BROADWAY NATION

A lively and opinionated cultural history of the Broadway Musical that tells the extraordinary story of how Immigrants, Jews, Queers, African-Americans and other outcasts invented the Broadway Musical, and how they changed America in the process.In Season One, host David Armstrong traces the evolution of American Musical Theater from its birth at the dawn of the 20th Century, through its mid-century “Golden Age”, and right up to its current 21st Century renaissance; and also explore how musicals have reflected and shaped our world -- especially in regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, and equality.

Episodes

An Update on Broadway Nation!

July 18, 2025 • 5 mins

A quick update on what's going on with Broadway Nation podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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CRAZY FOR NOSTALGIA! — BROADWAY'S NOSTALGIA CRAZE OF THE 1970s, Part 2.

June 26, 2025 • 26 mins

In this episode I continue my review of Broadway’s Nostalgia Craze of the 1970s and beyond. Many of the musicals that emerged in the late 60s and very early 70s were also influenced by the incipient Nostalgia Craze, even if overall their shows were decidedly modern. HAIR, Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Applause all included musical sequences that recalled the Vaudeville era and Silver Age of Broadway. ...

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BROADWAY'S NOSTALGIA CRAZE OF THE 1970s, part 1

June 19, 2025 • 32 mins

In this episode Albert Evans and I explore the origins of Broadway’s “Nostalgia Craze of the 1970s” — where it came from, and what artistic, social and cultural forces came together to spark this unlikely phenomenon. We trace its origins in the counterculture youth rebellion of the 1960s, the rediscovery of films from the 1930s and 40s on television, and the popularization of gay camp culture via the off-off Broadway mega hit DAM...

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Episode 179: THE QUEER PIONEERS OF BROADWAY MUSICAL STAGING

June 12, 2025 • 32 mins

This episode is adapted from a section of my new upcoming book, Broadway Nation — How Immigrant, Jewish, Queer, and Black Artists Invented the Broadway Musical, which will be released on July 24 (and can be preordered now everywhere books are sold.) In 1919, two gifted young Queer theater artists — Hassard Short and John Murray Anderson —both made their Broadway directing debuts and quickly established themselves as significant fo...

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Episode 178: The Show Goes On, Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements, part 2.

June 5, 2025 • 42 mins

This week’s episode of Broadway Nation is the second half of my conversation with author Ron Fassler, whose latest book is titled The Show Goes On — Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements. Among the outstanding Broadway performers and creatives who are at the center Ron’s fascinating stories include Abe Burrows, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Comden & Green, Cynthia Erivo, Fantasia, Frank Loesser, Gower Champion, Harold Pr...

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Episode 177: THE SHOW GOES ON — BROADWAY HIRINGS, FIRINGS, AND REPLACEMENTS, part 1

May 29, 2025 • 52 mins

My guest is author Ron Fassler, whose latest book is titled The Show Goes On — Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements, a fascinating collection of insider theater stories that range from as far back as the 1930s and go right up to today. The performers and creatives referenced in this episode include Andrea McArdle, Ann Miller, Anne Bancroft, Barbra Streisand, Cameron MacIntosh, Carol Burnett, David Merrick, Dorothy Louden, H...

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Episode 176: In Memory of CHARLES STROUSE

May 20, 2025 • 45 mins

I, along with the rest of the musical theater world, was saddened to learn that composer CHARLES STROUSE, one of the last of the great creators from the Golden Age of Broadway had passed away last week at the age of 96. Of course, Strouse and his three Tony Award-winning “Best Musicals": Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie — have been discussed frequently on this podcast. So over the weekend, I dug deep into the archives of Broad...

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Happy Birthday Broadway Nation!: Special Anniversary Encore

May 13, 2025 • 33 mins

It's hard for me to believe that I launched this podcast exactly five years ago this week, and even harder for me to comprehend that, to date, more than 279,000 people, from nearly every country in the world, have listened to at least one, and in many cases all, of the 175 episodes! So, today it seemed fitting to rerelease the episode that started it all — the very first episode of Broadway Nation: George M. Cohan and the Immigra...

