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Give My Regards to the Broadway Episode! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, And this is a good
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: old fashioned toe tapping, feel good event of the century
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: that we like to call stuff you should know.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I cannot stop singing. They say the neon lights up
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: ride a broad Way.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: That's one of my least favorites. Is that from a
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: chorus line.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know I was singing that earlier. I was singing,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: give my regards to Broadway.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Wow, you haven't been singing the one I've been singing.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: What have you been singing?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: There's no bitess like show business, like no business. I know.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: That's great. I do not know the neon lights when
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I should have looked that up, but I do know.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Give my regards to Broadway. Is from Little Johnny Jones
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: from nineteen oh four, written by Georgiam Kohen.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Neon Lights is a kraft Work song. You're way off,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Oh well, Little Johnny Jones is the most like nineteen
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: twenties play title or musical title I've ever heard.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't know craft Work, uh as they say, is
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the neon lights so bright? Nowthers go.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: It's a little different. Okay, it's really good though. I
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: think it's actually the best song about Neon lights.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Oh that's a bold statement.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I know. I'm with you.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: By the way, this is a listener suggestion, so big
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: thanks to Sarah Nagy for sending this in.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Oh nice, thanks Sarah. We should probably say, for anybody
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: who didn't bother looking at the title, we're talking about
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Broadway today. Broadway as in the American home of musicals,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: the Great White Way, you know, where musical theater goes
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: to live and thrive and give it a shot at stardom.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: It's right and non musical theater.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: True. True. I'm more of a play guy than a
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: musical guy myself. I remember going to see La La
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Land in the theater and being like, I had no
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: idea this is a musical. Luckily it turned out really well,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: but okay, good. At first, I was like, you gotta
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: be kidding me, kind of like you know when you
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: go to drink take a sip of water and it
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: turns out to be coke, but it's really shocking, but
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: then you're like, oh, okay, cook's fine. It was a
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: lot like that. The movie version of that.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've detailed this a little bit. But
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I've gotten more into musicals and I enjoy musical theater
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and Broadway, and we try to go to a show
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and we're in New York and now we're doing an
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: annual Broadway only trip, like where we go see a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: few of them.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: That's a pilgrimage, Yeah, pilgrimage.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: But I do love the plays. And we are in
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: fact going to see Glengary Glenn Ross in May.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Haven't you seen the movie?
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I have? But this has got that killer cast on Broadway.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard about it or not.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: No, I haven't, Honestly, I haven't kept up with Broadway lately.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this has got Glen Garrett, Glenn Ross with Kieran
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Culkin and Bill Burr and Bob Odenkirk and others.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Wow, that is a killer cast.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: So I grab tickets for that right when they went
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: on sale, and I'm going and my friends are like,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: ohd you get tickets, man, You're still lucky. I'm like,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I just logged on and got them when they went
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: on sale.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: You logged onto your internet?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, just get on a if you're into
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: that kind of hanging. You just jump on a little
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: like a Broadway Direct email list and then you'll get
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the aps on all the apps.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned T is it t TKT Oh?
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the TS booth?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yes? Are they online too? Or is that like a
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: physically stand there in person kind of thing.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That is the ticket service run for the not
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: for profit Theater Development Fund, And that is if you're
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: in New York and you're like, man, I wish I
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: could go to a show, but I don't want to
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: jump on a resale site and pay a ton of money.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: There are booths end Times Square and satellite booths at
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: South Street, Seaport and Lincoln Center where you can get
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: day of You can go get day of tickets for
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: people that are like, I can't go Broadway. Can you
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: help me sell these?
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And apparently if you go with like an hour
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: or so before the booth opens, the line once it
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: does open will only be about an hour. That's how
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: long it takes to clear out typically, And people who
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: are in line know what they want to see and
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: they want the best seats, and that's what they're going for.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: That's why they're standing in line. But if you're like Hey,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: I'm in New York. Let's catch a show. I don't
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: care what show. You can just show up, like a
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: couple hours after the thing opens and walk right up
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: and pick a show.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I got to say, and you know, we'll
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: get to this, or I might as well say it now.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: The largest Broadway theater. If you've never been, you might
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: be used to like Broadway in your hometown at like
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the five thousand seat theater or something like they have.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Here at the Performing Arts Center, yeah, or.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: The Performing Art Center. But in New York they're they're
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: pretty small. The largest one is the Gershwin Theater at
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: nineteen hundred and thirty three seats. The smallest of the
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: how many theaters is it? Total?
