The 42nd Annual Tony Awards were held on June 5, 1998 at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre and hosted by Angela Lansbury, at that time a four-time Tony Award winner for Best Actress in a Musical. Heading into the ceremony there were three shows tied for the most nominations: Into the Woods, The Phantom of the Opera and the Patti LuPone-helmed Lincoln Center revival of Anything Goes. The season’s other two nominated new musicals, Romance/Romance and Sarafina! Both had five nominations. Also in the pack for Best Revival is a Joel Grey-led revival of Cabaret.

Broadway ensemblist and friend of the pod Timothy Hughes has created a new online community called Performer's Puzzle: an online membership community that helps define and celebrate our personal passions. We chatted about the purpose of the new community and how his acknowledging his status as "the tall guy" helped him create creative opportunities.

Happy Tony Season! Our team at Ensemblist HQ could not be more excited to join the theatre community in celebrating the 2019-20 Broadway season and its incredible ensembles this fall. First up is Moulin Rouge! After a July 2018 premiere in Boston, Moulin Rouge! opened at Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre on July 25, 2019. Boasting a large cast of Broadway veterans & plenty of show-stopping spectacle, Moulin Rouge! was a dazzling highlight of the 2019-20 Broadway season.

The 42nd Annual Tony Awards were held on June 5, 1998 at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre and hosted by Angela Lansbury, at that time a four-time Tony Award winner for Best Actress in a Musical. Heading into the ceremony there were three shows tied for the most nominations: Into the Woods, The Phantom of the Opera and the Patti LuPone-helmed Lincoln Center revival of Anything Goes. The season’s other two nominated new musicals, Romance/Romance and Sarafina! Both had five nominations. Also in the pack for Best Revival is a Joel Grey-led revival of Cabaret.

Last week, Will Blum released a 12-minute filmed presentation of Floyd Collins shot entirely inside his new New York City apartment. We talked about how the idea went from concept to reality, as well as what it means to be creating "theatre" in quarantine. Watch the film here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CFBZgSSj0Ma/

This week, I chatted with Broadway veteran Tamika Lawrence (Caroline or Change, Come From Away, Matilda The Musical) about the launch of her new apparel line: Ready Set Wear Apparel. We chatted about how her mother (kindly) tricked her into starting the venture, and how the Spice Girls were a stylistic influence on her design. Here's our conversation...

The 52nd Annual Tony Awards were held on June 7, 1998 at Radio City Music Hall. Hosted by Rosie O’Donnell for the second year in a row, Going into the ceremony, Ragtime led the pack with 13 nominations, followed by The Lion King with 11. The acclaimed Roundabout Theatre Company revival had 10 nominations, with Side Show and The Scarlet Pimpernel as new musicals, and 1776 and The Sound of Music as revivals. A lot of things happened during the season, many of which were covered in all the politically-skewed humor of the telecast. President Bill Clinton was in his second term in office, and by the time of this broadcast he was elbow-deep in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, with impeachment talks just around the corner. Also referenced as a joke in the telecast, 1998 brought upon the advent of Viagra, which was approved by the FDA in March of that year. LOL. In New York, this season also marks the “Disneyfication” of Broadway, where in a partnership of Disney, LiveEnt, and The New 42nd St. Inc, transformed Times Square from the seedy, sketchy neighborhood history knew it to be, to the child-friendly, glamorous tourist-trap we know it is today. This season also boasted the opening of 35 Broadway productions, and notably this was the year that Cats surpassed A Chorus Line as the longest running show on Broadway. Meow.

On March 12, 2020, the Broadway League suspended performances for all Broadway shows through April 12 amidst rising Coronavirus concerns and bans on large gatherings. Six months later, most industries are reopening, television/film production is resuming, and many office employees are settling nicely into remote work routines. Yet staying masked, practicing social distancing, and avoiding large crowds remains crucial in the fight against COVID-19. As a result, Broadway and many theatres across the country remain closed until at least January 3, 2021. So much remains unknown for our industry, but there is hope as live performances begin sprouting up at venues such as Berkshire Theatre Group and Weathervane Theatre. As Broadway’s Diana prepares to be filmed for Netflix. As theatre artists find ways to create work digitally. But what did the future look like for actors at the beginning of the pandemic? During the month of March, we released daily conversations with actors performing in Broadway shows, national tours, and regional productions, as they first adapted to workplace changes, then unemployment and the uncertainty. Six months later, we look back at those conversations to see if anything from the past can teach us about the months ahead.

After two years at New York’s Beacon Theatre, the 2013 Tonys were broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall. From the moment the nominations were announced, the ceremony seemed destined to be a showdown between Kinky Boots and Matilda The Musical, with revivals of Pippin, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s CInderella and The Mystery of Edwin Drood following close behind. Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, the ceremony featured one of the most lauded openings in Tony Awards History, titled “Bigger.” Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Kitt and featuring the iconic line “We were that kid,” “Bigger’ featured more than a hundred Broadway performers and eventually won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics.

