From Next To Normal.

Marin Mazzie talks about taking on the role of Diana Goodman in Broadway’s Next to Normal and whether she and her co-star/husband Jason Danieley take their work home with them after the show. She also talks about her early professional experiences, including The Barn Theater in Michigan and An Evening Dinner Theatre in Westchester NY; appearing in the ultimately truncated national tour of Doonesbury; stepping into roles in the original productions of Big River, Into The Woods and And The World Goes Round; her first opportunity to create a role, Clara in Sondheim and Lapine’s Passion, and having it created around her; the journey of Ragtime from Toronto to Broadway; her foray into the classics with Charles Mee’s version of The Trojan Women for the site-specific company En Garde Arts; the differences between appearing in both Kiss Me, Kate and Spamalot in New York and London; and her forays into non-musical roles with A Streetcar Named Desire at Barrington Stage and Enron on Broadway — and why she wants more opportunities to do more than just musicals.

Original airdate – September 8, 2010.
Running time – 57:32.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to Downstage Center’s Marin Mazzie program page.

You can also download directly the Marin Mazzie program (mp3).

Top New York press agent Harvey Sabinson talks about his memoir Darling, You Were Wonderful, the origin of the book title, and the behind-the-scenes content including notable flops.

Running time – 03:45.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to TBL This Is Broadway’s Harvey Sabinson program page.

You can also download directly the Harvey Sabinson program (mp3).

Theatrical Shoe Designer Phil LaDuca worked as a Broadway dancer, choreographer and dance teacher before creating LaDuca dance shoes. He has created character shoes with the needed flexibility to be danceable, as well as the support and security for singers and actors. He works with costume designers, and handles the process from sketches through manufacturing in Italy to the finished products that end up on Broadway, national tours, and films. LaDuca shows how customized shoes are created for actresses such as Kristin Chenoweth in Promises, Promises and Bebe Neuwirth in The Addams Family.

Original airdate – September 3, 2010.
Running time – 07:25.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to In The Wings’ Shoe Designer program page.

You can also download directly the Shoe Designer program (mp4).

President of The New 42nd Street, Inc.

Cora Cahan, president of The New 42nd Street in New York, discusses her 20 years in the role of recapturing what was once the epicenter of Manhattan sleaze for theatre and family audiences. She talks about her early work as a professional modern dancer; her shift into management with the Feld Ballet, having had no prior experience whatsoever in management (despite being married to the Associate Producer of The Public Theater); her discovery of what became Michael Bennett’s fabled 890 Studios; her dual position as the head of the Feld Ballet and the Joyce Theatre, which she and Eliot Feld conceived as a home for dance companies at a time when New York didn’t have an appropriate small venue; the Joyce’s brief effort in the mid-80s to curate an annual festival of the best work from America’s regional theatres — and why it didn’t work; why her first act upon arriving at her 42nd Street job in 1990 was to rename the organization; the chronology of how 42nd Street shifted from Triple XXX to G-rated; the development of The New Victory Theatre as a home for innovative children’s and family programming, and why she felt that was a gap in New York’s cultural life that needed to be filled; what’s on tap for The New 42nd Street now that the environment has changed, the theatres are reclaimed, the rehearsal studios are always filled and even the long-delayed commercial buildings now anchor the corners of the stretch between 7th and 8th Avenues; and what she thinks of nostalgia for the former grit and danger for the street she has reclaimed.

Original airdate – September 1, 2010.
Running time – 59:47.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to Downstage Center’s Cora Cahan program page.

You can also download directly the Cora Cahan program (mp3).

Sweet Charity composer Cy Coleman discusses his 1977 musical I Love My Wife comprised of 4 characters and 4 musicians performing a “contemporary, eclectic score.”

Running time – 03:43.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to TBL This Is Broadway’s Cy Coleman program page.

You can also download directly the Cy Coleman program (mp3).

The panel of Broadway actors – Matthew Broderick (Biloxi Blues), Jim Dale (Joe Egg), Charles S. Dutton (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Rosemary Harris (Pack of Lies), Glenda Jackson (Strange Interlude), and theatrical agent Lionel Larner – discuss how they left their various layman jobs to begin performing, their audition experiences, how they became involved in their current productions, what they look for in an agent, how they obtained one, and the role of an agent.

Original airdate – April 1, 1985.
Running time – 1:30:00.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to Working in the Theatre’s Performance program page.

You can also download directly the Performance program (mp4).