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Forty two forty seven forty one theaters forty one The.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Smallest is the Haze at five ninety seven. So you know,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: if you're in town, you want to check out a
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: show in most of those theaters. Most of the seats
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: are pretty great and it's fairly intimate.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know much about it lately. Like I left
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: off with Phantom of the Opera, that was probably the
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: last musical I was ever really into. So but I
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: know that since I've been into it, like they've become
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: blockbuster productions, Yeah, very much, along like the Marvel Cinematic
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Universe movie franchise stuff where it's like, just put a
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: ton of money into it, Yeah, and people come from
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: all over and you'll make ten times what you put
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: into it. Yeah, and that I mean, that's that's fairly
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: fairly new development. Is Is it like that basically across
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: the board now? Or surely that's like a handful of
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: powerhouse shows and the rest of them are more normal
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: and hence ticket prices are more normal, do you know, I.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Mean from my experience stuff. You know, if you go
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: to see some of the classics, they're you know, they're
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: big productions, but they're not maybe not as like special
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: effects heavy. They definitely I feel like have jazzed them
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: up a lot more in more recent years, with more
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: sort of jaw dropping moments of like kind of I
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: can't believe they did that live kind of stuff.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Like when the Salesman from Death of a Salesman flies
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: out over the crowd at that one scene.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: But like, for instance, last time we went we saw
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: the that's the best thing we saw. One of the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: ones we saw was the new Ish Death Becomes Her,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: which is I can't recommend enough. It is one of
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: the funniest musicals you'll ever see. But it wasn't some
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: lavish production, but they had a couple of very well
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: placed sort of special effects that were very fun and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: so I think you need to sort of wow the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: crowd a little bit more these days.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, So you're not going to find like a nineteen
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: fifty sixties style musical comedy that isn't relying at all
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: on special effects there anymore.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: M No. I mean, but maybe not special effects, but
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the sets are still very big and there's a lot
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: of money poured into it that your plays are you're
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: going to be a little more like stripped down.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: So okay, last question. Ticket price is, from what I've seen,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: are like eye popping.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Pretty Yeah. I think Wicked was the most expensive. It
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: was two ninety average price.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Man out, So there's got to be tickets that are
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: like that the normal person can afford, right.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the average ticket price. So
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the cheaper seats for like a show like Wicket or
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know, probably in the one hundred and something,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: which is still I mean, that's a lot of money,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: but I don't know that you can go, like if
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: you're a question is can you go see a Broadway
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: show for like forty five bucks?
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's my question.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know, and I doubt it.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well that's a bit of a shame
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I have to say.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Although I'll have to look at my Glengarry tickets. I
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: don't know that those were like crazy expensive, but I'll check.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Why you talk?
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, well I'm going to start talking about the history
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: of Broadway.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: So Olivia helped us out with this. Kudos to her
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: because this was a huge, huge topic and she wrangled
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: it greatly. But the street itself, Broadway is really really old.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: It's actually built on an old Lenape tribe trail that
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: connected the tribes along the thirty miles of Manhattan, So
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: this is like pre contact. Yeah, Broadway was already in
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: existence when the Dutch showed up and they said, this
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: is New Amsterdam. Eventually we'll rename it New York.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: They called it daher Strat, Yeah, which is Gentlemen's Way.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: So apparently here with two e's in the middle means
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: gentlemen in Dutch. If you want to impress people at
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: your next party. Yeah, but they just called it bread
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: vague or broad way broad road in the English said, well,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: where's going to call that broadway from now on?
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's the street Broadway. The theater district is
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: between Times Square to fifty third Street and then the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: side streets from six to eighth Avenues. And like I said,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it's forty one theaters. And with that smallest one, the Hayes,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: being five ninety seven, they're all at least five hundred,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: almost six hundred. I mean, can you squeeze three more
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: seats in there Hayes?
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Maybe standing room moment.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And like I said, the Gershwin is the largest at
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three. And you know that's where theater happens.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And we're going to talk a little bit about sort
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: of the early theater days, because if you're talking New
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: York theater, you're gonna have to go back to seventeen
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: thirty two to see the first or at least the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: first record of a performance of a play there. It
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: was called the Recruiting Officer mm hmm, and that was
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: some Londoners traveling through town, and it was the New
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Theater on Nassau Street. But that was near Broadway, but
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: not anywhere close to the theater district. It was way
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: way downtown and what would now be the Financial District.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: You're not going to mention the name of the owner
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: of the new theater.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Building, Governor Rip van Dam.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: Which is a really great hotel. Check in name.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good, included just with the governor.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, governor, governor, Okay, I'll give you a special treatment.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, you said that was in what is now
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: the Financial District. So slowly but surely it started to
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: kind of move to what was called the Long Acre Square. Yeah,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: but before that, there was a lot of theaters that
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: had opened up sporadically away from what we now consider Broadway.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: And I think the first I don't know if we
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: said it or not, because you corrected me when I
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: said like musicals. You're like, well, plays too, But most
