On Friday night I watched a reunion special for the musical The Goodbye Girl. Don’t know the show? It was a short-lived musical based on the 1977 Neil Simon film of the same name starring Bernadette Peters and Martin Short making his Broadway debut. Renowned composer Marvin Hamlisch, City of Angels lyricist David Zippel wrote the score, and Simon did the book. The reunion coincided with the show’s opening night anniversary—March 4, 1993—and featured a few members of the cast and crew (not Peters or Short but some of the supporting cast and dancers). The Goodbye Girl is not a great musical, and the discussion on the reunion special touched on why, but every time I revisit it, I’m brought back to the thrill of seeing that show as a 10-year-old Bernadette Peters fan. I can love that show and critique that show, just as I can with other shows I saw not just in childhood but in adulthood as well. That combination of love and critique is one of the tenets of Scene to Song. Both are important for discussing this art form, and I think each guest brings both love and critique with them when they come on the podcast. Thanks, as always, for listening, and while we won’t love every musical, I hope we can all bring both love and critique to our experiences with musical theater. — Shoshana
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Recent Episodes
Episode 72: Disney Park Music as Musical Theater
In this episode, composer and writer Eric Matthew Richardson discusses Disney parks music as musical theater and a bit of history as to how they were constructed that way. We also talk about the Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez's song "The Big Blue World (Reprise)" from their 2007 Disney parks musical Finding Nemo: The Musical.
Music played in this episode:
"Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" written by Frank Churchill with additional lyrics by Ann Ronell which originally featured in the 1933 Disney cartoon Three Little Pigs
"The Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room" by the Sherman Brothers
"There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" by the Sherman Brothers
"It's a Small World" by the Sherman Brothers, sung by Richard Sherman and Alan Menken at the D23 Expo
"Grim, Grinning Ghosts" composed by Buddy Baker, with lyrics written by X Atencio
"The Big Blue World (Reprise)" from Finding Nemo: The Musical
Episode 73: Evil Characters in Musical Theater
In this episode, pianist and singer Emel Greer discusses evil characters in musical theater. We also talk about the song "I'm the Greatest Star" from Isobel Lennart, Jule Styne, and Bob Merrill's 1964 musical Funny Girl.
Music played in this episode:
"One Hallowe'en" from Applause
"Dirty Laundry" from The Witches of Eastwick
"My Name" from Oliver!
"Dentist!" from Little Shop of Horrors
"They Don’t Know" from Thoroughly Modern Millie
"What Comes Next" from Hamilton
"Epiphany" from Sweeney Todd (2005 Revival)
"I’m the Greatest Star" from Funny Girl
Meet the Guests!
Eric Matthew Richardson is a composer and writer based in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from DePaul University’s School of Music, Eric continued to explore multidisciplinary composition techniques through immersive theatre, independent video games, and award-winning short films. His recent credits include his original full-length musical The Book of Sebastián (The Jacobins), an online, interactive hypermusical The LEA Project (Self-produced digital piece), music for the immersive show Cursed: An American Tragedy (Birch House Immersive), the ten-minute musicals “Pigasus” and “Role Play” (Chicago Dramatists), music for the video poem “Let This Be” (Paloma Sierra, Emerging Poet Laureate of Allegheny County), and has been featured as one of William Finn’s Emerging Writers (New York Theatre Barn).
Hometown: Medina, Ohio (“basically the Stars Hollow of Cleveland”)
Current Town: Chicago, Illinois
What are you Working on Right Now: Currently, I'm polishing off a piece called Down and Out in Rocky Heights. It's what I'm referring to as a "bastardization" of Antigone set in an automobile manufacturing town at the height of the last recession. Apart from that, I'm developing a new show under the working title of ei hytte. It's a two-hander with a quartet of singers backing them up, and all taking place within one small cabin. It's also an a cappella piece, which is something I haven't ever really explored before.
What do you have coming up: Not exactly coming up, per se, but my online, interactive musical The LEA Project was just nominated for an Audience Choice Award by No Proscenium for Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Stories & Games.
Book, TV, film, or Theater Recommendation: I've been trying to watch everything that could be considered a musical within the Criterion Collection. The one I want to draw attention to is this movie called The Lure. It's a retelling of The Little Mermaid set in 1980's Poland, and it's absolutely bonkers. I actually don't even think half the people who check it out will like it, to be honest, but that's exactly why they should!
