26:07):
I haven't seen. But I did read about it, and
I read that if the whole thing starts at the
main character's thirty fifth birthday party, he walks into the
birthday party, and then these vignettes start, and then the
thing ends, I think with him walking into the thirty
fifth birthday party. To make it like this all took
place in just a moment in time. All of these
(26:28):
vignettes did super cool.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I have not seen it either. Sondheim also very well
known for Sweeney Todd, the Demon, Barbara of Fleet Street.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I have seen that.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I have not seen that, but friend of the show
Scott Ackerman highly recommends it, said it's like one of
the best shows he's ever seen.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, I gotta check it out.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
A chorus line another movie that one's kind of meta.
There was another concept musical where the whole thing takes
place in an audition. Yeah, so the whole thing is
about theater life, about theater people, but it's actually a
musical show. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, And that began a run in nineteen seventy five
of like a dozen years where some of the giants
of all time were launched. The chorus line Chicago in
nineteen seventy five, Le Miz in nineteen eighty seven, Cats
in nineteen eighty two, which we'll talk about that a
little more in a sec and then Phantom in eighty eight.
(27:24):
But Cats very famously was a very very long running
show that like, some people love, some people hate, some
people think it's brilliant, some people make fun of it.
But lyricist Tim Rice got together with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber,
the Weber Rice Team. They did the Amazing Technical or
dream Coat Jesus Christ Superstar Avida, and then they said, hey,
(27:45):
let's turn this T. S. Eliot Old Possum's Book of
Practical Cats into a musical and have real people dressed
up as cats.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Some people say, like, if you could build a time machine,
what would you do? I would go back and prevent
Andrew Lloyd Webber from having that thought.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I've never seen any iteration of cats. I want to
see something.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
It's the only time, outside of an airplane, where I
tried to make myself go to sleep in public that
I was like, I can't I can't even just sit here. Yes,
it was at a performance, like I can't just sit here,
Like I have to not be conscious for this. Oh boy,
now I was too young to leave. I don't think
I was driving at the time. Was with my family.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Oh no, you couldn't be like fake sick or anything.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
No. I think I don't have a recollection of the
show after a certain point, so I think I might
have been successful in falling asleep.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Your dad would have been throw up in this bag,
You'll be fine. And then Phantom was eighty eight, and
I think that's it's another Andrew Lloyd Weber show. But
I think that was one of the first ones to
really ramp up, got real designy and included some special effects,
and I think that kind of started that trend of
making things a little bigger.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, for sure, that one I can sing along with
basically from start to finish. I love that one d exactly.
I knew exactly what you were doing, just think because
I'm so familiar with it.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
We tried to see Phanom at the Fox Theater here
in Atlanta, and I actually just joined the Broadway season
for next season. The season's run from May to May.
I think on regular Broadway, I'm not sure about the Fox.
I think it may be about the same. But we
tried to go see Phantom years ago, but we're both
so distracted. It was when we were trying to buy
(29:30):
our first house and we were obsessed with this house
we were trying to get a bid on, and were
It was just one of those deals where we were
not there, our head was elsewhere, and we finally just
looked at each other and we were like, we need
to get out of here.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
You should definitely see it again. It's a really great show.
The music.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I gotta see it.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
There's like a one ton chandelier that falls to the stage.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Like.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
It's a good show. And I think you're right that
it did kick off kind of the mega productions ran
for thirty five years, and as far as I know,
it holds the record still for the most performances at
thirteen nine and eighty one.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Remember Oklahoma said something at like twenty two hundred before.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Oh yeah, that's I mean impressive at the time, but yeah,
that's thirty five years is impressive.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's pretty amazing. So yeah, I love that show. I'm
just gonna say it probably five more times throughout this.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
So we got to talk a little bit about Times Square.
Even before the seventies came along, it was a pretty
rowdy place, and the early teens that was a one
am curfew because it was such a rowdy place. There
were speakeasies there during Prohibition, burlesque in the thirties, and
then from the sixties and into the nineties. I think
(30:48):
I've mentioned this before. When I first started going to
New York in the mid nineties, there were still peep
shows there. It was right before the final cleanup happened
thanks to a few different mayors, but Mayor ed Koch,
certainly David Dinkins, and then eventually Giuliani would finish up
the work of cleaning up Time Square.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, David Dinkins was the one who I think maybe
had the biggest impact or we should mention John Lindsay.
In the early seventies, he created a text incentive where
if you built in Times Square a new building, you
could get a pretty good text break, but you had
to build a theater on the ground floor to try
to bring the theater back to the area. I thought
(31:30):
that was a pretty ingenious idea. But to me, David
Dinkins probably had the biggest impact, good or bad by
making a deal with Michael Eisner, who was running Walt
Disney at the time, and he said, just do your
thing here, Disney, Like, we got a lot of perverts
running around here. We need some Disney to counterbalance this
stuff and maybe even overwhelm it. And it worked, like
(31:52):
if you pour enough Disney onto an area, yeah, the
perverts just turn and run.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Right. So they started they dip their toe in the
pond with renovating and renting out the New Amsterdam Theater,
which at that point New York City had acquired in
nineteen ninety two as part of the forty second Street
development program. Because it was one of those that followed
the for less theater than movie theater than porn theater model.
(32:17):
I don't know if that was an official model, and
then as they were remodeling that in ninety four, before
they were finished, Disney opened Beauty and the Beast at
the Palace Theater, of course, the adaptation of the ninety
one animated film, and it was almost a twelve million
dollar budget, the most expensive musical ever at the time,
and ended up running for about thirteen years to total
(32:39):
grosses of about four hundred and thirty mil.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
That's just insane even today, but this was the mid nineties.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, I mean the returns on Broadway. If you can
get a smash hit going, you know, it's not like
you have to sink two hundred million dollars into it
like you do a big budget movie.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of front loaded. But then yeah,
after you get it up and running and it's going,
it can just go by itself, basically.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
For sure, should we take our second break?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Oh jeez, I wasn't expecting that, but sure, let's do that.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
All right, We'll be right back and finish up on
Broadway right after this.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Stuffy Jaws.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
All right, So Broadway you can go for Escape of
Spare you always have been able to. You still can.
But starting in the mid nineties with Rent, people really
started tackling some heavier topics. Jonathan Larson's rock musical talked
about addiction and suicide and poverty and aids about Rent
(34:00):
was another one I left. It was fine, but it
was another situation where I was with friends and everyone.