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: people when they're talking about Broadway things, think they're thinking
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: about musicals.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: So the first musical, as far as anybody can tell,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: that was performed in New York. It was called The
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Beggar's Opera. It was about thieves and sex workers. It
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: was a musical comedy. It sounds like it was somewhat
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: like one of the plays that would come in the
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: nineteenth century, or one of the musicals where there were
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: like kind of breaks in between where they some stand
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: up comedian would come out, or a juggler maybe, or
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: somebody would perform a song, but the songs didn't have
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: much to do with the story, if anything at all.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll get to that. That was sort of
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the way it went for a while. It was sort
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of like songs and sketches and stuff like that. That
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: was what a musical was. But we wouldn't have any
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: of this stuff it hadn't been for some pretty notable people.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: The first one, well, he's actually the first Oscar Hammerstein.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: What would be two notable Oscar Hammerstein's.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is Oscar Hammerstein. I, that's right.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: He moved from Germany, of course, to New York City
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty four and was a cigar factory floor
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: sweeper until he invented a cigar machine and made quite
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a bit of money doing so, such that he could
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: start funding the opening of his passion, which was opera.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: So he opened the Harlem Opera House first in eighteen
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: eighty nine and then that very first one in long
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Acre Square, which will be notable in about a minute
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and a half because you will learn what that became.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Hammerstein's Olympia Theater at Broadway and forty third and forty fourth,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and then after that the Republic Theater was in eighteen
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: ninety nine, which is still there but is now the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: new Victory.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Theater, Gotcha, which I think is for young audiences, right,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: is it? Sure? Yeah? I'm almost positive it.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Is like really body kids plays, Yeah.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Like Avenue Q.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: So within like a decade, Oscar Hammerstein the first built
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: like three major theaters in New York City, and he
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: helped pretty much establish this theater district or the concept
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: that New York had a theater district. Yeah, or it
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: was a theater town, I guess. Plus, and this is
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: probably a fairly overlooked component of it. The Inner Borough
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: rapid transit system the train helped too, because it could
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: get people around New York much more easily than before.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: So with those two things Hammerstein and the irt converging,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: New York suddenly had like everything it needed, all the
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: ingredients to become like a world class theater destination.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So the riding was on the wall.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: He opened those theaters, other people are like, hey, we
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: can invest money in this now that it's becoming a thing.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: The New Amsterdam Theater and the Lyceum Theater were both
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: built around the same time in the early nineteen hundreds.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And then, oh boy, we're probably more than a minute
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: a half after I promised it. But in nineteen oh five,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: long Acre Square was renamed for the newly relocated New
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: York Times offices, and thus it became Times Square.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: That's it, that's it.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: I was like, was it New York Times Square?
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: And I was like, no, dummy, Just Times Square.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Just Times Square. And it was around the same time
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: that these three brothers, Lee, Samuel and Jacob Schubert, a
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: very popular theater named to this day, they opened up
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: a bunch of theaters in New York and elsewhere. And
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the Schubert Organization still owns and operates seventeen of those
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: forty one theaters.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: That's a bunch. That's almost half of the theaters on Broadway.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: They got it locked down, baby.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: So all of this hubbub and activity of building theaters
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: and attracting like really good performers and plays and musicals
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: by the time World War One rolled around, like New
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: York was on the map for theater and Broadway was
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: the theater district for New York by this time. And
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: one of the things that really helped things along kind
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: of picked up where Oscar Hammerstein the First and the
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Irt left off to really like give things a real
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: goose was the Zigfield Polly's, which I know we talked
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: about in our episode on Vaudeville in November twenty twenty two.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: We talked about that a lot. But the idea that
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: like you could go to the theater and you could
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: see some amazing performances and hear some funny comedy and
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: see some crazy dances or great dances like that drew
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: people the theaters like everyday people who might otherwise not
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: have gone through the theater.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you know, some of the some
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: of the songs that you you know, even if you're
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: not a fan of this kind of thing, just kind
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: of leaked into the public consciousness. Like give my regards
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: to Broadway from George Cohen. He also wrote Yankee Doodle
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Dandy and over there. During World War One, this is
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: when Irving Berlin came around. One of it as you'll see,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: kind of a series of poor Jewish immag grant families
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: that came to New York and the children of those
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: families ended up being like these amazing Broadway writers and composers.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: He wrote things like Annie, get your gun and There's
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: no business like show business, your old favorite.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: That's right. He also wrote White Christmas, which I read
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: is the best selling Christmas song of all time.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Which was not on Broadway.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: No, well, it ended up on Broadway. It was in
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: the movie Holiday Inn, and then they retro created a
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: musical based on the movie.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: They retconned it right.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Another pair that were really huge at this time, where
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: George and Ira Gershwin brothers, another Jewish immigrant family. They
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: created Funny Face Girl, Crazy Porgy and Bess and some
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: of these, as we'll see, we're pretty kind of groundbreaking,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: especially at the time. But they also launched some stars
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: careers like ethel Merman. Do you think of when you
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: think of somebody singing there's no business like show business?