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Episode 175: THE OTHER GERSHWIN, part 3, with MICHAEL OWEN

May 6, 2025 • 52 mins

This is the third and final segment of my conversation with Michael Owen, author of the recent book, Ira Gershwin — A Life in Words. On this episode, Michael and I focus on the period of Ira Gershwin’s career following the death of his brother George, during which he had success on Broadway and in Hollywood with composers such as Kurt Weill, Jerome Kern, Arthur Schwartz, and Harold Arlen, and shows and movies such as Lady In the...

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The Other Gershwin, part 2, with author Michael Owen

April 29, 2025 • 36 mins

This is the second episode of my three-part conversation with author, historian, researcher, and archivist, Michael Owen, whose recent book, Ira Gershwin — A Life in Words, is the first full-length biography devoted to that outstanding artist who penned the words for many of the greatest songs of the 20th Century. If you missed part one, you may want to catch up with that before listening to this one. Michael Owen is also the au...

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Episode 173: THE OTHER GERSHWIN — with MICHAEL OWEN, author of IRA GERSHWIN — A LIFE IN WORDS

April 22, 2025 • 51 mins

My guest today is Michael Owen, whose recent book Ira Gershwin—A Life in Words is the first full-length biography devoted to the other Gershwin. In this book, Owen at last brings Ira Gershwin out from behind the long shadow cast by his younger and more famous brother, George. Drawing on extensive archival research, Owen often uses Ira’s own words to create a captivating portrait of a shy and retiring artist who, nevertheless, pen...

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Encore Episode: Razzle Dazzle: A Brief History of Lighting Design, part 2.

April 20, 2025 • 30 mins

This is the second half of this week's Encore presentation of my conversation with Tony-award-winning lighting designer Ken Billington. Last week, Ken received rave reviews for his lighting design of the new Broadway musical SMASH, which amazingly is his 108th Broadway production. So, I thought it was an ideal time to revisit this fascinating conversation about the history of lighting design on Broadway and Ken’s own tremendous con...

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Color and Light — A Brief History of Broadway Lighting Design with Tony Winner Ken Billington

April 15, 2025 • 43 mins

This is a special encore episode of my 2022 interview with Tony-award-winning lighting designer Ken Billington. This past week, Ken received rave reviews for his lighting design of the new Broadway musical SMASH, which amazingly is his 108th Broadway production. So, I thought it was an ideal time to revisit this fascinating conversation about the history of lighting design on Broadway and Ken’s own tremendous contribution to it. Th...

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Travel with Broadway Nation to New York, New York — Your Top Questions Answered

April 14, 2025 • 8 mins

Since announcing last week that Broadway Nation has teamed up with Like Minds Travel to create a series of unique Broadway and Broadway history-related travel experiences specially designed for fans of this podcast, I have been receiving a number of questions, so I thought I createdd this mini bonus episode to answer them. As you probably know by now, we are kicking off this initiative with a whirlwind weekend in New York City, S...

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Episode 172: THE ART & CRAFT of BROADWAY ORCHESTRATION with 3-Time Tony Winner DOUG BESTERMAN

April 8, 2025 • 59 mins

My guest this week is the three-time Tony award-winning Broadway orchestrator Doug Besterman, whose 31 Broadway musicals include The Producers, Fosse, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and his very first show, the 1991 revival of Damn Yankees, to name only a few. During this current Broadway season, Besterman will achieve something unheard of in his field: he will have three big musicals — Death Becomes Her, Boop!, and Smash — all running ...

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Episode 171: MALTBY & SHIRE, part 2.

April 1, 2025 • 54 mins

This is thee second part of my conversation with author Joshua Rosenblum about his new book CLOSER THAN EVER — THE UNIQUE SIX-DECADE SONGWRITING PARTNERSHIP of RICHARD MALTBY, JR, and DAVID SHIRE. We dicuss Maltby's work on the musicals Ain't Misbehavin', Fosse, Song And Dance, Miss Saigon, and The Pirate Queen, and the Maltby/Shire shows, Baby, Closer Than Ever, BIG, and Waterfall. Travel to NYC with David Armstrong and Broadwa...