I can't remember. There was some weird distraction where everyone's like,
do you want to leave? I think our seats were
bad or something, and it just wasn't happening. But I
want to see Rent again. Larson very tragically died at
thirty five years old of an aortic aneurysm the night
(34:23):
before it premiered off Broadway. I know that's insane, Just
a brutal, brutal story.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, because it's such a legendary show. To just have
this show that you probably I'm sure he was like,
I think this is going to be big and then
he dies right before even seeing it perform once. That's
just sad to me, very sad. And then another thing
that kind of came along. There were plenty of escapist shows,
we should say, and there still are, and a really
(34:49):
good example from fairly recent times is Mama Mia, which
is one of those jukebox it is hard to say,
isn't it a jukebox musical, which is it takes existing
songs everybody knows and loves and then puts creates like
a musical around them. And Mama Mia did that back
in two thousand and one with Abba songs.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah, and then you know, I haven't seen many of those,
but they did one of like the eighties rock. The
Billy Joels had one, Bob Dylan had.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
One, don't forget a Dee Snyder from Twisted's sister had rock.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, that's when I met the eighties rock one that
was rockabates right. But you know, it's a thing I
prefer something with. I mean, they have stories built around
the songs, like you said, so they can be okay,
but I prefer something something a little more straight ahead,
not based like original music, I guess is what I'm
trying to do.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, there's some good ones. So there's a there's a
Carol King basically bio musical that I didn't either. I
didn't either, big.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Fan of Wicket, still recommend it. Finally saw it last
year on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Unfortunately it was not the wickedly talented Adele Desime, but
that's where she made her name, along with who was
the original? Was it Kristin chenow with I believe.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yes it was.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I always loved her in uh, Pushing Up Daisies. Do
you remember that show?
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I do, but I did not see that.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Oh you should go back and watch it. I saw
it not too long ago, and it really holds up.
It is a very charming show.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
We should call this episode Josh and Chuck haven't seen.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
This, Yeah, pretty much, just put a colon before it
and we can add that.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Okay, Hamilton is one I did not see, but we
would be remiss if we did not mention it because
it was such a landmark play Lynn Manuel Miranda. Of course,
that one hip hop into historical context on Broadway, which
is a huge smash it. And I saw it on
the you know, the TV version of the film the musical,
(36:55):
so and listen to it quite a bit, but I
never saw it live.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
That's okay, Chuck, I'll let you the hook. It was
too expensive, Yeah, it really was, wasn't it. Those were
some high priced tickets for a while because everybody was
talking about that show well and.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
It was all sold out, So the only way to
get tickets was to pay like twelve hundred bucks at
the time. It would probably be even more now, but
now you can go see it, and I bet you
can get tickets for regular price.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Sure. I got to mention this one. I've not seen this,
believe it or not, everybody. It's called Dear Evan Hanson.
It's from twenty sixteen, but I did read a couple
of articles on it, and it sounds totally off the wall,
where the title character is mistaken for the best friend
of a teenager who's just died by suicide, and so
(37:40):
he suddenly becomes very popular and like everybody wants to
know what this kid was like, and he uses it
to basically become popular and liked, whereas otherwise he was
just kind of overlooked, you know, kid on the sides,
and there's all this horrible stuff that starts to happen
and unravels, and I think he's publicly unmasked at some point.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, I need that's on my list. A couple of
good friends have seen it and said it's great, So
I'm gonna go see that soon. I hope these these
make a lot of money. Like I said, Wicked set
a weekly record in December of this past year. Obviously,
buoyed by the popularity of the movie, but the first
ever show to have a five million dollar week and
(38:26):
last season, the twenty three to twenty four season again
ran from May to May, total grosses of one point
five to four billion dollars more than twelve million attendees
over seventy one productions, with an average occupancy of eighty
nine point nine, so that they're you know, the average
Broadway show isn't even sold out. It's close to ninety percent.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Wow. Can we talk about a few flops?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, I'm going to pick out a couple of these.
I'm going to pick out Moose Murder from nineteen eighty three.
It is a farce, obviously, but it was bankrolled by
an oil heiress named Lily Robertson and directed by her
husband and starring the oil heiress Lily Robertson who bankrolled it,
(39:15):
which should tell you it's not headed toward a great thing.
Also because it's called Moose Murders and it closed after
one single performance, and New Yorker art critic Brendan Gill
said that it would insult the intelligence of an audience
consisting entirely of Amba's.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah, I read about that it seems like it was
just a completely amateur production from start to finish, like
everybody was basically had no idea what they were doing.
And if you want to just be delighted, go read
articles about the flop that was Moose Murders, because it's
widely considered like the worst show that ever hit Broadway
(39:52):
in a lot of ways. Though it's tough to qualify that,
because there's plenty of bad shows out there and some
have been forgotten, but for some reason, Moose Murders just
became like the symbol for the worst shows on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah, I mean there's different ways to qualify it, like
is it just bad bad or is it notoriously flop
because of how much money it costs? Then it flopped.
That was the case with a couple of them. But
Kerry An adaptation of the Stephen King horror novel as
a musical in nineteen eighty eight, closed after sixteen previews
and five regular performances at an eight million dollar budget.
(40:28):
So it's it's widely considered one of the biggest sort
of just expensive flops of all time.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, there's a song about killing a pig in it.
I think to get the blood to pour on. Yeah,
and the lyrics it's a simple little gig, you help
me kill a pig.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, And believe it or not that it wasn't like
an amateurist production. It was directed by Terry Hans, who
ran the Royal Shakespeare Company for thirteen years, and was
choreographed by Debbie Allen. So it was a big money
thing that just was sounds like not a very good idea.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
It was a terrible idea and I'm rid it was
terribly executed too in the end that they just you know,
they really tried though. I think that's the difference.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Well, it has been revived with cult status off Broadway
like in the twenty tens, So it's one of those.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I would go see that. I would go see that.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
And then I think the biggest flop as far as
money goes is Spider Man Turn Off the Dark from
twenty eleven. That's another one that just anybody who has
anything to do or any interest in Broadway they know
about this flop. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
I mean that had all the right ingredients to Broadway
legend and film director Julie Taymor, who directed The Lion
King on Broadway. They got Bono in the edge to
write the music. It was huge special effects and it
was just problem after problem after problem all like you know,
kind of front page or at least front page of
(41:58):
the arts headline kind of problems.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, So when you're performing a show or putting on
a production, you have what are called previews where people
can come. The critics are not allowed to see it yet,
but normal people can come and watch it, but under
the understanding that they're going to be stopping in the
middle of performance, taking notes, maybe giving notes. There's going
to be technical glitches, and it's they're working it out
(42:21):
still in front of an audience. And I think the
first preview of Spider Man went three and a half
hours for the first act alone, and there were It
holds the record for the largest number of previews, more
previews that have, the more problems you have. Obviously it
had one hundred and eighty two preview shows before it
(42:42):
ever opened.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, and I've been to some previews. I saw Sarah,
Jessica Parker and Broderick do the which one was it?
The Neil Simon one a couple of years ago, and
that was in previews. Don't let like the idea of
a preview turning off because like usually they just straight
through and it's just like a regular performance. Like I've
never seen a preview that where anyone stopped and did
(43:05):
anything weird. And critics do actually see those because they
will review the show before opening night because they have
seen the preview.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Okay, I thought I've read somewhere that critics are not allowed,
So maybe there's like a special preview.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Or maybe a window or something. Yeah, yeah, that would
be my guess. I'm not sure how that works, but
I know it's always I'm not sure if it's like movies.