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: I think ethel Merman.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the movie Airplane, right exactly.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: That's where that's where I first learned about it. Ginger Rogers,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Greta Stay are of course Greta Garbo Dance on air.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just musical theater at the time. This
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: sort of post World War two era also had some
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: pretty legendary plays like the Iceman Come Up from Eugene
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: O'Neil and Lorraine Hansbury's Raising in the Sun. Of course,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: but it was times Square after all. So in World
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: War two, that's when you started seeing some you know,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the usual thing that would happen was like burlesque theater,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: eventually peep show, maybe regular movie theater, and then porn theater.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you better know the difference. Yeah, I say
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: that we we take a break and we come back
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: and we talk about the establishment of Broadway shows as
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: we know them.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Let's do it, Stoffy Jaws.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: So okay. So one Hammerstein did some amazing stuff, uh
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: with Broadway, creating Broadway. But this family was showing off
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: and they produced Oscar Hammerstein the Second, who was the
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: grandson of Oscar Hammerstein the First, and he got together
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: with a composer named Jerome Kern and they just started
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: making some amazing groundbreaking for the time, especially new kinds
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: of musicals that just they gave us Broadway as we
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: know it today.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, if you go to a musical today, not
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you're not assured to, but more than likely you're gonna
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: be seen what's called the book musical. And that is
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: when the musical when like the songs are central to
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the plot in the storyline and moving things. It's not
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: just like, and here's a song to add to this
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: musical review kind of thing. Right. They still have those
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: some you know sometimes, but it's kind of a throwback
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: like these days. The book musical as a direct you know,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: descendant of Hammerstein too and Jerome Kern is sort of
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the way to.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Go, right. They came up with a Showboat Together, which
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: was an enormously groundbreaking show. It combined both white and
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: black performers on the same stage, which, if you remember
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: a Harry Belafonte episode that was a no no well
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: into the fifties and sixties. These guys made this show
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty seven.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that people were not doing that at time.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: At the time. They also had blackface in that review
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: because that was something they were also doing at the time.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: But it was also pretty you know, progressive in some
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: ways by like having an integrated cast.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean a lot of the themes were
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: about racism, and it just kind of took it head on.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: It was a serious, dramatic story. It wasn't like, you know,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: feel good forget your troubles, come on, get happy kind
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: of thing.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and just to be clear, it was truly integrated.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: I wasn't saying the blackface was integration. They had real
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: integration and also blackface, which I don't quite understand.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: But I don't either.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know how they were doing things in
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Like when a woman is in an episode of Monty Python,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: it's like, why are you guys in drag?
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Then?
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Exactly, So Hammerstein is doing his thing, doing pretty well.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Jerome Kern's great, but all of a sudden a dude
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: lopes onto the scene named Richard Rogers, and Hammerstein said
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Rogers and Hammerstein, that sounds that has a nice ring
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: to it. They're old buddies, old former classmates from Columbia
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: years earlier. And Rogers approach Hammerstein and said, hey, there's
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: this play Greengrow the Lilacs from Lynn Riggs. Why don't
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: we turn that into a musical, and why don't we
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: do a little different like why don't you write the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: words to this thing first, I'll write the music and
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know, let's use an exclamation point in the title,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: and let's just call it Oklahoma.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Oh Oklahoma. Right sure? So this show, this established Richard
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Rodgers in Oscar Hammer's sign like this is nineteen forty three.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It set a record for the most performances at the time.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: It's long since been just totally demolished, but it had
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: a record performance total of twenty two hundred and twelve.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: That was just unheard of back then. So imagine, like,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: you know, you've got some pretty cool stuff under your belt,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: but all of a sudden you get together with this
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: new collaborator and you create the show that has the
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: longest running or the largest number of performances ever, just
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: right off the bat. That's kind of like what these
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: guys became. Like they were just the stars of Broadway productions.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean giants to this day of the industry,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: South Pacific, the Sound of Music, the King, and I
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I mean It's It's their names are basically synonymous with
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: musical theater.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I read Chuck also that at one point they had
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: three of the longest running plays or shows on Broadway
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: at the time, and three other shows in production to
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: be adapted to films all at the same time. Giants Giants. Yeah,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: we could have just left it at that now that
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: I think about it.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: So there were some like huge, huge shows of the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: late twentieth century that sort of helped redefine Broadway. West
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Side Story was one. This was what kind of where
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the idea of the triple threat came along because they
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: didn't have you know, for a while there there was
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: like a separate chorus and that like did the dancing
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and stuff. And West Side Story was one of the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: first ones in nineteen fifty seven to be like, hey,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: you're the lead actor, you're also singing, you're also dancing,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: because that's all part of it, and all of a sudden,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the triple threat was a thing, and that was the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: real start of another giant abroad Way.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: Steven Sondheim, Yeah, who would go on to direct Contagion,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: which we mentioned recently too.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: No, he wrote the lyrics. And then another name he
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: might have heard of, Leonard Bernstein, was a composer for
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: West Side Story.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's great too. Cabaret was another one by this time.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: This is nineteen sixty six. Today you think of Cabaret
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: and it's just a cult classic musical, But at the
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: time it was groundbreaking in that it introduced a new
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: kind of musical to Broadway, which is actually kind of
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: a throwback to how it used to be. It's called
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: the concept musical. And rather than you know, a through
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: line story where the songs advanced the story and everything,
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: this was more like there was a theme. The theme
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: was the show was said at the kick Hat Club
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: in Berlin, I think in Weimar era Berlin. Yeah, and
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: through the songs that all kind of have this share
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: this kind of same theme, this concept is created. I
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: think the theme was seen Cabaret, but I believe that
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: it was a meditation on the rise of Nazism during
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: the Weimar Republics kind of swinging days.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I always wanted to see Cabaret.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let's go see it together for the first time.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Then I don't know that it's is it running? Is
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: there a revival going on?