From Love, Loss, and What I Wore.

Downstage Center welcomes its second starship captain as actress Kate Mulgrew visits during her stint in the Off-Broadway comedy Love, Loss, and What I Wore. She talks about being raised in an Iowa household that groomed her for an acting career, even though she saw little theatre and had no TV growing up; getting her big breaks in theatre and TV simultaneously, playing Emily in Our Town at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford CT and debuting on Ryan’s Hope; her participation in the first workshop of Wendy Wasserstein’s Uncommon Women and Others at the O’Neill Theater Center; playing Desdemona in Stamford CT and Tracy Lord in Anchorage AK; why Hedda Gabler was the hardest role she’s ever tackled, why she wishes she could do it again, and why it was a relief to be performing it in rep with The Real Thing at L.A.’s Center Theatre Group; the particular challenges of the “stew” that is Titus Andronicus, which she did in Central Park; the lonely but rewarding experience of playing Katharine Hepburn in Tea At Five around the country; her joy at having Marian Seldes play her mother in The Royal Family; her feelings about having only appeared on Broadway twice in her 35 year career; and her excitement at finally playing the queen in Antony and Cleopatra, her dream role, this coming season at Hartford Stage.

Original airdate – August 25, 2010.
Running time – 1:01:58.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to Downstage Center’s Kate Mulgrew program page.

You can also download directly the Kate Mulgrew program (mp3).

Tony nominated actor Robert LuPone talks about the Backstage On Broadway educational program, and the time when former first lady Betty Ford attended A Chorus Line and the Secret Service’s wireless communication system interfered with the show’s computerized lighting.

Running time – 03:42.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to TBL This Is Broadway’s Robert LuPone program page.

You can also download directly the Robert LuPone program (mp3).

The panelists – playwright P.J. Barry (The Octette Bridge Club), lyricist Ellen Fitzhugh (Grind), director John Going (Inherit The Wind), playwright Fay Kanin (Grind), playwright Jerome Lawrence (Inherit The Wind), agent Bruce Savin, and director Clifford Williams (Pack of Lies) – talk about their formal training; the relationship between directors, playwrights and casting directors; the key to successful collaboration; comparing the author’s rights for stage versus film; the boundaries of a director’s vision; and rising production costs and ticket prices.

Original airdate – April 1, 1985.
Running time – 1:30:00.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to Working in the Theatre’s Playwright and Director program page.

You can also download directly the Playwright and Director program (mp4).

Puppet Designer Emily DeCola of The Puppet Kitchen has been designing and building puppets in New York for 7 years. She explains the wide scope of creating characters, sculpting puppets from a variety of materials, and both the possibilities and limitations in performing using puppets. She shares how her puppeteering career began and has led to partnering with Michael Schupbach and Eric Wright at their own puppetry studio. DeCola shows how the puppets were developed and designed for John Tartaglia’s ImaginOcean.

Original airdate – August 20, 2010.
Running time – 07:08.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to In The Wings’ Puppet Designer program page.

You can also download directly the Puppet Designer program (mp4).

Tony Award-winning Costume Designer.

Costume designer Martin Pakledinaz talks about creating the clothes for the recent Broadway revival of Lend Me A Tenor, the commencement of planning for the spring 2011 production of Anything Goes and the revival of Oklahoma! that will be part of Arena Stage’s opening of its furbished and expanded venue. He also talks about his early thoughts of acting and who finally disabused him of that notion; his early working doing sketches for the legendary Theoni V. Aldredge and how he ultimately had to rediscover his own voice instead of speaking through hers; his very early – and short-lived – Broadway experiences with Inacent Black and I Won’t Dance; developing his skills through productions at The York Theatre, the New York Shakespeare Festival; the McCarter Theatre; and the Roundabout Theatre Company; why he tried to costume the kids from the 2007 Grease without using leather jackets – and how long that idea lasted; the differing production timetables of theatre and opera and how each effects his work; and how much of his designs rely on the particular actor cast in a role.

Original airdate – August 18, 2010.
Running time – 1:02:27.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to Downstage Center’s Martin Pakledinaz program page.

You can also download directly the Martin Pakledinaz program (mp3).

Actor Yul Brynner talks about returning to his Academy and Tony Award winning role in the Broadway revival of The King and I 25 years later, how his life experience has changed his performance, and what it was like playing to 13,000 people at a time on tour.

Running time – 03:44.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to TBL This Is Broadway’s Yul Brynner program page.