I know movies, sometimes they won't let the critics see
it before it's release, and that always means it stinks. Yeah,
so I'm not sure if Broadway does that or not.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Actually, well, Chuck, that's Broadway. We could keep talking about
this for hours and hours and hours, but I feel
like we we probably haven't seen most of the stuff
we would talk about.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
I've seen quite a few in recent years, and I'll
be going to more and more, so maybe we'll revisit
this in ten years and I'll be more up to speed.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Okay, fair enough, sounds good, and we'll have seen carry
together by then.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
I hope so. And before we end, I think we
would be remiss if we didn't mention that we recently
learned that we have, like for sure, literally inspired not one,
but two Broadway shows from this show.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Right, Yeah, it's pretty amazing, Chuck. I think we first
learned about it in Town and Country magazine. They did
an article called how a secret British spy mission became
a Broadway hit, and I think someone sent it to
us and I was like, oh, that's interesting, And as
I read a little deeper, I found that they mentioned
us specifically as the inspiration for this hit musical.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, that's amazing. And the other one we found out
from the producers of the show they emailed us the
one I think is it off Broadway on Tzacho and Vinzetti.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Right, that's right, Yeah, so big thanks to those guys
for letting the world know that we helped inspire that,
because that is quite an honor. And I think we
would also be remiss to not say, break a leg.
That's right. Do you have anything else?
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I have nothing else?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Okay, Well, since Chuck said he has nothing else and
neither do, I think it's time for listener now.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, I'm going to call this rare shout out. We
don't do shout outs much just because we get a
lot of requests too, and it would just be shout
outs every week, but this one touched me. And this
is from Cody in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, guys. In
twenty eighteen, my dad passed away, leaving behind my mom, who,
after fifty four years of marriage, had never lived alone.
(45:28):
She struggles with grief and anxiety induced insomnia as a result,
so I suggested she listened to Stuff You Should Know
for middle to night companionship to help her get her
mind off her troubles. She did, and she's been a
huge fan ever since. She calls you my guys, and
this parasocial relationship has been a true life saver for her.
When I call her up day or night, the podcast
is off and on in the background, keeping your company
(45:50):
while she does dishes or rests. Y'all are about the
same age as me and my brother, so she feels
like and she feels an anti like affection for you.
Her eightieth birthday is in April, and I believe we've
already missed it by the time this would come out.
But I've been struggling with what to do for her
as a fun surprise outside the party she's having this week,
(46:11):
and Cody asked for us to send like a video
or something, but I said, how about this, We'll do
a rare shout out and say hello to your wonderful
mother on her eightieth birthday, Bonnie Nichols. Bonnie, we love
you and we feel like you are Auntie Bonnie as well,
and it makes me feel really happy to know that
you're out there with us listening to us, so that
(46:31):
parasocial relationship goes both ways. So happy birthday, Auntie.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah, happy birthday, Bonnie. You can't see me right now,
but I'm making a heart out of my hands.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, that's lovely.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
That's really great. Seriously, thanks for listening to us, Bonnie.
I'm glad we could help and keep you company. And
if you want to be like Bonnie, Wait, who was
it that road in her son?
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Yeah it's Cody.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Cody. If you want to be like Cody and tell
us about the Bonnie in your life, we love to
hear that kind of stuff. You can send it via
email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is a good
old fashioned toe tapping, feel good event of the century
that we like to call stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I cannot stop singing. They say the neon lights up
ride a broad Way.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
That's one of my least favorites. Is that from a
chorus line.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I don't know I was singing that earlier. I was singing,
give my regards to Broadway.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Wow, you haven't been singing the one I've been singing.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
What have you been singing?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
There's no bitess like show business, like no business. I know.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
That's great. I do not know the neon lights when
I should have looked that up, but I do know.
Give my regards to Broadway. Is from Little Johnny Jones
from nineteen oh four, written by Georgiam Kohen.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Neon Lights is a kraft Work song. You're way off,
Oh well, Little Johnny Jones is the most like nineteen
twenties play title or musical title I've ever heard.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I didn't know craft Work, uh as they say, is
the neon lights so bright? Nowthers go.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's a little different. Okay, it's really good though. I
think it's actually the best song about Neon lights.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Oh that's a bold statement.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I know. I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
By the way, this is a listener suggestion, so big
thanks to Sarah Nagy for sending this in.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh nice, thanks Sarah. We should probably say, for anybody
who didn't bother looking at the title, we're talking about
Broadway today. Broadway as in the American home of musicals,
the Great White Way, you know, where musical theater goes
to live and thrive and give it a shot at stardom.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It's right and non musical theater.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
True. True. I'm more of a play guy than a
musical guy myself. I remember going to see La La
Land in the theater and being like, I had no
idea this is a musical. Luckily it turned out really well,
but okay, good. At first, I was like, you gotta
be kidding me, kind of like you know when you
go to drink take a sip of water and it
turns out to be coke, but it's really shocking, but
(02:26):
then you're like, oh, okay, cook's fine. It was a
lot like that. The movie version of that.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, I think I've detailed this a little bit. But
I've gotten more into musicals and I enjoy musical theater
and Broadway, and we try to go to a show
and we're in New York and now we're doing an
annual Broadway only trip, like where we go see a
few of them.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
That's a pilgrimage, Yeah, pilgrimage.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
But I do love the plays. And we are in
fact going to see Glengary Glenn Ross in May.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Haven't you seen the movie?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
I have? But this has got that killer cast on Broadway.
I don't know if you've heard about it or not.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
No, I haven't, Honestly, I haven't kept up with Broadway lately.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, this has got Glen Garrett, Glenn Ross with Kieran
Culkin and Bill Burr and Bob Odenkirk and others.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Wow, that is a killer cast.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
So I grab tickets for that right when they went
on sale, and I'm going and my friends are like,
ohd you get tickets, man, You're still lucky. I'm like,
I just logged on and got them when they went
on sale.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
You logged onto your internet?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, you know, just get on a if you're into
that kind of hanging. You just jump on a little
like a Broadway Direct email list and then you'll get
the aps on all the apps.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So you mentioned T is it t TKT Oh?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, the TS booth?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yes? Are they online too? Or is that like a
physically stand there in person kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah. That is the ticket service run for the not
for profit Theater Development Fund, And that is if you're
in New York and you're like, man, I wish I
could go to a show, but I don't want to
jump on a resale site and pay a ton of money.
There are booths end Times Square and satellite booths at
South Street, Seaport and Lincoln Center where you can get
day of You can go get day of tickets for
(04:11):
people that are like, I can't go Broadway. Can you
help me sell these?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah? And apparently if you go with like an hour
or so before the booth opens, the line once it
does open will only be about an hour. That's how
long it takes to clear out typically, And people who
are in line know what they want to see and
they want the best seats, and that's what they're going for.
