October week 1 (98-G45-00001, 9/22/98) : New Faces of 1952 and 1998. Since Broadway Revisited will be new to many listeners, the season begins with New Faces, the legendary 1952 Broadway revue with Eartha Kitt, along with some new faces of 1998, in Six of One, a work in progress with Marin Mazzie, who's now starring in Ragtime.
October week 2 (98-G45-00002, 9/29/98) : The Vincent Youmans Centennial. Vincent Youmans, one of the important Broadway composers of the 'twenties and 'thirties, was born exactly a century ago, the day after George Gershwin. This week's Broadway Revisited reviews his life and work, illustrated with some original cast recordings and some by Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, and others.
October week 3 (98-G45-00003, 10/6/98) : Young Sondheim. Stephen Sondheim's latest show is also his first. He wrote Saturday Night in 1954, but it's been given its first staging and recording just this year, in England, and it provides much of the music on this week's Broadway Revisited. Meryle Secrest's new Sondheim biography will also receive attention, along with a couple of songs from West Side Story-- in Swedish.
October week 4 (98-G45-00004, 10/13/98) : My Multilingual Lady. Lerner & Loewe's 1956 My Fair Lady is adapted from Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, a play about the relationship between social class and the pronunciation of the English language. That doesn't seem to make it a candidate for translation, but My Fair Lady has been produced and recorded in more different languages than any other American musical. This week, Broadway Revisited plays the score in eight languages from fifteen different recordings.
November week 1 (98-G45-00005, 10/20/98) : Long Play Vinyl at Fifty. Fifty years ago, Kiss Me Kate was the first show to be recorded on lp, and a year later, the long play original cast record record of South Pacific established vinyl as the standard recording medium. This week we'll celebrate the invention of the lp with over a dozen songs from early theater music lps, along with some record industry history. The Lp at Fifty, this week on Broadway Revisited .
November week 2 (98-G45-00006, 10/27/98): High Society. The new Broadway musical combining Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story and Cole Porter's film score for High Society only ran for four months, but a national tour will bring it to the rest of the country. This week's Broadway Revisited has the High Society words and music, both Porter's movie songs and his other numbers added for the stage version. Radio performers include Sinatra, Crosby, Cleo Laine, and Bobby Short.
November week 3 (98-G45-00007, 11/03/98): The New Broadway Season. Sixteen musicals have been announced for the 1998-1999 New York season. Since all but two are revivals or recyclings of other music, we're able to offer previews of fourteen of them, including the biographies Fosse and Jolson and two transfers from screen to stage, Footloose and Easter Parade. Broadway Recycledon Broadway Revisited.
November week 4 (98-G45-00008, 11/10/98): The Current Cabaret Scene— New singers, old songs. Cabaret began in France a century ago and it's currently thriving across the U. S. This week, Broadway Revisited surveys the national scene with seventeen fine performers, some well-known and some just starting out. The music ranges from Kern to Sondheim. Come to the cabaret on Broadway Revisited.
November week 5 (98-G45-00009, 11/17/98): Betty Comden and Adolph Green— Living Landmarks. Comden & Green have been writing lyrics for sixty years, and New York has declared them "Living Landmarks". This week, Broadway Revisited reviews their lives and lyrics, with music mostly by Leonard Bernstein and Jule Styne, performed by Judy Holliday, Rosalind Russell, Nancy Walker, and Comden & Green themselves.
December weeks 1 &2: (98-G45-00010. 11/24/98) and (98-G45-00011, 12/1/98): A Different Porgy and Bess. After the 1935 premiere of "Porgy and Bess", Duke Ellington said: "It's grand music and a swell play, but the two didn't go together. It does not use the Negro musical idiom." The two-part Broadway Revisited presentation of the Gershwin work explores the Duke's thought from three directions. One is librettist Du Bose Heyward's fidelity to Gullah speech. Another is Gershwin's use of musical idioms from the Sea Islands, documented with parallel field recordings from the Asch collection. Most important (and most of the two hours) is the presentation of ALL the songs in brilliant performances by Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Hartman, Mahalia Jackson, Cleo Laine, Cab Calloway, Pearl Bailey, and other appropriate artists. This is a different Porgy and Bess-- one we think would have satisfied Duke Ellington. And perhaps George Gershwin as well.
