The Playbill Podcast: A Show on Broadway

If you’ve ever moved to a new town, you know how much of a pain it is. For the Emerson family in the 1980’s, they feel that in a major way as they move to Santa Carla, California. Their biggest obstacles, it turns out? The vampires who reside there. 

If this sounds familiar to you, then you remember the 1980’s classic Joel Schumacher movie with the same title, The Lost Boys. The stage musical adaptation ha...

Throughout his life, the legendary and groundbreaking playwright August Wilson wrote ten plays chronicling the Black experience, decade by decade, throughout the twentieth century; what has been referred to as The Pittsburgh Cycle. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone takes us to the earliest chapter, 1911, just a few decades removed from the end of slavery, in the middle of the Great Migration, when hundreds of thousands of Black...

How does a simple Chess rivalry become more than just one person against another? How about...when both players are involved in a love triangle? And the two players are American and Russian, with their nations locked in a Cold War? This is the backdrop of the musical CHESS, the epic tale by Sir Tim Rice and two members of ABBA, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.

Originally conceived in the early 1980’s as a world-renowned ...

Have you ever wished to find yourself IN a musical? That is the fate of boyfriend and girlfriend Josh and Melissa, who get trapped in the town of Schmigadoon, influenced by the Golden Age of musical theatre (and named after the Broadway classic Brigadoon). First performed at The Kennedy Center in 2025, the stage rendition of the streaming series of the same name (on AppleTV+) has just been nominated for a staggering 12 Tony Awards,...

In this episode, we focus not on a particular show but on a remarkable talent who has helped change the landscape of the theatrical world, literally and figuratively: the renowned architect and Tony Award-winning set designer David Rockwell. 

It is staggering to unpack all the sets he has designed in the last multiple decades, such as the Rocky Horror revival in 2000, Hairspray, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Normal Heart, Ki...

What lengths would you go to for the person you loved, and what lengths would the public love you for it? Those are the central themes of the play Dog Day Afternoon, an adaptation of the 1975 movie, itself a dramatization of real-life events that happened in 1972. Adapted for the stage by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, the story centers on two men, Sonny and Sal, and their quest to rob a bank in New Yo...

Have you ever been lucky enough to visit somewhere, or meet someone, and feel almost immediately that your life is about to change? That is what the character Dougal feels about New York and his unofficial tour guide, Robyn, in the Broadway musical Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York.

First developed in England, the musical tells the story of Dougal’s 48-hour visit to New York on a mission to connect with members of...

In 1998, composer/lyricists Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, and book writer Terrance McNally brought a big, American musical to Broadway based on Ragtime, the acclaimed novel by EL Doctorow. It was a success; the production was nominated for 13 Tony Awards and won four of them. The show ran for multiple years, launched many careers, and brought new, beautiful music to the world. 

That world has waited many years for a rev...

The Lost Boys musical is on its way to Broadway, and it is one of the season’s most highly anticipated new shows. Previews start March 27th at the Palace Theatre, with tickets available now at lostboysmusical.com. 

The production is in the middle of the final sprint to the finish that all new shows need to take on to open on Broadway successfully, and while there is rarely time to reflect in those moments, the produci...

The Lost Boys musical is on its way to Broadway, and it is one of the season’s most highly anticipated new shows. Previews start March 27th at the Palace Theatre, with tickets available now at lostboysmusical.com. 

The production is in the middle of the final sprint to the finish that all new shows need to take on to open on Broadway successfully, and while there is rarely time to reflect in those moments, the produci...

The Lost Boys musical is on its way to Broadway and it is one of the season’s most highly anticipated new shows, with previews starting March 27th at the Palace Theatre. Tickets are available now at lostboysmusical.com. 

The production is in the middle of the final sprint to the finish that all new shows need to take on to open on Broadway successfully, and while there is rarely time to reflect in those moments, the p...

What do you get when you combine more than 11,000 performances, 124 million attendees, and six Tony Awards? You have arguably the most successful and impactful Broadway show in its history. The Lion King debuted in 1997 and has since helped lift the art form and its patrons up, spreading the joy of its work across the world through its many productions. The show, helmed by multi-time Tony Award-winner Julie Taymor, has helped jumps...

Playbill went to New York Comic Con in October and hosted several panels on Broadway, including Beetlejuice's return, Hamilton's lasting legacy, the rise of Death Becomes Her, Little Shop of Horrors' impact on entertainment history, and a look into the new spring musical, The Lost Boys. We know everyone who'd want to hear these panels couldn't be there in person, so we're turning them into podcast episodes!

The second one we're ...

Someone must have said his name three times again...since Beetlejuice is back on Broadway for a third time! Playbill went to New York Comic Con earlier this fall and hosted several panels on Broadway, including Beetlejuice's return, Hamilton's lasting impact, the rise of Death Becomes Her, Little Shop of Horrors' impact on entertainment history, and a look into the new spring musical, The Lost Boys. We know everyone who'd want to h...

Breaking the Binary Theatre is a new work development and community building hub wherein transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ artists come together to reclaim their artistic license and liberty. This year the theatre will celebrate the fourth annual Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival, opening on October 20 with a one-night-only concert of The Drowsy Chaperone at Carnegie Hall featuring a star-studded all-trans and n...

One of the recurring multimedia series we make at Playbill is called My Life In The Theatre, and you can find it in the Playbill programs on Broadway, on our YouTube page, and on our website. The premise is simple: we hand a theatre legend a binder filled with Playbills of their past stage shows, and they talk to us about their time in each. The first episode we edited for this podcast was with Jonathan Groff, which got a grea...

The musical "Death Becomes Her" has become a Broadway mainstay, thrilling packed houses each night and building an impressive audience. For those of you who haven’t seen it, you may have heard a clip of it before, especially if you have a TikTok, as a sound from the song "Hit Me" has gone viral, heard by millions ("That. Was. Rude....").

Broadway star Jennifer Simard plays Helen Shaw, the friend/rival of Madeline Asht...