That's why they're standing in line. But if you're like Hey,
I'm in New York. Let's catch a show. I don't
(04:36):
care what show. You can just show up, like a
couple hours after the thing opens and walk right up
and pick a show.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, And I got to say, and you know, we'll
get to this, or I might as well say it now.
The largest Broadway theater. If you've never been, you might
be used to like Broadway in your hometown at like
the five thousand seat theater or something like they have.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Here at the Performing Arts Center, yeah, or.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
The Performing Art Center. But in New York they're they're
pretty small. The largest one is the Gershwin Theater at
nineteen hundred and thirty three seats. The smallest of the
how many theaters is it? Total?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Forty two forty seven forty one theaters forty one The.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Smallest is the Haze at five ninety seven. So you know,
if you're in town, you want to check out a
show in most of those theaters. Most of the seats
are pretty great and it's fairly intimate.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I don't know much about it lately. Like I left
off with Phantom of the Opera, that was probably the
last musical I was ever really into. So but I
know that since I've been into it, like they've become
blockbuster productions, Yeah, very much, along like the Marvel Cinematic
Universe movie franchise stuff where it's like, just put a
(05:48):
ton of money into it, Yeah, and people come from
all over and you'll make ten times what you put
into it. Yeah, and that I mean, that's that's fairly
fairly new development. Is Is it like that basically across
the board now? Or surely that's like a handful of
powerhouse shows and the rest of them are more normal
and hence ticket prices are more normal, do you know, I.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Mean from my experience stuff. You know, if you go
to see some of the classics, they're you know, they're
big productions, but they're not maybe not as like special
effects heavy. They definitely I feel like have jazzed them
up a lot more in more recent years, with more
sort of jaw dropping moments of like kind of I
can't believe they did that live kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Like when the Salesman from Death of a Salesman flies
out over the crowd at that one scene.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
But like, for instance, last time we went we saw
the that's the best thing we saw. One of the
ones we saw was the new Ish Death Becomes Her,
which is I can't recommend enough. It is one of
the funniest musicals you'll ever see. But it wasn't some
lavish production, but they had a couple of very well
(06:58):
placed sort of special effects that were very fun and
so I think you need to sort of wow the
crowd a little bit more these days.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Okay, So you're not going to find like a nineteen
fifty sixties style musical comedy that isn't relying at all
on special effects there anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
M No. I mean, but maybe not special effects, but
the sets are still very big and there's a lot
of money poured into it that your plays are you're
going to be a little more like stripped down.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So okay, last question. Ticket price is, from what I've seen,
are like eye popping.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Pretty Yeah. I think Wicked was the most expensive. It
was two ninety average price.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Man out, So there's got to be tickets that are
like that the normal person can afford, right.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the average ticket price. So
the cheaper seats for like a show like Wicket or
I don't know, probably in the one hundred and something,
which is still I mean, that's a lot of money,
but I don't know that you can go, like if
you're a question is can you go see a Broadway
show for like forty five bucks?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yes, that's my question.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I don't know, and I doubt it.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, all right, well that's a bit of a shame
I have to say.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Although I'll have to look at my Glengarry tickets. I
don't know that those were like crazy expensive, but I'll check.
Why you talk?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Okay, well I'm going to start talking about the history
of Broadway.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
So Olivia helped us out with this. Kudos to her
because this was a huge, huge topic and she wrangled
it greatly. But the street itself, Broadway is really really old.
It's actually built on an old Lenape tribe trail that
connected the tribes along the thirty miles of Manhattan, So
(08:41):
this is like pre contact. Yeah, Broadway was already in
existence when the Dutch showed up and they said, this
is New Amsterdam. Eventually we'll rename it New York.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
They called it daher Strat, Yeah, which is Gentlemen's Way.
So apparently here with two e's in the middle means
gentlemen in Dutch. If you want to impress people at
your next party. Yeah, but they just called it bread
vague or broad way broad road in the English said, well,
where's going to call that broadway from now on?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, So that's the street Broadway. The theater district is
between Times Square to fifty third Street and then the
side streets from six to eighth Avenues. And like I said,
it's forty one theaters. And with that smallest one, the Hayes,
being five ninety seven, they're all at least five hundred,
almost six hundred. I mean, can you squeeze three more
(09:35):
seats in there Hayes?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Maybe standing room moment.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
And like I said, the Gershwin is the largest at
nineteen thirty three. And you know that's where theater happens.
And we're going to talk a little bit about sort
of the early theater days, because if you're talking New
York theater, you're gonna have to go back to seventeen
thirty two to see the first or at least the
first record of a performance of a play there. It
was called the Recruiting Officer mm hmm, and that was
(10:01):
some Londoners traveling through town, and it was the New
Theater on Nassau Street. But that was near Broadway, but
not anywhere close to the theater district. It was way
way downtown and what would now be the Financial District.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
You're not going to mention the name of the owner
of the new theater.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Building, Governor Rip van Dam.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Which is a really great hotel. Check in name.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, that's good, included just with the governor.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, governor, governor, Okay, I'll give you a special treatment.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So, yeah, you said that was in what is now
the Financial District. So slowly but surely it started to
kind of move to what was called the Long Acre Square. Yeah,
but before that, there was a lot of theaters that
had opened up sporadically away from what we now consider Broadway.
And I think the first I don't know if we
(10:53):
said it or not, because you corrected me when I
said like musicals. You're like, well, plays too, But most
people when they're talking about Broadway things, think they're thinking
about musicals.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So the first musical, as far as anybody can tell,
that was performed in New York. It was called The
Beggar's Opera. It was about thieves and sex workers. It
was a musical comedy. It sounds like it was somewhat
like one of the plays that would come in the
nineteenth century, or one of the musicals where there were
like kind of breaks in between where they some stand
(11:25):
up comedian would come out, or a juggler maybe, or
somebody would perform a song, but the songs didn't have
much to do with the story, if anything at all.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, and we'll get to that. That was sort of
the way it went for a while. It was sort
of like songs and sketches and stuff like that. That
was what a musical was. But we wouldn't have any
of this stuff it hadn't been for some pretty notable people.
The first one, well, he's actually the first Oscar Hammerstein.
What would be two notable Oscar Hammerstein's.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, this is Oscar Hammerstein. I, that's right.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
He moved from Germany, of course, to New York City
in eighteen sixty four and was a cigar factory floor
sweeper until he invented a cigar machine and made quite
a bit of money doing so, such that he could
start funding the opening of his passion, which was opera.
So he opened the Harlem Opera House first in eighteen
(12:19):
eighty nine and then that very first one in long
Acre Square, which will be notable in about a minute
and a half because you will learn what that became.