December week 3: (98-G45-00012, 12/8/98): A BROADWAY CHRISTMAS. This week Broadway Revisited sends holiday greetings with seasonal songs from shows by Frank Loesser, Sheldon Harnick, Meredith Willson, and others, along with selections from the current Broadway version of "A Christmas Carol", with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens (who wrote "Ragtime") and music by Alan Mencken (who wrote "Beauty and the Beast"). A Christmas cabaret follows, with Mel Tormé, Nancy LaMott, Michael Feinstein, Dinah Shore, Nat Cole, and Johnny Mercer. A Broadway Christmas on Broadway Revisited.
December week 4: (98-G45-00013, 12/15/98): FOLLIES. For the holiday party season, Broadway Revisited attends the gala performers' reunion in Stephen Sondheim's "Follies". Along with contemporary songs, Sondheim's rich score includes several star turns in the styles of the past. Many of the selections are taken from the new complete recording of the score by the cast of the recent Paper Mill Playhouse revival, along with some from the original Broadway and West End casts.
January week 1: (98-G45-00014, 12/22/98): Broadway Goes West. Westerns have been popular in books in movies, but there have been very few Broadway shows about the region, so this week Broadway Revisited can sample almost all of them, including Lerner & Loewe's Paint Your Wagon, in an hour. Horse operettas, this week on Broadway Revisited.
January week 2: (98-G45-00015, 12/29/98): Call Me Madam. Irving Berlin's 1950 hit Call Me Madam is one of the rare shows in which every song is a good one. This week on Broadway Revisited we'll hear the original cast, starring Ethel Merman and Paul Lukas, with bonus tracks from the 1995 revival. Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, this week on Broadway Revisited.
January week 3: (99-G45-00001, 1/5/99): New Releases and Recent Reissues. New CDs have been coming too fast to fit them all into our usual topic format, so this week Broadway Revisited catches up with selections from new shows, new recordings of old shows, and CD transfers from vinyl. Good new stuff this week on Broadway Revisited.
January week4: (99-G45-00002, 1/12/99): Economics. This week Broadway Revisited uses appropriate songs from more than a dozen shows to make light of the dismal science of economics. Get an MBA in an hour this week on Broadway Revisited.
January week 5: (99-G45-00003, 1/19/99): The Lyrics of Sheldon Harnick. Sheldon Harnick has been writing good lyrics for half a century, including Fiorello, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, and his latest, a musical version of It's A Wonderful Life. Hear songs from these and more, with several rare selections from Fiddler, this week when Broadway Revisited reviews the life and work of Sheldon Harnick.
February Week 1: (99-G45-00004, 1/26/99): "Pal Joey". There's a good case that Rodgers & Hart's "Pal Joey" was the first modern musical— and it's still one of the best. This week Broadway Revisited combines several cast recordings to examine the show.
February Week 2: (99-G45-00005, 2/2/99): Lyricists Look at Love. This week's Broadway Revisited is a Valentine— seventeen love songs illustrating how the great songwriters manage to find new ways to express very old ideas— specifically, how various lyric writers have treated seven different varieties of love songs, from the metaphoric to the masochistic. A Valentine special, this week on Broadway Revisited.
February Week 3: (99-G45-00006, 2/9/99): Musical Book Reviews. This week, Broadway Revisited illustrates reviews of ten recent biographies and books on musicals with selected show tunes.
February week 4: (99-G45-00007, 2/16/99): "Finian's Rainbow". Yip Harburg's 1947 classic was a good natured expression of post-war hopes for advances in civil rights. The message is still pertinent and the show is still a delight. "Finian's Rainbow" this week on Broadway Revisited.
March week 1: (99-G45-00008, 02/23/99) Stout Hearted Men-- and Women. Several Broadway shows have covered wars, with warriors of assorted gender. This week, Broadway Revisited visits several conflicts, including the war between the Greeks and the Amazons in Rodgers & Hart's By Jupiter. Stout hearted men-- and women-- this week on Broadway Revisited.