Where can we find you online/social media: Both my instagram and twitter handles are @TheEMRMusic - but you can also check out my personal website at www.ericmatthewrichardson.com
Emel Greer is a pianist and singer from McLean, Virginia, who wrote her first musical, based on All About Eve but adding murder to Eve Harrington’s list of evil deeds, for her high school’s one act festival. Since then, she has studied musical theater at NYU Tisch, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, and Syracuse University’s musical theater program. In community theater and at the University of Virginia, her musical roles have included Dolly in Hello, Dolly! and Jan in Grease. She is one of three co-creators of a musical about online dating and is currently at work on a musical adaption of the Shakespeare play Cymbeline set in 1930s Moscow. She also contributed lyrics to Jamie Cowperthwait's ten-minute musical, Exit Row, performed as part of the 2010 Pace University Director’s Festival. She has worked professionally as a jazz pianist and singer and recently started a YouTube jazz piano tutorial series called “Little-Known Lines and Licks I Love” teaching less transcribed jazz solos in all 12 keys.
Hometown: McLean, Virginia
Current Town: Urla, Izmir
What are you Working on Right Now: A musical based on Cymbeline in 1930s Moscow focusing on Stalin’s daughter Svetlana
What do you have coming up: a debut album with a mix of original songs and new arrangements of musical theater standards
Book, TV, film, or Theater Recommendation: Josh Logan’s autobiographies (Movie Stars, Real People, and Me and My Up and Down, In and Out Life) are fascinating and hilarious (he describes one audience in the tryouts of an Oscar and Hammerstein musical as emerging from the theater “like imprisoned miners”).
Where can we find you online/social media: SoundCloud, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
Musical of the Month
Wicked by Stephen Schwartz & Winnie Holzman
Composer/Lyricist Stephen Schwartz turns 74 today, Sunday, March 6th, so I thought it would be a good month to feature one of my favorite musicals of his, Wicked (2003). It’s also Women’s History Month, and while the women in this show are literary characters not historical women, I think they are a great example of powerful female characters in a musical. Literally, they are powerful, and the musical, with a book by a powerhouse woman, Winnie Holzman, delves into different ways women can wield and use their power (much like in the Purim story, which we’ll also be reading this March).
I think Schwartz’s music for Wicked is some of his best and captures the spirits of these two women. His lyrics are good too, though once someone said to me that they think about what the lyrics would have been like had they been written by Holzman (a lyricist as well who also wrote the TV series My So-Called Life) and now I can’t stop thinking about that too. Regardless, I’m glad Wicked is so popular (to reference one of the song titles). It’s a big commercial musical whose central relationship is between two young women. Sadly, that’s rare. And then there’s the marriage of Schwartz’s music with the stagecraft. For various reasons, I have seen the show about six times (I’ve lost count), and each time Elphaba flies at the end of “Defying Gravity” I’m thrilled all over again.
Happy Birthday, Stephen Schwartz!
Also in March…
Women’s History Month! Celebrate by listening to some of our women-centered episodes such as episode 18 on The Women of Rodgers and Hammerstein, episode 9 on The Female Gaze in Musical Theater, and episode 71 on Black Women in Musical Theater History.
March 1: Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler opens on Broadway (1979). Listen to a discussion on the song the song "Kiss Me/Ladies and Their Sensitivities/Kiss Me Quartet" from Sweeney Todd in episode 64 on Rock Musicals.
March 2: Happy Birthday, composers Kurt Weill (1900) and Marc Blitzstein (1905)! What a day!
March 3: The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown opens off-Broadway (2002). Listen to a discussion on the song “I’m Still Hurting” from The Last Five Years in episode 10 on Plot Twists in Musical Theater.
March 5: Happy Birthday, Alain Boublil (1941)! We talk about the Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg musicals Les Miserables and Miss Saigon in multiple episodes, most recently in episode 73 on Evil Characters in Musical Theater and in episode 58 on Sung-Through Musicals in Musical Theater.
March 8: Greenwillow by Frank Loesser opens on Broadway (1960). Find out more about this show in episode 12 on Musical Worlds in Musical Theater, Featuring Frank Loesser.
March 9: In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes opens on Broadway (2008). Listen to a discussion of “Blackout” from In the Heights in episode 17 on Directing Middle School and High School Students in Musical Theater.
March 12: Les Miserables by Alain Boublil (book and lyrics) and Claude-Michel Schönberg (book and music), Jean-Marc Natel (original French lyrics), and Herbert Kretzmer (English lyrics) opens on Broadway (1987).
March 15: My Fair Lady by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe opens on Broadway (1956). Listen to episode 15 on The Musical My Fair Lady.