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Episode 170: The Six-Decade Songwriting Partnership of MALTBY & SHIRE

March 20, 2025 • 48 mins

My guest today is Joshua Rosenblum, author of Closer than Ever — The Unique Six-Decade Songwriting Partnership of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire. This remarkable new book chronicles the sixty-six-year (and counting) partnership of two of the most gifted songwriters of our time and provides us with full behind-the-scenes accounts of their musicals interspersed with deep-dive analyses of some of their standout individual songs....

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Encore Episode: TRUDE RITMANN & THE WOMEN WHO INVENTED BROADWAY

March 13, 2025 • 30 mins

You may not know Trude Rittmann's name, but you have heard her music. During the "Golden Age of Broadway" (and beyond), she composed music for 33 Broadway musicals, including Carousel, Brigadoon, South Pacific, Fininan’s Rainbow, The King and I, My Fair Lady, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Peter Pan, The Sound of Music, and Camelot. In this episode, Albert Evans and I tell the story of one of the least known, but most significant, wom...

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Episode 169: If They Asked Me I Could Write A Book

March 6, 2025 • 34 mins

On this episode, I have a big announcement, so I asked my buddy, friend, colleague, and Broadway Nation’s favorite co-host and guest host, ALBERT EVANS, to join me today to turn the tables on me and ask me the questions rather than me being the interviewer. As you may have guessed from the episode title, the announcement is that I have a book coming out called BROADWAY NATION (sound familiar?) and the subtitle will be similar to ...

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Episode 168: ACADEMY AWARD WINNING MUSICALS — The Movie Musicals That Won the Oscar for Best Picture

February 27, 2025 • 78 mins

On this episode, Albert Evans returns to Broadway Nation to discuss a topic we don't often broach on this podcast: Movie Musicals. Of course, movie musicals go hand in glove with Broadway musicals and many film musicals originated as Broadway musicals including several we talk about here because our principal topic is Movie Musicals that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Coming up this weekend we, of course, have the poss...

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BROADWAY NATION

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}An Update on Broadway Nation!

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}CRAZY FOR NOSTALGIA! — BROADWAY'S NOSTALGIA CRAZE OF THE 1970s, Part 2.

BROADWAY'S NOSTALGIA CRAZE OF THE 1970s, part 1

Episode 179: THE QUEER PIONEERS OF BROADWAY MUSICAL STAGING

Episode 178: The Show Goes On, Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements, part 2.

Episode 177: THE SHOW GOES ON — BROADWAY HIRINGS, FIRINGS, AND REPLACEMENTS, part 1

Episode 176: In Memory of CHARLES STROUSE

Happy Birthday Broadway Nation!: Special Anniversary Encore

Episode 175: THE OTHER GERSHWIN, part 3, with MICHAEL OWEN

The Other Gershwin, part 2, with author Michael Owen

Episode 173: THE OTHER GERSHWIN — with MICHAEL OWEN, author of IRA GERSHWIN — A LIFE IN WORDS

Encore Episode: Razzle Dazzle: A Brief History of Lighting Design, part 2.

Color and Light — A Brief History of Broadway Lighting Design with Tony Winner Ken Billington

Travel with Broadway Nation to New York, New York — Your Top Questions Answered

Episode 172: THE ART & CRAFT of BROADWAY ORCHESTRATION with 3-Time Tony Winner DOUG BESTERMAN

Episode 171: MALTBY & SHIRE, part 2.

Episode 170: The Six-Decade Songwriting Partnership of MALTBY & SHIRE

Encore Episode: TRUDE RITMANN & THE WOMEN WHO INVENTED BROADWAY

Episode 169: If They Asked Me I Could Write A Book

Episode 168: ACADEMY AWARD WINNING MUSICALS — The Movie Musicals That Won the Oscar for Best Picture

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An Update on Broadway Nation!

CRAZY FOR NOSTALGIA! — BROADWAY'S NOSTALGIA CRAZE OF THE 1970s, Part 2.