March week 2: (99-G45-00009, 03/02/99) Noel Coward Centennial. Noel Coward was born in 1899, making this his centennial year. Broadway Revisited marks the occasion this week with his life and songs, with an extended sampling of his last Broadway show, Sail Away. The Coward centennial on Broadway Revisited.
March week 3: (99-G45-00010, 03/09/99) Faith Hope and Therapy. When the stress of life gets you down, there's relief in show tunes. This week, Broadway Revisited offers some faith, hope, and therapy. Contemporary answers to modern problems from assorted shows, this week on Broadway Revisited.
March week 4: (99-G45-00011, 03/16/99) State Fair, Allegro, and Me & Juliet. Between their great successes with Oklahoma and The Sound of Music, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote a movie and a couple of innovative but forgotten Broadway shows. This week, Broadway Revisited revives the good songs from the movie, State Fair, and the forgotten shows, Allegro and Me & Juliet. Three by R & H., this week on Broadway Revisited.
April week 1: (99-G45-00012, 03/23/99) Spring Is Here: A salute to the vernal equinox. The calendar says "spring", so this week Broadway Revisited welcomes the season with an assortment of songs about April, May, and June from Rodgers & Hart, Tom Lehrer, William Shakespeare, Sigmund Romberg and other authorities. Swing into Spring on Broadway Revisited.
April week 2: (99-G45-00013, 03/30/99) Red, Hot and Blue is the title of a Cole Porter show, and of a current traveling exhibit of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. This week, Broadway Revisited uses original cast recordings to take an audio tour of the Smithsonian's musical theater treasures.
April 16-18: Bundles from Britain. From the twenties through the present, England has imported American musicals and exported fine recordings of our songs and shows. This week, Broadway Revisited reviews these contributions.
April 23-25: (99-G45-00015, 04/13/99) There was a tribute to Richard Rodgers last month in the Lincoln Center American Songbook series, but it wasn't recorded for broadcast. We'll rectify that this week on Broadway Revisited, using commercial recordings of the songs by the performers in the concert. Richard Rodgers and the American Songbook, this week on Broadway Revisited.
April 30-May 2: (99-G45-00016, 04/20/99) Frank Sinatra, song curator. A reminder on the anniversary of his death that he was important because he sang good songs well.
May 7-9: Cole Porter's Kates. (99-G45-00017, 04/27/99) Cole Porter had fun writing songs about his mother, Kate Cole. We'll hear some of them on Broadway Revisited this Mother's Day weekend, along with those from his classic tribute, Kiss Me, Kate.
May 14-16: The Fred Astaire Centennial. (99-G45-00018, 05/04/99) Irving Berlin and George Gershwin both thought that the best singer of their songs was the dancer Fred Astaire, who was born a hundred years ago this month. This week, Broadway Revisited marks the event with a generous assortment of the songs written especially for him by Gershwin, Porter, Kern, Berlin and Arlen. The Astaire centennial, this week on Broadway Revisited.
May 21-23: Annie Get Your Gun. (99-G45-00019, 05/11/99) Irving Berlin's classic is back on Broadway. This week we'll explore the score with Ethel Merman, the original Annie, and several successors in the role, including the latest, Bernadette Peters.
May 28-30: (99-G45-00020, 05/18/99) The 1998-1999 Broadway Season A Tony Awards preview. The 1999 Tony Awards will be given out next Sunday, and this week Broadway Revisited will review the season with selections from all the nominees, along with a few other current off-Broadway shows. The 1998-1999 season, this week on Broadway Revisited.
Extra feed: Starting next week, the Tuesday feed will be for a suggested air time the following weekend, not ten days ahead as in the past. In case this causes problems for anyone, we will refeed an extra, earlier show on Tuesday, May 25. (99-G45-100021, 05/25/99) Long Play Vinyl at Fifty. The long play original cast record of South Pacific established the Lp as the standard recording medium fifty years ago. This week we'll celebrate the invention of the Lp with a dozen songs from early theater music Lps, along with some record industry history. The Lp at Fifty, this week on Broadway Revisited .
June 4-6: (99-G45-100022, 06/01/99) Duke Ellington on Stage. Although they did not have long runs on Broadway, Duke Ellington wrote three musicals. This week, Broadway Revisited samples the Duke's Jump for Joy, Beggar's Holiday, and Pousse Cafe. Ellington's Broadway, this week on Broadway Revisited.