In our final installment of this series, we’re sharing our favorite moments from our interview with Bob Stillman. Bob first appeared on Broadway in 1988’s Legs Diamond, although his role was cut during the show’s 72 previews. Bob has since performed on Broadway in Grand Hotel, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Dirty Blonde, Souvenir, Grey Gardens, Act One, It’s Only a Play, and Living on Love. Also a composer & musician, he has written music for both Urban Cowboy and Dirty Blonde. Bob is a Tony Award nominee for his contributions to the score of Urban Cowboy, as well as for his performance in Dirty Blonde. Here’s our conversation...

After two years at New York’s Beacon Theatre, the 2013 Tonys were broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall. From the moment the nominations were announced, the ceremony seemed destined to be a showdown between Kinky Boots and Matilda The Musical, with revivals of Pippin, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s CInderella and The Mystery of Edwin Drood following close behind. Hosted by Neil Patrick Harris, the ceremony featured one of the most lauded openings in Tony Awards History, titled “Bigger.” Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tom Kitt and featuring the iconic line “We were that kid,” “Bigger’ featured more than a hundred Broadway performers and eventually won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics.

The 45th Annual Tony Awards were held on June 2, 1991. They were broadcast on CBS from the Minskoff Theatre and hosted by Julie Andrews and Jeremy Irons. The telecast featured performances from the four nominated musicals: Miss Saigon, Once on This Island, The Secret Garden and The Will Rogers Follies. It also included a special salute to ‘The Year of the Musical Actor’ featuring Robert Morse, Topol, Ann Reinking, Michael Crawford and more. Leading up to the award ceremony, Miss Saigon and The Will Rogers Follies were tied for the most nominations of the season, with 11 each. But it was The Will Rogers Follies that walked away with six wins (Musical, Score, Choreography, Direction, Costume, Lighting). Miss Saigon and The Secret Garden both received three wins (Jonathan Pryce, Lea Salonga, Hinton Battle), (Book, Daisy Eagan, Scenic) while the fourth nominee for Best Musical, Once On This Island, walked away empty handed.

Broadway alum Anthony Wayne has collected a group of Black men in theatre to form a racial equality group to support fellow members of their community and industry. Black Broadway Men is open to all self-identifying Black men who work on stage or behind the scenes in theatre. We spoke to Anthony about the process of creating Black Broadway Men and their plans for the future. Here's our conversation...

Today, we share a story of love from Daniel Switzer. Not only about falling in love with a person, but also a city - and how both of those relationships bloomed over a years-long courtship. Here, in his own words, is Daniel Switzer.

Welcome listeners to a new mini-series, bringing you all the drama behind the drama of a theatre season in Broadway history. In each podcast episode, we will watch a telecast of a previous Tony Awards and then delve to the theatre season. How this will work is that the week prior, Aaron and I will randomly select a Tony Awards telecast to watch on YouTube. We will each have the following week to research the season as a whole and then bring you our most surprising findings about how the telecast did and didn’t reflect the year on Broadway. To join us for our first Tonys recap, be sure to watch the 1991 Tony Awards by searching for them on YouTube.

This week, we’re sharing highlights from our chat with John Eric Parker. After growing up in New York City and attending LaGuardia High School, John Eric Parker performed in the national tour of The Wiz and German production of Starlight Express before making his Broadway debut in Rent. He’s since performed in the original Broadway casts of All Shook Up, Memphis, and The Book of Mormon. Here’s our conversation...

Welcome back, listeners to our tongue-in-cheek wrap up of what is television’s most detailed depiction of the theatre industry. And yes, for the last time, we’re talking about Smash, the NBC series that chronicled the creation of not one, but TWO Broadway musicals and all of the drama that ensued along the way. We’ve been going back to see how this supposed love letter to Broadway has held up over the past decade. So let’s dive in and talk about season two of Smash.