You can also download directly the Yul Brynner program (mp3).

The producing team of the 1985 Broadway musical Grind – advertising representative Jeffrey Ash, group sales executive Ronald S. Lee, executive producer Ruth Mitchell, and producers Michael Frazier, Kenneth Greenblatt, Mary Lea Johnson, and John Pomerantz – talks about bringing the nearly $5 million production to Broadway after a tryout in Baltimore, working with director Hal Prince, the importance of advertising and group ticket sales in light of mixed critical reviews, comparisons to their previously produced hits La Cage Aux Folles and Nine, and budgetting a new American musical with a controversial royalty structure that doesn’t pay the creative team until the production turns a profit.

Original airdate – April 1, 1985.
Running time – 1:30:00.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to Working in the Theatre’s Production: Grind program page.

You can also download directly the Production: Grind program (mp4).

Emmy Award-winning Actress.

Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of television legends Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, talks about how Angela Lansbury and Vivian Vance prompted her towards a career on the stage. She recalls her earliest appearances in regional productions of such shows as Cabaret and Once Upon A Mattress, done while on hiatus from Here’s Lucy; some pointed direction she received from Michael Bennett during the national tour of Seesaw; how she, Sandy Duncan and Stockard Channing mirror the characters they played in the west coast premiere of Vanities; getting her first Broadway musical They’re Playing Our Song and the fun and challenges of acting with Robert Klein, then best known for his stand-up comedy; why she turned down a chance to audition for City of Angels; how Hugh Jackman caused her to be the only American cast in the West End musical The Witches of Eastwick and why she thinks that production didn’t cross the Atlantic; her rewarding and ultimately problematic relationship with the Coconut Grove Playhouse; the many hats she wore in creating her recent concert tribute to her father, Babalu, seen so far in New York and Miami; and how she came to choose “Baby June” Havoc as a surrogate grandmother for her children.

Original airdate – August 11, 2010.
Running time – 1:01:25.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to Downstage Center’s Lucie Arnaz program page.

You can also download directly the Lucie Arnaz program (mp3).

The panel of actors – Don Correia (Singin’ in the Rain), Tovah Feldshuh (Springtime for Henry), Glenne Headly (Arms and the Man), Judd Hirsch (I’m Not Rappaport), Barnard Hughes (The Iceman Cometh), Cleavon Little (I’m Not Rappaport), Elizabeth McGovern (Map of the World) – and casting director Vincent G. Liff discuss how they have dealt with mishaps and missed lines, the extent of research done for roles, schooling and formal acting training, starting out in regional theatre such as Chicago before finding work in New York, and the responsibilities of the casting director.

Original airdate – September 1, 1985.
Running time – 1:30:00.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to Working in the Theatre’s Performance program page.

You can also download directly the Performance program (mp4).

Jerry Orbach, star of Chicago, talks about his continuing loyalty to the stage compared to Hollywood, and how his Broadway schedule works well with being a family man.

Running time – 03:40.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to TBL This Is Broadway’s Jerry Orbach program page.

You can also download directly the Jerry Orbach program (mp3).

Voice Teacher Linda Benanti shows performers how to develop their voice to make their singing sound easy and natural. Singing requires both athletic and mental abilities, along with dedication and hard work. Benanti walks us through the parts of a voice lesson; recounts being asked to work with notable performers; traces her performing career that led to teaching; and shares what it’s like teaching her daughter, Tony Award winner Laura Benanti.

Original airdate – August 6, 2010.
Running time – 07:29.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to In The Wings’ Voice Teacher program page.

You can also download directly the Voice Teacher program (mp4).

Three-time Tony Award winning costume designer Florence Klotz for Follies, A Little Night Music, and Pacific Overtures talks about costuming the musical comedy On The 20th Century set in the 1930s on a train.

Running time – 03:43.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to TBL This Is Broadway’s Florence Klotz program page.

You can also download directly the Florence Klotz program (mp3).

The panelists – director Clinton Turner Davis (Two Can Play), playwright Herb Gardner (I’m Not Rappaport), playwright/lyricist Tom Jones (The Fantasticks), playwright Shirley Lauro (Open Admissions), lyricist/director Richard Maltby Jr. (Song and Dance), playwright Marsha Norman (Night Mother) and composer Harvey Schmidt (The Fantasticks) – discuss how a playwright chooses a director, the role of a playwright, how much structure is provided by the text, and the varying degrees of collaboration between director, playwright, and actor.