Hammerstein's Olympia Theater at Broadway and forty third and forty fourth,
and then after that the Republic Theater was in eighteen
ninety nine, which is still there but is now the
(12:41):
new Victory.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Theater, Gotcha, which I think is for young audiences, right,
is it? Sure? Yeah? I'm almost positive it.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Is like really body kids plays, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Like Avenue Q.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
So within like a decade, Oscar Hammerstein the first built
like three major theaters in New York City, and he
helped pretty much establish this theater district or the concept
that New York had a theater district. Yeah, or it
was a theater town, I guess. Plus, and this is
(13:15):
probably a fairly overlooked component of it. The Inner Borough
rapid transit system the train helped too, because it could
get people around New York much more easily than before.
So with those two things Hammerstein and the irt converging,
New York suddenly had like everything it needed, all the
ingredients to become like a world class theater destination.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah, for sure. So the riding was on the wall.
He opened those theaters, other people are like, hey, we
can invest money in this now that it's becoming a thing.
The New Amsterdam Theater and the Lyceum Theater were both
built around the same time in the early nineteen hundreds.
And then, oh boy, we're probably more than a minute
a half after I promised it. But in nineteen oh five,
(13:57):
long Acre Square was renamed for the newly relocated New
York Times offices, and thus it became Times Square.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
That's it, that's it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I was like, was it New York Times Square?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
And I was like, no, dummy, Just Times Square.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Just Times Square. And it was around the same time
that these three brothers, Lee, Samuel and Jacob Schubert, a
very popular theater named to this day, they opened up
a bunch of theaters in New York and elsewhere. And
the Schubert Organization still owns and operates seventeen of those
forty one theaters.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That's a bunch. That's almost half of the theaters on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
They got it locked down, baby.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So all of this hubbub and activity of building theaters
and attracting like really good performers and plays and musicals
by the time World War One rolled around, like New
York was on the map for theater and Broadway was
the theater district for New York by this time. And
(14:58):
one of the things that really helped things along kind
of picked up where Oscar Hammerstein the First and the
Irt left off to really like give things a real
goose was the Zigfield Polly's, which I know we talked
about in our episode on Vaudeville in November twenty twenty two.
We talked about that a lot. But the idea that
like you could go to the theater and you could
(15:21):
see some amazing performances and hear some funny comedy and
see some crazy dances or great dances like that drew
people the theaters like everyday people who might otherwise not
have gone through the theater.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, for sure. And you know, some of the some
of the songs that you you know, even if you're
not a fan of this kind of thing, just kind
of leaked into the public consciousness. Like give my regards
to Broadway from George Cohen. He also wrote Yankee Doodle
Dandy and over there. During World War One, this is
when Irving Berlin came around. One of it as you'll see,
(15:56):
kind of a series of poor Jewish immag grant families
that came to New York and the children of those
families ended up being like these amazing Broadway writers and composers.
He wrote things like Annie, get your gun and There's
no business like show business, your old favorite.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That's right. He also wrote White Christmas, which I read
is the best selling Christmas song of all time.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Which was not on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
No, well, it ended up on Broadway. It was in
the movie Holiday Inn, and then they retro created a
musical based on the movie.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
They retconned it right.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Another pair that were really huge at this time, where
George and Ira Gershwin brothers, another Jewish immigrant family. They
created Funny Face Girl, Crazy Porgy and Bess and some
of these, as we'll see, we're pretty kind of groundbreaking,
especially at the time. But they also launched some stars
careers like ethel Merman. Do you think of when you
(16:53):
think of somebody singing there's no business like show business?
I think ethel Merman.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, in the movie Airplane, right exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
That's where that's where I first learned about it. Ginger Rogers,
Greta Stay are of course Greta Garbo Dance on air.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And it wasn't just musical theater at the time. This
sort of post World War two era also had some
pretty legendary plays like the Iceman Come Up from Eugene
O'Neil and Lorraine Hansbury's Raising in the Sun. Of course,
but it was times Square after all. So in World
War two, that's when you started seeing some you know,
(17:28):
the usual thing that would happen was like burlesque theater,
eventually peep show, maybe regular movie theater, and then porn theater.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, and you better know the difference. Yeah, I say
that we we take a break and we come back
and we talk about the establishment of Broadway shows as
we know them.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Let's do it, Stoffy Jaws.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
So okay. So one Hammerstein did some amazing stuff, uh
with Broadway, creating Broadway. But this family was showing off
and they produced Oscar Hammerstein the Second, who was the
grandson of Oscar Hammerstein the First, and he got together
(18:31):
with a composer named Jerome Kern and they just started
making some amazing groundbreaking for the time, especially new kinds
of musicals that just they gave us Broadway as we
know it today.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah, Like, if you go to a musical today, not
you're not assured to, but more than likely you're gonna
be seen what's called the book musical. And that is
when the musical when like the songs are central to
the plot in the storyline and moving things. It's not
just like, and here's a song to add to this
musical review kind of thing. Right. They still have those
(19:06):
some you know sometimes, but it's kind of a throwback
like these days. The book musical as a direct you know,
descendant of Hammerstein too and Jerome Kern is sort of
the way to.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Go, right. They came up with a Showboat Together, which
was an enormously groundbreaking show. It combined both white and
black performers on the same stage, which, if you remember
a Harry Belafonte episode that was a no no well
into the fifties and sixties. These guys made this show
in nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yeah, I mean that people were not doing that at time.
At the time. They also had blackface in that review
because that was something they were also doing at the time.
But it was also pretty you know, progressive in some
ways by like having an integrated cast.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, and I mean a lot of the themes were
about racism, and it just kind of took it head on.
It was a serious, dramatic story. It wasn't like, you know,
feel good forget your troubles, come on, get happy kind
of thing.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, and just to be clear, it was truly integrated.
I wasn't saying the blackface was integration. They had real
integration and also blackface, which I don't quite understand.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
But I don't either.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, I don't know how they were doing things in
nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Like when a woman is in an episode of Monty Python,
it's like, why are you guys in drag?
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Then?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Exactly, So Hammerstein is doing his thing, doing pretty well.
Jerome Kern's great, but all of a sudden a dude
lopes onto the scene named Richard Rogers, and Hammerstein said
Rogers and Hammerstein, that sounds that has a nice ring
to it. They're old buddies, old former classmates from Columbia
years earlier. And Rogers approach Hammerstein and said, hey, there's
(20:52):
this play Greengrow the Lilacs from Lynn Riggs. Why don't
we turn that into a musical, and why don't we
do a little different like why don't you write the
words to this thing first, I'll write the music and
I don't know, let's use an exclamation point in the title,
and let's just call it Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Oh Oklahoma. Right sure? So this show, this established Richard
Rodgers in Oscar Hammer's sign like this is nineteen forty three.
It set a record for the most performances at the time.
It's long since been just totally demolished, but it had
a record performance total of twenty two hundred and twelve.