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I'm gonna get myself killed. I'm talking about
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: the movie. There's movies for all of these pretty much,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: so we can just see the movie.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: There really is. There's two West Side stories in fact.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Steven Spielberg did one.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was good hair. We have to talk about
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: hair from nineteen sixty eight. This is a musical that
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: and Livia points us out it wasn't just commenting on
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: what's going on in history at the time. It really
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: helped kind of shape it in real time. It was
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the first rock musical something I'm a big, big fan of.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like the jukebox music. Juke juke box. I
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: have such a hard time with that. Musicals are okay,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: not my favorite, but those seventies Jesus Christ super Star
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and Joseph in the Amazing Technical or dream Coat and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: hair like that stuff is so groovy and so cool
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: because it's like sixties and seventies.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it is super groovy hair. If there's one
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: word to describe hair, it's groovy, Yeah. If the other
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: there's If you want one more word, it would be nude.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or murkin' because that was in all the whole
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: cast was nude, very famously in one scene. But it
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: did help launch the careers of Diane Keaton was in
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: that original production, as was meat Loaf, a man whose
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: house I have been at.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Oh, of course, so I have no follow up questions
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: whatsoever to that? Instead? Well, okay, what were you doing
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: in Melof's house?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you offline.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Okay. Cool. So Stephen Sondheim, who you already mentioned he was.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: He made a name for himself by writing the lyrics
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: of West Side Story, but apparently his big breakout was
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: something called Company, which was a bunch of vignettes about
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: romantic relationships. I have not seen that one either. I
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: feel like a rube talking about all these things that
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen. But I did read about it, and
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I read that if the whole thing starts at the
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: main character's thirty fifth birthday party, he walks into the
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: birthday party, and then these vignettes start, and then the
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: thing ends, I think with him walking into the thirty
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: fifth birthday party. To make it like this all took
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: place in just a moment in time. All of these
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: vignettes did super cool.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I have not seen it either. Sondheim also very well
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: known for Sweeney Todd, the Demon, Barbara of Fleet Street.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I have seen that.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I have not seen that, but friend of the show
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Scott Ackerman highly recommends it, said it's like one of
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the best shows he's ever seen.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: It's great.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I gotta check it out.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: A chorus line another movie that one's kind of meta.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: There was another concept musical where the whole thing takes
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: place in an audition. Yeah, so the whole thing is
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: about theater life, about theater people, but it's actually a
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: musical show. Pretty cool.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And that began a run in nineteen seventy five
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: of like a dozen years where some of the giants
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: of all time were launched. The chorus line Chicago in
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, Le Miz in nineteen eighty seven, Cats
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two, which we'll talk about that a
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: little more in a sec and then Phantom in eighty eight.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: But Cats very famously was a very very long running
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: show that like, some people love, some people hate, some
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: people think it's brilliant, some people make fun of it.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: But lyricist Tim Rice got together with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: the Weber Rice Team. They did the Amazing Technical or
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: dream Coat Jesus Christ Superstar Avida, and then they said, hey,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: let's turn this T. S. Eliot Old Possum's Book of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Practical Cats into a musical and have real people dressed
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: up as cats.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Some people say, like, if you could build a time machine,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: what would you do? I would go back and prevent
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: Andrew Lloyd Webber from having that thought.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I've never seen any iteration of cats. I want to
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: see something.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: It's the only time, outside of an airplane, where I
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: tried to make myself go to sleep in public that
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: I was like, I can't I can't even just sit here. Yes,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: it was at a performance, like I can't just sit here,
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Like I have to not be conscious for this. Oh boy,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: now I was too young to leave. I don't think
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I was driving at the time. Was with my family.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Oh no, you couldn't be like fake sick or anything.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: No. I think I don't have a recollection of the
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: show after a certain point, so I think I might
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: have been successful in falling asleep.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Your dad would have been throw up in this bag,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: You'll be fine. And then Phantom was eighty eight, and
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I think that's it's another Andrew Lloyd Weber show. But
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I think that was one of the first ones to
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: really ramp up, got real designy and included some special effects,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: and I think that kind of started that trend of
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: making things a little bigger.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, that one I can sing along with
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: basically from start to finish. I love that one d exactly.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: I knew exactly what you were doing, just think because
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I'm so familiar with it.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: We tried to see Phanom at the Fox Theater here
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and I actually just joined the Broadway season
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: for next season. The season's run from May to May.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I think on regular Broadway, I'm not sure about the Fox.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: I think it may be about the same. But we
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: tried to go see Phantom years ago, but we're both
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: so distracted. It was when we were trying to buy
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: our first house and we were obsessed with this house
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: we were trying to get a bid on, and were
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: It was just one of those deals where we were
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: not there, our head was elsewhere, and we finally just
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: looked at each other and we were like, we need
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to get out of here.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: You should definitely see it again. It's a really great show.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: The music.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I gotta see it.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: There's like a one ton chandelier that falls to the stage.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Like.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: It's a good show. And I think you're right that
