It’s amazing what you can find when you look in the right places – and know what to do with it once you find it.
Beginning today, thanks to a collaboration between the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, audiences across the country will have the opportunity to hear “This is Broadway,” more than 70 vintage interviews with Broadway luminaries circa 1977. These short radio features have not been available publicly since their original broadcasts 32 years ago. Even the program’s hosts, Isobel Robins and Richard Seff hadn’t heard them in years.
ATW Executive Director Howard Sherman had first heard some of the interviews in 2003, just as he arrived at ATW, thanks to Broadway publicist Adrian Bryan-Brown, who had his own cache of the recordings. But at the time, ATW had barely embarked on making media available on its website, so Sherman, while entertained, didn’t immediately see the opportunity.
But a few months ago, as ATW began searching in earnest for more media to add to its now burgeoning media site, “This is Broadway” came back to mind and Sherman first reached out first to Seff, who had the complete inventory. The next step was to explore to opportunity with The Broadway League — where it turned out that after three decades of staff turnover, no one there even knew of these little gems. After discussion, it was agreed that this material deserved to be back in the public eye, and the League and Wing, partners in the Tony Awards since 1967, agreed to make them available on their respective websites, IBDB.com and americantheatrewing.org, as well as iTunes, as a glimpse into Broadway’s past.
The many guests range from already noted composers like Cy Coleman and Comden & Green, to legendary actors like Yul Brynner, Richard Kiley and Hermione Gingold, to a rising newcomer named Meryl Streep. Original hosts Robins and Seff were invited back into the studio to record some contemporary material, which was edited into the programs by ATW Director of Web Development Robb Perry, providing an audible link between the past and today.
Ten “This is Broadway” programs go online today, and an additional program will be released every Tuesday continuing on into 2010.
ATW continues to seek both current and vintage audio and video material about theatre to add to the more than 600 hours of free material already available online. If you know of recordings that might be right for ATW, please contact Sherman or Perry at 212-765-0606.
Posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 11:20 am
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American Theatre Wing
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