Chasing Phantom

Is there a more iconic musical than “Guys and Dolls?” Probably not. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to do well and my guests for this episode are a testament to how to make a classic musical really sing.

This is a show that can be dominated by its many engaging male characters, so I wanted to push aside the Guys for just a bit and talk to the Dolls. “Guys and Dolls” is never supposed to be realistic but there’s a danger in making it too...

Both me and my guest in this episode had the chance to see "Waitress" on Broadway and we chose not to. And boy, were we both sorry!

It's not often with this podcast that we talk about a show you can see right now. But "Waitress" is one of those shows that had suddenly started appearing on regional stages all over the country so there's a pretty good chance it has, is or soon will be appearing somewhere ...

Art about other art is fascinating to me, and only one of the many reasons I love "Amadeus," a play about music. Of course, it's also about envy of another man's genius: the play cemented the image of Salieri in popular culture. But really, at its heart, it's a play about faith and Salieri's contentious battle with his own faith, and also, playwright Peter Schaffer's ongoing artistic conversation ...

Is it mime? Is it puppetry? Is it augmented sketch comedy? Rather than try to categorize "Mummenschanz," it seems best to just wonder at the inventiveness and enjoy the fun of the experience. That was certainly what people were doing in the 1970s and for many decades afterwards.

"Mummenschanz" holds the record for longest running special on Broadway. Scheduled for a limited engagement after a successful national ...

Over the past 20 years or so, a handful of shows have revolutionized what can be done on Broadway. You could point to "Hamilton" as one of the biggest of those but that revolution actually started with "In the Heights," which remains my favorite of the two. Call me a traditionalist at heart but I love that it's a warmer and more personal show. And fantasizing about winning the lottery is simply more relatab...

Why is a conversation with Jordan Schildcrout always a good time? Because in the course of just 30 minutes chatting about the relatively obscure play “Cactus Flower,” you’ll hear about additionally fascinating plays like “Two for the Seesaw” and “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.” Jordan and I dig into both the weird and wonderful aspects of “Cactus Flower,” the show that brought Lauren Bacall back to Broadway. The movie versio...

Easter is this weekend and, while you might think I'm featuring the show "Sugar Babies" to make an allusion toward those sweet treats found in children's Easter baskets, well, you're right! BUT, thanks to my always incredibly knowledgeable guest, Phil Crosby, it came to light that this throwback vaudeville revue would also make sense to highlight because of Ann Miller's star turn in the movie "Eas...

"Promises, Promises" had a dream team of talent, both backstage and onstage. Neil Simon, Hal David, and Burt Bacharach are the big three, but it was also directed by Robert Moore ("The Boys in the Band" off-Broadway, "Woman of the Year") and choreographed by Michael Bennett. It was also based on an incredible movie, "The Apartment." What could go wrong?

Nothing did go wrong, really: the show w...

It's about music, it's about race relations, but it's NOT about how to be a good radio disc jockey. In giving a very loose account of the rise and fall of true-life music pioneer Dewey Phillips, the musical "Memphis" amps up the conflicts - which you would expect - in part by making the Phillips surrogate, Huey Calhoun, kind of an asshole. Still, the story of a DJ breaking conventions of the 1950s by playin...

Am I too on the nose here? Pretty much any time seems like a good time to reflect on the founding of the United States of America, but boy howdy, does this current time we're in seem like a specifically good time to do so. The musical "1776" is a not-quite-historically-correct dramatization of the drafting and ratification of the Declaration of Independence. It focuses on John Adams as the instigator, the leader who ...

Nope - I am definitely NOT making any kind of political statement by doing an episode on "Cabaret" at this specific moment. Nope, not at all. My delightful conversation with actor and director Doug Schneider steers clear of any chatter about what's happening in politics in America right now. But, that said, this is certainly a good show to revisit if you want a dramatic window into the insidious effects of the rise o...

Valentine's Day has been commercialized to such an outrageous degree, pushing models of hetero-normative romantic commitment so hard that any other kind of love can end up seeming marginal or even invisible. That's one of the reasons why "Once" is such a fascinating story: a man and a woman fall into a certain kind of love but it's less romantic and more of a beautiful bridge that helps each of them get to ...

When you want to hear about Michael Jackson, it's best to talk to the man himself...or, given the impossibility of that, the man who's playing him. As of New Year's Eve 2024, the actor playing the title role in "MJ: The Musical" on the show's first national tour has been Jordan Markus. Markus worked his way up into the role, starting as an understudy, moving into the alternate role, and then finally hi...

Happy New Year to all! During these cold winter months, there's nothing as cozy as an old-timey murder mystery and "Sleuth" is one of the twisty-est. Helping me navigate the plot -- not to mention the embedded commentary on class, race and misogyny -- is Grace Todd. As a literature doyenne with the fabulously entertaining podcast, Didn't Read It, Grace has a perfectly tuned perspective on what playwright Anthony...

Happy Hanukkah! Oh, and Merry Christmas, but to be honest, this is more of a Hanukkah-forward episode, only because "Brighton Breach Memoirs" is very succinctly the story of a Jewish American family, the challenges, foibles and laughs shared amongst the family members as they struggle through tough economic times in the 1940s.

For this episode, the holidays arrived just a little early because I got to reconnect w...

In the first ever bonus episode of Chasing Phantom, Phil Crosby and I talk about the ending of "The King and I," one that was a surprise to me so don't listen if you want it to be a surprise to you! We also get back into some of the history of the real life King of Siam and Anna Leonowens.

This bonus is also an opportunity to drop a couple more sound bites in from the show's score which is a real treat....

We are hurtling towards the holidays and so, for this episode, I make the case for "The King and I" to be considered among your holiday viewing options. Even though it's a 70+ year show, it's a smart and sophisticated musical with interesting cross-cultural dynamics. And so, of course, I turned to the smart and sophisticated Phil Crosby, most knowledgeable of all humans on the subject of older musicals, to help ...

For this pre-Thanksgiving episode, we hurtle up the list of long-running productions to give everyone something to celebrate and lift our spirits. "Mamma Mia!" may be the longest-running jukebox musical ever to run on Broadway (so far) but it's story transcends that reductive label. As expertly elucidated by Grey Garrett, who won a Best Supporting Actress in a Musical award for her performance as Tanya, this is a sho...

On the week after Veteran's Day, my friend Jesse and I dig into "Mister Roberts," a play about sailors during World War II and humble hero who was an example of (mostly) passive resistance to a petty tyrant. When we recorded this episode, I had no idea how appropriate it would be to air during this week. Don't get me wrong - as a 1940s era comedy, it's not a great show by any means. But still, in these time...