(21:30):
That was just unheard of back then. So imagine, like,
you know, you've got some pretty cool stuff under your belt,
but all of a sudden you get together with this
new collaborator and you create the show that has the
longest running or the largest number of performances ever, just
right off the bat. That's kind of like what these
guys became. Like they were just the stars of Broadway productions.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, I mean giants to this day of the industry,
South Pacific, the Sound of Music, the King, and I
I mean It's It's their names are basically synonymous with
musical theater.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I read Chuck also that at one point they had
three of the longest running plays or shows on Broadway
at the time, and three other shows in production to
be adapted to films all at the same time. Giants Giants. Yeah,
we could have just left it at that now that
(22:22):
I think about it.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
So there were some like huge, huge shows of the
late twentieth century that sort of helped redefine Broadway. West
Side Story was one. This was what kind of where
the idea of the triple threat came along because they
didn't have you know, for a while there there was
like a separate chorus and that like did the dancing
and stuff. And West Side Story was one of the
(22:46):
first ones in nineteen fifty seven to be like, hey,
you're the lead actor, you're also singing, you're also dancing,
because that's all part of it, and all of a sudden,
the triple threat was a thing, and that was the
real start of another giant abroad Way.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Steven Sondheim, Yeah, who would go on to direct Contagion,
which we mentioned recently too.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
No, he wrote the lyrics. And then another name he
might have heard of, Leonard Bernstein, was a composer for
West Side Story.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, he's great too. Cabaret was another one by this time.
This is nineteen sixty six. Today you think of Cabaret
and it's just a cult classic musical, But at the
time it was groundbreaking in that it introduced a new
kind of musical to Broadway, which is actually kind of
a throwback to how it used to be. It's called
(23:33):
the concept musical. And rather than you know, a through
line story where the songs advanced the story and everything,
this was more like there was a theme. The theme
was the show was said at the kick Hat Club
in Berlin, I think in Weimar era Berlin. Yeah, and
through the songs that all kind of have this share
(23:55):
this kind of same theme, this concept is created. I
think the theme was seen Cabaret, but I believe that
it was a meditation on the rise of Nazism during
the Weimar Republics kind of swinging days.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah. Yeah, I always wanted to see Cabaret.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Yeah, well, let's go see it together for the first time.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Then I don't know that it's is it running? Is
there a revival going on?
Speaker 2 (24:18):
Oh man, I'm gonna get myself killed. I'm talking about
the movie. There's movies for all of these pretty much,
so we can just see the movie.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
There really is. There's two West Side stories in fact.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, Steven Spielberg did one.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, it was good hair. We have to talk about
hair from nineteen sixty eight. This is a musical that
and Livia points us out it wasn't just commenting on
what's going on in history at the time. It really
helped kind of shape it in real time. It was
the first rock musical something I'm a big, big fan of.
Oh yeah, like the jukebox music. Juke juke box. I
(24:54):
have such a hard time with that. Musicals are okay,
not my favorite, but those seventies Jesus Christ super Star
and Joseph in the Amazing Technical or dream Coat and
hair like that stuff is so groovy and so cool
because it's like sixties and seventies.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, no, it is super groovy hair. If there's one
word to describe hair, it's groovy, Yeah. If the other
there's If you want one more word, it would be nude.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, or murkin' because that was in all the whole
cast was nude, very famously in one scene. But it
did help launch the careers of Diane Keaton was in
that original production, as was meat Loaf, a man whose
house I have been at.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Oh, of course, so I have no follow up questions
whatsoever to that? Instead? Well, okay, what were you doing
in Melof's house?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
I'll tell you offline.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Okay. Cool. So Stephen Sondheim, who you already mentioned he was.
He made a name for himself by writing the lyrics
of West Side Story, but apparently his big breakout was
something called Company, which was a bunch of vignettes about
romantic relationships. I have not seen that one either. I
feel like a rube talking about all these things that
(26:07):
I haven't seen. But I did read about it, and
I read that if the whole thing starts at the
main character's thirty fifth birthday party, he walks into the
birthday party, and then these vignettes start, and then the
thing ends, I think with him walking into the thirty
fifth birthday party. To make it like this all took
place in just a moment in time. All of these
(26:28):
vignettes did super cool.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I have not seen it either. Sondheim also very well
known for Sweeney Todd, the Demon, Barbara of Fleet Street.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I have seen that.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I have not seen that, but friend of the show
Scott Ackerman highly recommends it, said it's like one of
the best shows he's ever seen.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, I gotta check it out.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
A chorus line another movie that one's kind of meta.
There was another concept musical where the whole thing takes
place in an audition. Yeah, so the whole thing is
about theater life, about theater people, but it's actually a
musical show. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Yeah, And that began a run in nineteen seventy five
of like a dozen years where some of the giants
of all time were launched. The chorus line Chicago in
nineteen seventy five, Le Miz in nineteen eighty seven, Cats
in nineteen eighty two, which we'll talk about that a
little more in a sec and then Phantom in eighty eight.
(27:24):
But Cats very famously was a very very long running
show that like, some people love, some people hate, some
people think it's brilliant, some people make fun of it.
But lyricist Tim Rice got together with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber,
the Weber Rice Team. They did the Amazing Technical or
dream Coat Jesus Christ Superstar Avida, and then they said, hey,
(27:45):
let's turn this T. S. Eliot Old Possum's Book of
Practical Cats into a musical and have real people dressed
up as cats.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Some people say, like, if you could build a time machine,
what would you do? I would go back and prevent
Andrew Lloyd Webber from having that thought.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I've never seen any iteration of cats. I want to
see something.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
It's the only time, outside of an airplane, where I
tried to make myself go to sleep in public that
I was like, I can't I can't even just sit here. Yes,
it was at a performance, like I can't just sit here,
Like I have to not be conscious for this. Oh boy,
now I was too young to leave. I don't think
I was driving at the time. Was with my family.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Oh no, you couldn't be like fake sick or anything.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
No. I think I don't have a recollection of the
show after a certain point, so I think I might
have been successful in falling asleep.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Your dad would have been throw up in this bag,
You'll be fine. And then Phantom was eighty eight, and
I think that's it's another Andrew Lloyd Weber show. But
I think that was one of the first ones to
really ramp up, got real designy and included some special effects,
and I think that kind of started that trend of
making things a little bigger.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, for sure, that one I can sing along with
basically from start to finish. I love that one d exactly.
I knew exactly what you were doing, just think because
I'm so familiar with it.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
We tried to see Phanom at the Fox Theater here
in Atlanta, and I actually just joined the Broadway season
for next season. The season's run from May to May.
I think on regular Broadway, I'm not sure about the Fox.
I think it may be about the same. But we
tried to go see Phantom years ago, but we're both
so distracted. It was when we were trying to buy
(29:30):
our first house and we were obsessed with this house
we were trying to get a bid on, and were
It was just one of those deals where we were
not there, our head was elsewhere, and we finally just
looked at each other and we were like, we need
to get out of here.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
You should definitely see it again. It's a really great show.
The music.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I gotta see it.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
There's like a one ton chandelier that falls to the stage.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Like.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
It's a good show. And I think you're right that
it did kick off kind of the mega productions ran
for thirty five years, and as far as I know,
it holds the record still for the most performances at
thirteen nine and eighty one.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Remember Oklahoma said something at like twenty two hundred before.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Oh yeah, that's I mean impressive at the time, but yeah,
that's thirty five years is impressive.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's pretty amazing. So yeah, I love that show. I'm
just gonna say it probably five more times throughout this.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
So we got to talk a little bit about Times Square.