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: it did kick off kind of the mega productions ran
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: for thirty five years, and as far as I know,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: it holds the record still for the most performances at
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: thirteen nine and eighty one.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Remember Oklahoma said something at like twenty two hundred before.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's I mean impressive at the time, but yeah,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: that's thirty five years is impressive.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: It's pretty amazing. So yeah, I love that show. I'm
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: just gonna say it probably five more times throughout this.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: So we got to talk a little bit about Times Square.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Even before the seventies came along, it was a pretty
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: rowdy place, and the early teens that was a one
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: am curfew because it was such a rowdy place. There
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: were speakeasies there during Prohibition, burlesque in the thirties, and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: then from the sixties and into the nineties. I think
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I've mentioned this before. When I first started going to
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: New York in the mid nineties, there were still peep
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: shows there. It was right before the final cleanup happened
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: thanks to a few different mayors, but Mayor ed Koch,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: certainly David Dinkins, and then eventually Giuliani would finish up
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: the work of cleaning up Time Square.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, David Dinkins was the one who I think maybe
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: had the biggest impact or we should mention John Lindsay.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: In the early seventies, he created a text incentive where
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: if you built in Times Square a new building, you
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: could get a pretty good text break, but you had
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: to build a theater on the ground floor to try
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: to bring the theater back to the area. I thought
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: that was a pretty ingenious idea. But to me, David
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Dinkins probably had the biggest impact, good or bad by
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: making a deal with Michael Eisner, who was running Walt
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Disney at the time, and he said, just do your
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: thing here, Disney, Like, we got a lot of perverts
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: running around here. We need some Disney to counterbalance this
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: stuff and maybe even overwhelm it. And it worked, like
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: if you pour enough Disney onto an area, yeah, the
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: perverts just turn and run.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Right. So they started they dip their toe in the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: pond with renovating and renting out the New Amsterdam Theater,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: which at that point New York City had acquired in
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two as part of the forty second Street
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: development program. Because it was one of those that followed
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the for less theater than movie theater than porn theater model.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that was an official model, and
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: then as they were remodeling that in ninety four, before
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: they were finished, Disney opened Beauty and the Beast at
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: the Palace Theater, of course, the adaptation of the ninety
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: one animated film, and it was almost a twelve million
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: dollar budget, the most expensive musical ever at the time,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and ended up running for about thirteen years to total
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: grosses of about four hundred and thirty mil.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: That's just insane even today, but this was the mid nineties.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the returns on Broadway. If you can
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: get a smash hit going, you know, it's not like
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: you have to sink two hundred million dollars into it
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: like you do a big budget movie.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of front loaded. But then yeah,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: after you get it up and running and it's going,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: it can just go by itself, basically.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: For sure, should we take our second break?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Oh jeez, I wasn't expecting that, but sure, let's do that.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: All right, We'll be right back and finish up on
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Broadway right after this.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Stuffy Jaws.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: All right, So Broadway you can go for Escape of
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Spare you always have been able to. You still can.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: But starting in the mid nineties with Rent, people really
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: started tackling some heavier topics. Jonathan Larson's rock musical talked
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: about addiction and suicide and poverty and aids about Rent
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: was another one I left. It was fine, but it
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: was another situation where I was with friends and everyone.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: I can't remember. There was some weird distraction where everyone's like,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: do you want to leave? I think our seats were
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: bad or something, and it just wasn't happening. But I
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: want to see Rent again. Larson very tragically died at
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: thirty five years old of an aortic aneurysm the night
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: before it premiered off Broadway. I know that's insane, Just
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: a brutal, brutal story.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's such a legendary show. To just have
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: this show that you probably I'm sure he was like,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I think this is going to be big and then
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: he dies right before even seeing it perform once. That's
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: just sad to me, very sad. And then another thing
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: that kind of came along. There were plenty of escapist shows,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: we should say, and there still are, and a really
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: good example from fairly recent times is Mama Mia, which
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: is one of those jukebox it is hard to say,
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: isn't it a jukebox musical, which is it takes existing
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: songs everybody knows and loves and then puts creates like
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: a musical around them. And Mama Mia did that back
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: in two thousand and one with Abba songs.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you know, I haven't seen many of those,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: but they did one of like the eighties rock. The
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Billy Joels had one, Bob Dylan had.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: One, don't forget a Dee Snyder from Twisted's sister had rock.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's when I met the eighties rock one that
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: was rockabates right. But you know, it's a thing I
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: prefer something with. I mean, they have stories built around
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the songs, like you said, so they can be okay,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: but I prefer something something a little more straight ahead,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: not based like original music, I guess is what I'm
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: trying to do.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some good ones. So there's a there's a
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Carol King basically bio musical that I didn't either. I
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: didn't either, big.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Fan of Wicket, still recommend it. Finally saw it last
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: year on Broadway.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately it was not the wickedly talented Adele Desime, but
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: that's where she made her name, along with who was
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the original? Was it Kristin chenow with I believe.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Yes it was.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: I always loved her in uh, Pushing Up Daisies. Do
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: you remember that show?