March 18: Happy Birthday, composer John Kander (1927)! And Seesaw by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields opens on Broadway (1973). Find out more about Seesaw in episode 61 on The Musicals of Cy Coleman. And celebrate John Kander by listening to discussions of his songs “Cabaret” from Cabaret in episode 6 on Outsider Characters in Musical Theater and "Class" from Chicago in episode 48 on Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman’s Follies.
March 22: Happy Birthday, Stephen Sondheim (1930) and Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948)! Celebrate both writers by listening to episode 68 on Stephen Sondheim and Rhyme and episode 55 on The Musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
March 26: Funny Girl by Isobel Lennart, Jule Styne, and Bob Merrill opens on Broadway (1964). Listen to a discussion on the song “I’m the Greatest Star” from Funny Girl in episode 73 on Evil Characters in Musical Theater.
March 29: The Kind and I by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II (1951) and It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman by Charles Strouse, Lee Adams, David Newman and Robert Benton open on Broadway (1966). Find out more about …Superman in episode 56 on Adaptations of Comics in Musical Theater.
March 30: Applause opens on Broadway (1970). We talk about Applause and the character of Eve in episode 73 on Evil Characters in Musical Theater.
March 31: Oklahoma by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II opens (1943). Listen to a discussion on “Many a New Day” from Oklahoma in episode 45 on The Illusion of the Everyman in Musical Theater.
Find more musical theater history for March at musicals101.com.
New Musicals!
While Scene to Song mainly looks at musicals already part of the canon, I definitely want to highlight new musicals and musicals in development.
HoT
The new musical HoT has words by former podcast guest Sara Cooper (episode 58 on Sung-Through Musicals in Musical Theater). Find out more about the musical HoT!
Creative Team: Words by Sara Cooper and Music by Lynne Shankel
Synopsis: HoT is an all-women+ through-composed feminist adaptation of Helen of Troy. It examines the commodification of women throughout our lifetimes as Helen is first sexualized, then held to unrealistic beauty and gender-based standards, and finally vilified and discarded--until she decides to stand up and take her power back.
Development History Highlights: HoT was recently at the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals. It has also been part of the New York Theatre Barn New Works Series (2020), the Johnny Mercer Writers Grove at Goodspeed Musicals (2020), and had a Concert reading, Dixon Place (2019).
Listen to Songs: Listen to the demos on Soundcloud.
Get more info on HoT.
Something Wonderful
Some additional recommendations for March:
Podcast: Out for Blood: The Story of Carrie the Musical. This podcast came out about a year ago with 10 episodes on the making of this historic flop musical. The charismatic hosts talk to the writers and former cast members. Check it out and then listen to Scene to Song’s discussion on Carrie the Musical in episode 46 on Horror in Musical Theater.
Film: The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. Do you have Netflix? This documentary on the making of the musical Merrily We Roll Along leaves Netflix on March 17th. Watch it while you can! And then listen to episode 59 on Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along.
Video: Interview with Liza Minnelli, John Kander, and Fred Ebb. The New York Public Library will stream a rarely seen 1974 interview with Minnelli, Kander, and Ebb on March 11th at 5:30pm Eastern Time. The event is free with registration. Register here.
Article: “When Muhammad Ali was a Broadway Musical Star.” “Ali starred in a musical called Buck White, which opened at the George Abbott Theater in New York on 2 December 1969. The musical was set at a meeting of a Black militant group and its composer was Oscar Brown Jr, who would write more than a dozen musical plays during his career.”
Hosted by writer Shoshana Greenberg, Scene to Song brings on a guest to talk about a musical, musical theater writer, or a topic or trend in musical theater. The theme music is by Julia Meinwald.
You can write to scenetosong@gmail.com with a comment or question about an episode or about musical theater, or if you’d like to be a podcast guest. Follow on Instagram at @ScenetoSong, on Twitter at @SceneSong, and on Facebook at “Scene to Song with Shoshana Greenberg Podcast.”
Shoshana Greenberg is a lyricist, librettist, singer, and theater journalist. Her musicals include Days of Rage with Hyeyoung Kim and Lightning Man with Jeffrey Dennis Smith. She has also written the opera “The Community” with Kevin Cummines. Her songs have been heard at venues from Lincoln Center to the Duplex, where she performed her one-woman show Not Coming Back. She’s written for American Theatre Magazine, is a contributing editor for the publication Musical Theater Today, and created and hosts the musical theater podcast Scene to Song. She holds an M.F.A. from the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU and a B.A. from Barnard College.