Even before the seventies came along, it was a pretty
rowdy place, and the early teens that was a one
am curfew because it was such a rowdy place. There
were speakeasies there during Prohibition, burlesque in the thirties, and
then from the sixties and into the nineties. I think
(30:48):
I've mentioned this before. When I first started going to
New York in the mid nineties, there were still peep
shows there. It was right before the final cleanup happened
thanks to a few different mayors, but Mayor ed Koch,
certainly David Dinkins, and then eventually Giuliani would finish up
the work of cleaning up Time Square.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, David Dinkins was the one who I think maybe
had the biggest impact or we should mention John Lindsay.
In the early seventies, he created a text incentive where
if you built in Times Square a new building, you
could get a pretty good text break, but you had
to build a theater on the ground floor to try
to bring the theater back to the area. I thought
(31:30):
that was a pretty ingenious idea. But to me, David
Dinkins probably had the biggest impact, good or bad by
making a deal with Michael Eisner, who was running Walt
Disney at the time, and he said, just do your
thing here, Disney, Like, we got a lot of perverts
running around here. We need some Disney to counterbalance this
stuff and maybe even overwhelm it. And it worked, like
(31:52):
if you pour enough Disney onto an area, yeah, the
perverts just turn and run.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Right. So they started they dip their toe in the
pond with renovating and renting out the New Amsterdam Theater,
which at that point New York City had acquired in
nineteen ninety two as part of the forty second Street
development program. Because it was one of those that followed
the for less theater than movie theater than porn theater model.
(32:17):
I don't know if that was an official model, and
then as they were remodeling that in ninety four, before
they were finished, Disney opened Beauty and the Beast at
the Palace Theater, of course, the adaptation of the ninety
one animated film, and it was almost a twelve million
dollar budget, the most expensive musical ever at the time,
and ended up running for about thirteen years to total
(32:39):
grosses of about four hundred and thirty mil.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
That's just insane even today, but this was the mid nineties.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, I mean the returns on Broadway. If you can
get a smash hit going, you know, it's not like
you have to sink two hundred million dollars into it
like you do a big budget movie.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of front loaded. But then yeah,
after you get it up and running and it's going,
it can just go by itself, basically.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
For sure, should we take our second break?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Oh jeez, I wasn't expecting that, but sure, let's do that.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
All right, We'll be right back and finish up on
Broadway right after this.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Stuffy Jaws.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
All right, So Broadway you can go for Escape of
Spare you always have been able to. You still can.
But starting in the mid nineties with Rent, people really
started tackling some heavier topics. Jonathan Larson's rock musical talked
about addiction and suicide and poverty and aids about Rent
(34:00):
was another one I left. It was fine, but it
was another situation where I was with friends and everyone.
I can't remember. There was some weird distraction where everyone's like,
do you want to leave? I think our seats were
bad or something, and it just wasn't happening. But I
want to see Rent again. Larson very tragically died at
thirty five years old of an aortic aneurysm the night
(34:23):
before it premiered off Broadway. I know that's insane, Just
a brutal, brutal story.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, because it's such a legendary show. To just have
this show that you probably I'm sure he was like,
I think this is going to be big and then
he dies right before even seeing it perform once. That's
just sad to me, very sad. And then another thing
that kind of came along. There were plenty of escapist shows,
we should say, and there still are, and a really
(34:49):
good example from fairly recent times is Mama Mia, which
is one of those jukebox it is hard to say,
isn't it a jukebox musical, which is it takes existing
songs everybody knows and loves and then puts creates like
a musical around them. And Mama Mia did that back
in two thousand and one with Abba songs.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah, and then you know, I haven't seen many of those,
but they did one of like the eighties rock. The
Billy Joels had one, Bob Dylan had.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
One, don't forget a Dee Snyder from Twisted's sister had rock.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, that's when I met the eighties rock one that
was rockabates right. But you know, it's a thing I
prefer something with. I mean, they have stories built around
the songs, like you said, so they can be okay,
but I prefer something something a little more straight ahead,
not based like original music, I guess is what I'm
trying to do.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, there's some good ones. So there's a there's a
Carol King basically bio musical that I didn't either. I
didn't either, big.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Fan of Wicket, still recommend it. Finally saw it last
year on Broadway.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Unfortunately it was not the wickedly talented Adele Desime, but
that's where she made her name, along with who was
the original? Was it Kristin chenow with I believe.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yes it was.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I always loved her in uh, Pushing Up Daisies. Do
you remember that show?
Speaker 1 (36:18):
I do, but I did not see that.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Oh you should go back and watch it. I saw
it not too long ago, and it really holds up.
It is a very charming show.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
We should call this episode Josh and Chuck haven't seen.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
This, Yeah, pretty much, just put a colon before it
and we can add that.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Okay, Hamilton is one I did not see, but we
would be remiss if we did not mention it because
it was such a landmark play Lynn Manuel Miranda. Of course,
that one hip hop into historical context on Broadway, which
is a huge smash it. And I saw it on
the you know, the TV version of the film the musical,
(36:55):
so and listen to it quite a bit, but I
never saw it live.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
That's okay, Chuck, I'll let you the hook. It was
too expensive, Yeah, it really was, wasn't it. Those were
some high priced tickets for a while because everybody was
talking about that show well and.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
It was all sold out, So the only way to
get tickets was to pay like twelve hundred bucks at
the time. It would probably be even more now, but
now you can go see it, and I bet you
can get tickets for regular price.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Sure. I got to mention this one. I've not seen this,
believe it or not, everybody. It's called Dear Evan Hanson.
It's from twenty sixteen, but I did read a couple
of articles on it, and it sounds totally off the wall,
where the title character is mistaken for the best friend
of a teenager who's just died by suicide, and so
(37:40):
he suddenly becomes very popular and like everybody wants to
know what this kid was like, and he uses it
to basically become popular and liked, whereas otherwise he was
just kind of overlooked, you know, kid on the sides,
and there's all this horrible stuff that starts to happen
and unravels, and I think he's publicly unmasked at some point.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, I need that's on my list. A couple of
good friends have seen it and said it's great, So
I'm gonna go see that soon. I hope these these
make a lot of money. Like I said, Wicked set
a weekly record in December of this past year. Obviously,
buoyed by the popularity of the movie, but the first
ever show to have a five million dollar week and
(38:26):
last season, the twenty three to twenty four season again
ran from May to May, total grosses of one point
five to four billion dollars more than twelve million attendees
over seventy one productions, with an average occupancy of eighty
nine point nine, so that they're you know, the average
Broadway show isn't even sold out. It's close to ninety percent.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Wow. Can we talk about a few flops?
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, I'm going to pick out a couple of these.