Smash’s series finale “The Tonys” premiered on May 26th, 2013. It was the second part of a two-part series finale event that night. The finale was written by season 2 showrunner Joshua Safran, and directed by Michael Morris, who directed the previous episode as well (again, two-parter). And surprise, surprise, the viewership stayed the same from the previous episode (which was an hour ago) which came in at a steady 2.44 million viewers. Our finale’s set list was comprised of three songs: one cover and two originals. Our cover featured the majority of our principal cast singing “Under Pressure” by Queen. For our originals we were treated to a very Pitch-Perfect-esque Tony Performance of the Hit List staple “Broadway Here I Come,” written by Joe Iconis and performed by the full Hit List Cast (sans Mara Davi), and as our finale ultimo, in-house team Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman took the series home with their original song “Big Finish” sung by our leading-lady duo, Megan Hilty and Katharine McPhee. After two seasons, the companies of Bombshell and Hit List are both “Under Pressure” as they march toward the Marquis Theatre - home of this year’s Tony Award ceremony. With only 12 hours until the big show, Tom and Julia are writing their possible acceptance speech, Derek is drinking to forget that he publicly admitted casting Daisy in exchange for sex, and Leigh and Ivy discuss how the other one has better chances of winning. Jimmy is sabotaging himself by attempting to get out of attending the ceremony, until Julia has a “Come to Jesus” with him to get the balls to attend. Also, Derek is sabotaging himself by attempting to get out of attending the ceremony, until Ivy has a “Come to Jesus” with him to get the balls to attend. But both end up attending, which is good because they both end up accepting awards: Derek for choreographing Hit List and Jimmy on behalf of Kyle of Hit List’s book. Gabe and Lexi are furious that they’ve been called in to perform at the Tony Awards to support Daisy, until Ivy reminds Karen and company that they can refuse to perform with her. When they do, producer Jerry counters by giving Daisy the chance to perform “Reach for Me” instead. But following her win for Best Featured Actor, Derek decides to make it right and take Daisy out of the Tony performance, putting in Karen, Jimmy and (surprise) Ana in an a cappella performance of “Broadway, Here I Come.” After winning for Best Score, newly minted Tony winners Tom and Julia decide to stay together as a writing team. Ivy gives a touching ode to live theatre in her acceptance speech for Best Actress and while Hit List walks away with most of the initial awards, Eileen Rand’s Bombshell takes home the prize for Best Musical. In its closing moments, the cast of Smash couples up - Ivy with Derek, Julia with Michael Swift, Eileen with her formerly imprisoned bartender, Karen with a prison-bound Jimmy- and the series finale ends with as much of a non-sequitur as it began: an out-of-time duet performance by our two divas giving the show a “Big Finish.”

The shutdown of Broadway theatre has paused the careers of 414 ensemblists, including many making their Mainstem debuts. Back in February, Mrs. Doubtfire swing Brian Martin wrote a story for our blog about finally feeling ready to make his Broadway debut. Six months later, we asked Brian to revisit the story and share how the last six months have affected that readiness. Here, in his own words, is Brian Martin...

On this week’s episode, we’re sharing our favorite moments from our interview with Ann Harada. After getting her start as a PA and office assistant for theatrical producers, Ann Harada made her Broadway debut in M. Butterfly. She’s since performed on Broadway in Seussical, Avenue Q, Les Mis, 9 to 5, and Cinderella. From originating the role of Christmas Eve in Avenue Q to playing Linda on TV’s Smash, Ann’s career is one for the books. Here’s our conversation...

Jessica Rush has performed in a remarkable six Broadway musicals in the last ten years, but a large chunk of that time was spent in the ensemble in Jersey Boys. She is also the co-host of the very great, very good podcast Mama’s Talkin’ Loud, also available on the Broadway Podcast Network. Having spent almost six years and more than 2,300 performances in Jersey Boys, Jess shares how working a long-running show changed her life - both as an artist and a mama. Here, in her own words, is Jessica Rush...

The penultimate episode of season 2, “The Nominations,” premiered on May 26th, 2013. It was written by Bryan Goluboff, who last penned “The Dramaturg” earlier this season, and was directed by Michael Morris, who has written a number of season 2 episodes. The viewership jumped up by .43 million viewers from the last episode, bringing the total viewership to 2.44 million. We had three featured songs this week, with our only original song being an excerpt of Hit List’s “Rewrite This Story” written by Pasek & Paul. Our two others included a cover of Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright” sung by Megan Hilty, and “If You Want Me” from Once, performed by Krysta Rodriguez. It’s just days until Tony Award nominations come out, and nobody’s feeling alright: Eileen wants more nominations than Hit List, Tom wants a win to cement his future as a director. Oh, and Ivy Lynn is puking in the bathroom between scenes because she’s pregnant. Jimmy is worried that Kyle won’t be recognized with a Tony nomination for Best Book, but Hit List’s producer Jerry says he’s worried about the wrong thing: Ana is filing a wrongful termination suit against Derek. The Outer Critics Circle deems “Best Director” a tie between Derek and Tom, and Julia Huston wins “Best Book” for Bomshell. But Hit List walks away with the rest, including acting awards for Karen, Sam and Daisy. The win for Daisy lights a fire under Karen’s ass to protect her roommate, igniting her to storm into Daisy’s dressing room demanding she quit Hit List. But Daisy’s been working too hard for ten years to give up this opportunity. At the Outer Critics Circle luncheon, Julia gives a touching tribute to Kyle, and Tom dedicates his joint win to Derek, but afterwards tensions fire as Jimmy interrupts the proceedings to give Julia a lecture in theatrical ethics. Burning the candle at both ends and with his voice failing, Karen encourages Jimmy to call out of that night’s show and watch the fruits of Kyle’s labor from the audience. Teary-eyed after sitting in the Barrymore, Jimmy realizes that theatre lovers will remember Kyle for his work onstage, not because he did or didn’t win a Tony. The morning of the nominations are announced, everyone from the Bombshell and Hit List camps are crowded around their screens to watch them live. Bombshell gets 12 nominations, including those for Ivy, Leigh, Derek, Julia, Tom but Hit List gets 13 with nods for Karen, Daisy, Derek, Jimmy and Kyle. But all is not peachy, as Julia being dragged to court by her soon-to-be-ex-husband and Derek publicly acknowledges that he wrongly terminated Ana and gave the part to Daisy after sleeping with her.