Original airdate – September 1, 1985.
Running time – 1:30:00.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to Working in the Theatre’s Playwright and Director program page.

You can also download directly the Playwright and Director program (mp4).

Tony Award-winning Director.

Veteran director Jerry Zaks talks about his role as Creative Consultant on The Addams Family since joining the production after its opening in Chicago and the work he has planned for Sister Act as a result of seeing its current London staging. He also talks about his introduction to theatre while a student at Dartmouth; his early years as an actor in productions including Grease and Tintypes; his role in the founding of Ensemble Studio Theatre; finding Christopher Durang’s Sister Mary Ignatius and why a nice Jewish boy was drawn to a play about a nun; how he fully made the shift from acting to directing; his relationships with playwrights Durang (Beyond Therapy, Baby With the Bathwater, The Marriage of Bette and Boo), Larry Shue (The Foreigner, Wenceslas Square) and John Guare (The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation); how he approached productions of such revered classics as Guys and Dolls and Anything Goes; why he likens his relationship with actor Nathan Lane to that of orchestra conductor and concertmaster; his plans for the new revue of Randy Newman songs Harps and Angels; and why he’s always hoping to provide his audience with an “ecstatic experience.”

Original airdate – July 28, 2010.
Running time – 1:02:46.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to Downstage Center’s Jerry Zaks program page.

You can also download directly the Jerry Zaks program (mp3).

Actor Laurence Luckinbill, the star of Poor Murderer and now the Pulitzer Prize winning play The Shadow Box, talks about how Broadway plays are thriving, thanks in part to plays developed at regional theatres such as the Mark Taper Forum and the Long Wharf Theatre.

Running time – 03:45.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to TBL This Is Broadway’s Laurence Luckinbill program page.

You can also download directly the Laurence Luckinbill program (mp3).

Our panel of some of Broadway’s brightest new performers – Jennifer Damiano, Robin de Jesús, John Gallagher, Jr., Jon Michael Hill and Krysta Rodriguez – discuss the first professional show they ever saw; the moment they realized they wanted to perform and how their families responded to the news; how their very first jobs came about; the challenges of choosing between school and work; whether they like to go to other shows and what kind of audience member they are; and what they learn from their professional colleagues.

Original airdate – June 25, 2010.
Running time – 1:00:00.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to Working in the Theatre’s The Next Generation 2010 program page.

You can also download directly the The Next Generation 2010 program (mp4).

Theatrical Wig Maker Paul Huntley explains the multitude of advantages of using wigs on stage; how he started his career in theatre; his preference for a natural look; working on the long-running musical Cats; and his ability to be a prolific designer. Huntley demonstrates tying hair to create a new wig; and shows how a wig helps transform an actor into character.

Original airdate – July 23, 2010.
Running time – 07:19.

For more information, to watch online, or to download the episode go to In The Wings’ Wig Maker program page.

You can also download directly the Wig Maker program (mp4).

From Love, Loss, and What I Wore.

While playing the “anchor role” in Off-Broadway’s Love, Loss and What I Wore, actress Penny Fuller talked about her wide-ranging career, noting (even to her own surprise) how many times she got roles because someone else dropped out or was let go fairly late in the production process. She recalls her first Broadway break, understudying Elizabeth Ashley (who would later play her mother in Dividing the Estate) in the original production of Barefoot in the Park; standing by for Jill Haworth and going on more than 100 times in the original Cabaret, performing Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 in repertory in Central Park with Sam Waterston as Prince Hal and Stacy Keach as Falstaff; playing the world’s most infamous understudy, Eve Harrington, opposite Lauren Bacall in Applause; the challenges that faced the ill-fated musical Rex; the thrill of appearing in William Finn’s A New Brain; playing Mrs. Kendal both on stage and on TV in Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man; and why she’s a leading lady in the theatre but a character actress on television.

Original airdate – July 21, 2010.
Running time – 1:02:53.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to Downstage Center’s Penny Fuller program page.

You can also download directly the Penny Fuller program (mp3).

Hermione Gingold talks about understudying the role of the narrator (normally played by a male actor, Ned Sherrin) in Side By Side By Sondheim on Broadway, and using her married name Fernanada Maschwitz.

Running time – 03:40.

For more information, to listen online, or to download the episode go to TBL This Is Broadway’s Hermione Gingold program page.

You can also download directly the Hermione Gingold program (mp3).