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I do, but I did not see that.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Oh you should go back and watch it. I saw
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: it not too long ago, and it really holds up.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: It is a very charming show.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: We should call this episode Josh and Chuck haven't seen.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: This, Yeah, pretty much, just put a colon before it
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: and we can add that.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, Hamilton is one I did not see, but we
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: would be remiss if we did not mention it because
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: it was such a landmark play Lynn Manuel Miranda. Of course,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that one hip hop into historical context on Broadway, which
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: is a huge smash it. And I saw it on
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: the you know, the TV version of the film the musical,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: so and listen to it quite a bit, but I
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: never saw it live.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: That's okay, Chuck, I'll let you the hook. It was
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: too expensive, Yeah, it really was, wasn't it. Those were
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: some high priced tickets for a while because everybody was
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: talking about that show well and.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: It was all sold out, So the only way to
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: get tickets was to pay like twelve hundred bucks at
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the time. It would probably be even more now, but
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: now you can go see it, and I bet you
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: can get tickets for regular price.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Sure. I got to mention this one. I've not seen this,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: believe it or not, everybody. It's called Dear Evan Hanson.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: It's from twenty sixteen, but I did read a couple
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: of articles on it, and it sounds totally off the wall,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: where the title character is mistaken for the best friend
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: of a teenager who's just died by suicide, and so
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: he suddenly becomes very popular and like everybody wants to
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: know what this kid was like, and he uses it
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: to basically become popular and liked, whereas otherwise he was
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: just kind of overlooked, you know, kid on the sides,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: and there's all this horrible stuff that starts to happen
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: and unravels, and I think he's publicly unmasked at some point.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I need that's on my list. A couple of
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: good friends have seen it and said it's great, So
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go see that soon. I hope these these
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: make a lot of money. Like I said, Wicked set
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: a weekly record in December of this past year. Obviously,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: buoyed by the popularity of the movie, but the first
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: ever show to have a five million dollar week and
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: last season, the twenty three to twenty four season again
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: ran from May to May, total grosses of one point
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: five to four billion dollars more than twelve million attendees
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: over seventy one productions, with an average occupancy of eighty
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: nine point nine, so that they're you know, the average
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Broadway show isn't even sold out. It's close to ninety percent.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Wow. Can we talk about a few flops?
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to pick out a couple of these.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to pick out Moose Murder from nineteen eighty three.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: It is a farce, obviously, but it was bankrolled by
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: an oil heiress named Lily Robertson and directed by her
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: husband and starring the oil heiress Lily Robertson who bankrolled it,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: which should tell you it's not headed toward a great thing.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Also because it's called Moose Murders and it closed after
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: one single performance, and New Yorker art critic Brendan Gill
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: said that it would insult the intelligence of an audience
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: consisting entirely of Amba's.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I read about that it seems like it was
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: just a completely amateur production from start to finish, like
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: everybody was basically had no idea what they were doing.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: And if you want to just be delighted, go read
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: articles about the flop that was Moose Murders, because it's
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: widely considered like the worst show that ever hit Broadway
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: in a lot of ways. Though it's tough to qualify that,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: because there's plenty of bad shows out there and some
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: have been forgotten, but for some reason, Moose Murders just
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: became like the symbol for the worst shows on Broadway.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's different ways to qualify it, like
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: is it just bad bad or is it notoriously flop
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: because of how much money it costs? Then it flopped.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: That was the case with a couple of them. But
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Kerry An adaptation of the Stephen King horror novel as
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: a musical in nineteen eighty eight, closed after sixteen previews
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: and five regular performances at an eight million dollar budget.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: So it's it's widely considered one of the biggest sort
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: of just expensive flops of all time.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a song about killing a pig in it.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I think to get the blood to pour on. Yeah,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: and the lyrics it's a simple little gig, you help
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: me kill a pig.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And believe it or not that it wasn't like
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: an amateurist production. It was directed by Terry Hans, who
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: ran the Royal Shakespeare Company for thirteen years, and was
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: choreographed by Debbie Allen. So it was a big money
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: thing that just was sounds like not a very good idea.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: It was a terrible idea and I'm rid it was
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: terribly executed too in the end that they just you know,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: they really tried though. I think that's the difference.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Well, it has been revived with cult status off Broadway
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: like in the twenty tens, So it's one of those.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: I would go see that. I would go see that.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: And then I think the biggest flop as far as
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: money goes is Spider Man Turn Off the Dark from
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: twenty eleven. That's another one that just anybody who has
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: anything to do or any interest in Broadway they know
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: about this flop. Yeah.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: I mean that had all the right ingredients to Broadway
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: legend and film director Julie Taymor, who directed The Lion
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: King on Broadway. They got Bono in the edge to
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: write the music. It was huge special effects and it
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: was just problem after problem after problem all like you know,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: kind of front page or at least front page of
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the arts headline kind of problems.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So when you're performing a show or putting on
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: a production, you have what are called previews where people
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: can come. The critics are not allowed to see it yet,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: but normal people can come and watch it, but under
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: the understanding that they're going to be stopping in the
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: middle of performance, taking notes, maybe giving notes. There's going
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: to be technical glitches, and it's they're working it out
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: still in front of an audience. And I think the
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: first preview of Spider Man went three and a half
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: hours for the first act alone, and there were It
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: holds the record for the largest number of previews, more
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: previews that have, the more problems you have. Obviously it
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: had one hundred and eighty two preview shows before it
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: ever opened.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've been to some previews. I saw Sarah,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Jessica Parker and Broderick do the which one was it?