This week, we’re sharing highlights from our conversation with Alma Cuervo. With an impressive SIXTEEN Broadway shows to her name, Alma is a true veteran of the New York theatre. Some of her many credits include Once in a Lifetime, Cabaret, Beauty and the Beast, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and most recently On Your Feet! In our interview, we chat all about her life on the stage - from Broadway to Off-Broadway, regional, and touring theatre. Here’s our conversation...

“The Transfer” premiered on May 11, 2013. It was written by Justin Brenneman and Julia Brownell; Brenneman is a Smash rookie, while Brownell last penned last month’s episode, “The Dress Rehearsal.” The episode was directed by Holly Dale, also a newcomer to our Smash world. The viewership fell for its last time in the series, dipping by 270,000 to a total of 2.01 million viewers. We had four original songs in the episode this week. Our two from Hit List included “Pretender,” written by Lucie Silvas and Michael Busbee, and “I’m Not Sorry,” written by Andrew McMahon. Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman penned our remaining two for the Houston/Levitt revue, which were the punny “Grin and Bare It,” performed by Megan Hilty, and “The Right Regrets,” sung by our now-defunct music team Christian Borle and Debra Messing. Audiences are literally running to see Hit List on Broadway with Derek’s former assault-ee Daisy now understudying Ana but something about the show isn’t working uptown. Derek is worried that the problem is Ana’s performance as the Diva, so he tries putting Daisy on for the role. Jimmy wants a posthumous Tony Award for Kyle, so he and Julia get to work on finding a solution that brings some of the downtown magic Hit List had off-Broadway up to 46th Street. The great Lindsay Mendez guest stars as the great Lindsay Mendez performing in a one-night concert of Huston and Levitt songs designed as a ploy for Tony nominations. You see, as Eileen knows “the Tonys are not just about a great show, but a great story.” And Bombshell’s story is that Tom and Julia are a great, yet so-far unawarded pair of song writers so she asks the semi-estranged duo to perform a duet at the concert. Ivy and Karen make a Times Square promise that although award season is bound to get a little crazy, they promise to be adults about it. Ivy’s pill-popping past is catching up with her, so she has to start fixing her reputation from difficult diva to sweethearted star. But the player with more on the line is Derek, who is being blackmailed by a “Not Sorry” Daisy in exchange for taking over Ana’s role. Everyone who’s anyone shows up for the Huston-Levitt concert, including pre-icon Lin-Manuel Miranda playing a twitter-obsessed, Jonathan Groff-obsessed Lin-Manuel Miranda. That is, everyone except for Julia who is too busy reworking Kyle’s ideas into ways to save Hit List. Covering for Julia missing in action, Ivy throws caution to wind and doubles down on her bawdy reputation in a burlesque performance of “Grin and Bare It.” And in the 11th hour, Julia finally arrives to perform a nostalgic duet with Tom as they both decide to say goodbye to their writing partnership. When Ivy is confronted by Ana about Derek, the leading lady takes on Karen saying”you play this naive, just-off-the-bus routine to get exactly what you want, but deep down you’re just as calculating as the next person.” In a parting shot, Ivy tells Karen that she’s glad Hit List made it to Broadway because now she can beat her fair and square for the awards. Also, she's pregnant.

Performing on Broadway comes with certain rites of passage: first costume fitting, first performance, first backstage birthday cake. But 2020 has brought a new rite of passage: visiting your darkened theatre to clean off your dressing room station with the prospect of your being closed for at least a year. Here to share the story of his experience visiting the Richard Rodgers Theatre is Hamilton’s Preston Mui. He joined the show in late January playing the role of George Eacker and in the show’s lauded ensemble. Here to share the story of his first time back at the Rodgers in three months is Preston Mui.