I'm going to pick out Moose Murder from nineteen eighty three.
It is a farce, obviously, but it was bankrolled by
an oil heiress named Lily Robertson and directed by her
husband and starring the oil heiress Lily Robertson who bankrolled it,
(39:15):
which should tell you it's not headed toward a great thing.
Also because it's called Moose Murders and it closed after
one single performance, and New Yorker art critic Brendan Gill
said that it would insult the intelligence of an audience
consisting entirely of Amba's.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Yeah, I read about that it seems like it was
just a completely amateur production from start to finish, like
everybody was basically had no idea what they were doing.
And if you want to just be delighted, go read
articles about the flop that was Moose Murders, because it's
widely considered like the worst show that ever hit Broadway
(39:52):
in a lot of ways. Though it's tough to qualify that,
because there's plenty of bad shows out there and some
have been forgotten, but for some reason, Moose Murders just
became like the symbol for the worst shows on Broadway.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah, I mean there's different ways to qualify it, like
is it just bad bad or is it notoriously flop
because of how much money it costs? Then it flopped.
That was the case with a couple of them. But
Kerry An adaptation of the Stephen King horror novel as
a musical in nineteen eighty eight, closed after sixteen previews
and five regular performances at an eight million dollar budget.
(40:28):
So it's it's widely considered one of the biggest sort
of just expensive flops of all time.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yeah, there's a song about killing a pig in it.
I think to get the blood to pour on. Yeah,
and the lyrics it's a simple little gig, you help
me kill a pig.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, And believe it or not that it wasn't like
an amateurist production. It was directed by Terry Hans, who
ran the Royal Shakespeare Company for thirteen years, and was
choreographed by Debbie Allen. So it was a big money
thing that just was sounds like not a very good idea.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
It was a terrible idea and I'm rid it was
terribly executed too in the end that they just you know,
they really tried though. I think that's the difference.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Well, it has been revived with cult status off Broadway
like in the twenty tens, So it's one of those.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I would go see that. I would go see that.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
And then I think the biggest flop as far as
money goes is Spider Man Turn Off the Dark from
twenty eleven. That's another one that just anybody who has
anything to do or any interest in Broadway they know
about this flop. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
I mean that had all the right ingredients to Broadway
legend and film director Julie Taymor, who directed The Lion
King on Broadway. They got Bono in the edge to
write the music. It was huge special effects and it
was just problem after problem after problem all like you know,
kind of front page or at least front page of
(41:58):
the arts headline kind of problems.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, So when you're performing a show or putting on
a production, you have what are called previews where people
can come. The critics are not allowed to see it yet,
but normal people can come and watch it, but under
the understanding that they're going to be stopping in the
middle of performance, taking notes, maybe giving notes. There's going
to be technical glitches, and it's they're working it out
(42:21):
still in front of an audience. And I think the
first preview of Spider Man went three and a half
hours for the first act alone, and there were It
holds the record for the largest number of previews, more
previews that have, the more problems you have. Obviously it
had one hundred and eighty two preview shows before it
(42:42):
ever opened.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, and I've been to some previews. I saw Sarah,
Jessica Parker and Broderick do the which one was it?
The Neil Simon one a couple of years ago, and
that was in previews. Don't let like the idea of
a preview turning off because like usually they just straight
through and it's just like a regular performance. Like I've
never seen a preview that where anyone stopped and did
(43:05):
anything weird. And critics do actually see those because they
will review the show before opening night because they have
seen the preview.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Okay, I thought I've read somewhere that critics are not allowed,
So maybe there's like a special preview.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Or maybe a window or something. Yeah, yeah, that would
be my guess. I'm not sure how that works, but
I know it's always I'm not sure if it's like movies.
I know movies, sometimes they won't let the critics see
it before it's release, and that always means it stinks. Yeah,
so I'm not sure if Broadway does that or not.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Actually, well, Chuck, that's Broadway. We could keep talking about
this for hours and hours and hours, but I feel
like we we probably haven't seen most of the stuff
we would talk about.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
I've seen quite a few in recent years, and I'll
be going to more and more, so maybe we'll revisit
this in ten years and I'll be more up to speed.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Okay, fair enough, sounds good, and we'll have seen carry
together by then.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
I hope so. And before we end, I think we
would be remiss if we didn't mention that we recently
learned that we have, like for sure, literally inspired not one,
but two Broadway shows from this show.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Right, Yeah, it's pretty amazing, Chuck. I think we first
learned about it in Town and Country magazine. They did
an article called how a secret British spy mission became
a Broadway hit, and I think someone sent it to
us and I was like, oh, that's interesting, And as
I read a little deeper, I found that they mentioned
us specifically as the inspiration for this hit musical.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yeah, that's amazing. And the other one we found out
from the producers of the show they emailed us the
one I think is it off Broadway on Tzacho and Vinzetti.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Right, that's right, Yeah, so big thanks to those guys
for letting the world know that we helped inspire that,
because that is quite an honor. And I think we
would also be remiss to not say, break a leg.
That's right. Do you have anything else?
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I have nothing else?
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Okay, Well, since Chuck said he has nothing else and
neither do, I think it's time for listener now.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, I'm going to call this rare shout out. We
don't do shout outs much just because we get a
lot of requests too, and it would just be shout
outs every week, but this one touched me. And this
is from Cody in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, guys. In
twenty eighteen, my dad passed away, leaving behind my mom, who,
after fifty four years of marriage, had never lived alone.
(45:28):
She struggles with grief and anxiety induced insomnia as a result,
so I suggested she listened to Stuff You Should Know
for middle to night companionship to help her get her
mind off her troubles. She did, and she's been a
huge fan ever since. She calls you my guys, and
this parasocial relationship has been a true life saver for her.
When I call her up day or night, the podcast
is off and on in the background, keeping your company
(45:50):
while she does dishes or rests. Y'all are about the
same age as me and my brother, so she feels
like and she feels an anti like affection for you.
Her eightieth birthday is in April, and I believe we've
already missed it by the time this would come out.
But I've been struggling with what to do for her
as a fun surprise outside the party she's having this week,
(46:11):
and Cody asked for us to send like a video
or something, but I said, how about this, We'll do
a rare shout out and say hello to your wonderful
mother on her eightieth birthday, Bonnie Nichols. Bonnie, we love
you and we feel like you are Auntie Bonnie as well,
and it makes me feel really happy to know that
you're out there with us listening to us, so that
(46:31):
parasocial relationship goes both ways. So happy birthday, Auntie.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah, happy birthday, Bonnie. You can't see me right now,
but I'm making a heart out of my hands.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Yeah, that's lovely.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
That's really great. Seriously, thanks for listening to us, Bonnie.
I'm glad we could help and keep you company. And
if you want to be like Bonnie, Wait, who was
it that road in her son?
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Yeah it's Cody.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Cody. If you want to be like Cody and tell
us about the Bonnie in your life, we love to
hear that kind of stuff. You can send it via
email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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