June 11-13: (99-G45-100023, 06/08/99) George Abbott directed the first Broadway shows of Leonard Bernstein, Frank Loesser, Jule Styne, and Kander & Ebb, among many other firsts. This week, Broadway Revisited summarizes Mr. Abbott's eighty years on New York stages.
June 18-20: (99-G45-100024, 06/15/99) Lost
in the Stars. One of the most sensitive musical examinations of
the relationships between fathers and sons was the Kurt Weill-Maxwell Anderson
adaptation of Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country. It's the main
subject of this week's Broadway Revisited, along with some other
material appropriate for Father's Day.
June 25-27: (99-G45-100025, 06/22/99) : The Vincent Youmans Centennial. Vincent Youmans, one of the important Broadway composers of the 'twenties and 'thirties, was born a century ago, the day after George Gershwin. This week's Broadway Revisited reviews his life and work, illustrated with some original cast recordings and some by Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, and others.
July 2-4: (99-G45-00026, 06/29/99) Stout Hearted Men-- and Women. Several Broadway shows have covered wars, with warriors of assorted gender. This week, Broadway Revisited visits several conflicts, including two about the American Revolution and one about the war between the Greeks and the Amazons, in Rodgers & Hart's By Jupiter. Stout hearted men-- and women-- this week on Broadway Revisited.
July 9-11 (99-G45-100027, 07/06/99) : My Multilingual Lady. Lerner & Loewe's 1956 My Fair Lady is adapted from Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, a play about the relationship between social class and the pronunciation of the English language. That doesn't seem to make it a candidate for translation, but My Fair Lady has been produced and recorded in more different languages than any other American musical. This week, Broadway Revisited plays the score in eight languages from fifteen different recordings.
July 16-8: (99-G45-00028, 07/13/99): High Society. The new Broadway musical combining Philip Barry's The Philadelphia Story and Cole Porter's film score for High Society only ran for four months, but a national tour will bring it to the rest of the country. This week's Broadway Revisited has the High Society words and music, both Porter's movie songs and his other numbers added for the stage version. Our radio performers include Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Cleo Laine, Louis Armstrong, and Bobby Short.
July 23-25: (99-G45-100029, 07/020/99): Follies. This week, Broadway Revisited attends the gala performers' reunion in Stephen Sondheim's "Follies". Along with contemporary songs, Sondheim's rich score includes several star turns in the styles of the past. Many of the selections are taken from the new complete recording of the score by the cast of the recent Paper Mill Playhouse revival, along with some from the original Broadway and West End casts.
July 30-August 1: (99-G45-00030, 07/27/99): Economics. This week Broadway Revisited uses appropriate songs from more than a dozen shows to make light of the dismal science of economics. Get an MBA in an hour this week on Broadway Revisited.
August 6-8: (99-G45-00031, 08/03/99): The Lyrics of Sheldon Harnick. Sheldon Harnick has been writing good lyrics for half a century, including Fiorello, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, She Loves Me, Fiddler on the Roof, and his latest, a musical version of It's A Wonderful Life. Hear songs from these and more, with several rare selections from Fiddler, this week when Broadway Revisited reviews the life and work of Sheldon Harnick.
August 13-15: (99-G45-00032, 08/10/99): "Pal Joey". There's a good case that Rodgers & Hart's "Pal Joey" was the first modern musical-- and it's still one of the best. This week Broadway Revisited combines several cast recordings to examine the show.
August 20-22: (99-G45-00033, 08/17/99) The Noel Coward Centennial. Noel Coward was born in 1899, making this his centennial year. Broadway Revisited marks the occasion this week with his life and songs, with an extended sampling of his last Broadway show, Sail Away, starring Elaine Stritch. The Coward centennial on Broadway Revisited.
August 27-29: (99-G45-00034, 08/24/99) Faith Hope and Therapy. When the stress of life gets you down, there's relief in show tunes. This week, Broadway Revisited offers some faith, hope, and therapy. Contemporary answers to modern problems from assorted shows, this week on Broadway Revisited.