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: The Neil Simon one a couple of years ago, and
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: that was in previews. Don't let like the idea of
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: a preview turning off because like usually they just straight
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: through and it's just like a regular performance. Like I've
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: never seen a preview that where anyone stopped and did
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: anything weird. And critics do actually see those because they
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: will review the show before opening night because they have
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: seen the preview.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, I thought I've read somewhere that critics are not allowed,
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: So maybe there's like a special preview.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Or maybe a window or something. Yeah, yeah, that would
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: be my guess. I'm not sure how that works, but
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: I know it's always I'm not sure if it's like movies.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I know movies, sometimes they won't let the critics see
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: it before it's release, and that always means it stinks. Yeah,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: so I'm not sure if Broadway does that or not.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Actually, well, Chuck, that's Broadway. We could keep talking about
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: this for hours and hours and hours, but I feel
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: like we we probably haven't seen most of the stuff
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: we would talk about.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I've seen quite a few in recent years, and I'll
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: be going to more and more, so maybe we'll revisit
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: this in ten years and I'll be more up to speed.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough, sounds good, and we'll have seen carry
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: together by then.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I hope so. And before we end, I think we
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: would be remiss if we didn't mention that we recently
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: learned that we have, like for sure, literally inspired not one,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: but two Broadway shows from this show.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's pretty amazing, Chuck. I think we first
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: learned about it in Town and Country magazine. They did
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: an article called how a secret British spy mission became
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: a Broadway hit, and I think someone sent it to
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: us and I was like, oh, that's interesting, And as
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: I read a little deeper, I found that they mentioned
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: us specifically as the inspiration for this hit musical.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. And the other one we found out
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: from the producers of the show they emailed us the
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: one I think is it off Broadway on Tzacho and Vinzetti.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Right, that's right, Yeah, so big thanks to those guys
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: for letting the world know that we helped inspire that,
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: because that is quite an honor. And I think we
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: would also be remiss to not say, break a leg.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: That's right. Do you have anything else?
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: I have nothing else?
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, since Chuck said he has nothing else and
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: neither do, I think it's time for listener now.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to call this rare shout out. We
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: don't do shout outs much just because we get a
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: lot of requests too, and it would just be shout
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: outs every week, but this one touched me. And this
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: is from Cody in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, guys. In
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, my dad passed away, leaving behind my mom, who,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: after fifty four years of marriage, had never lived alone.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: She struggles with grief and anxiety induced insomnia as a result,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: so I suggested she listened to Stuff You Should Know
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: for middle to night companionship to help her get her
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: mind off her troubles. She did, and she's been a
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: huge fan ever since. She calls you my guys, and
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: this parasocial relationship has been a true life saver for her.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: When I call her up day or night, the podcast
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: is off and on in the background, keeping your company
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: while she does dishes or rests. Y'all are about the
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: same age as me and my brother, so she feels
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: like and she feels an anti like affection for you.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Her eightieth birthday is in April, and I believe we've
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: already missed it by the time this would come out.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: But I've been struggling with what to do for her
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: as a fun surprise outside the party she's having this week,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: and Cody asked for us to send like a video
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: or something, but I said, how about this, We'll do
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a rare shout out and say hello to your wonderful
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: mother on her eightieth birthday, Bonnie Nichols. Bonnie, we love
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: you and we feel like you are Auntie Bonnie as well,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: and it makes me feel really happy to know that
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: you're out there with us listening to us, so that
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: parasocial relationship goes both ways. So happy birthday, Auntie.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, happy birthday, Bonnie. You can't see me right now,
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: but I'm making a heart out of my hands.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's lovely.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: That's really great. Seriously, thanks for listening to us, Bonnie.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: I'm glad we could help and keep you company. And
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: if you want to be like Bonnie, Wait, who was
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: it that road in her son?
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's Cody.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Cody. If you want to be like Cody and tell
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: us about the Bonnie in your life, we love to
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: hear that kind of stuff. You can send it via
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.