Tinker Bell (by Patrick Flynn) opens this week at Adventure Theatre MTC. Throughout the run, all our episodes will be related to the production.

To kick things off, here's a re-issue of our episode with Tinker Bell herself: Michelle Polera.

ORIGINAL NOTES:
Actress and Soul Cycle instructor Michelle Polera stops by to talk about that magical place 18 blocks east of 1st Avenue on the Lower East Side.

Topics include: puppet sex, puppet nudity, how Michelle is afraid of puppets, and schadenfreude.

Journalist Chris Klimek joins us for a talk about a musical from a multiple-Tony Award-winning songwriting team, Academy Award-winning scriptwriter, and legendary producer/director Hal Prince. It was a flop.

Topics include: Superman, Superman: The Motion Picture, Superman Returns, Superman: Turn Off the Dark, and The Star Wars Holiday Special.

It's the Tonys on Sunday!!! And so we're talking the Tonys with Kari Ginsburg and Roddy Flynn. We go through the nominated revivals (5:56) give our thoughts on the shows up for Best Musical: Mean Girls (26:26), Frozen (44:05), SpongeBob SquarePants (56:46), and The Band's Visit (1:08:04), and then tell you our predictions (1:21:17) for who will take home that spinny award Sunday night!

AND you can follow along with us during the ceremony in TWO (2) ways.

Kari, Roddy, and Patrick will be live tweeting from Patrick's living room using #OriginalCastPod so you can keep up with our thoughts and joys and snarks.

And, during commercial breaks, they'll be live on Instagram @OriginalCastPod for some in-person reactions.

Thembi and Patrick move from Beyoncé to DREAMGIRLS to Diana Ross to THE WIZ back to Beyoncé and one of her seminal albums LEMONADE.

It's bloody Brigadoon! Actor Emma Jackson is here with the greatest "how did this show come into your life?" answer yet.

Topics include: Delaware, Delawareans, Delaware theatre, people I know in Delaware, and Longwood Gardens.

Additional topics include: Does the plot make sense? Is Alan Jay Lerner a good writer? And what does Jeff do with his day in Brigadoon?

Patrick and Beth talk about kids, kids producers, then producing, then kids again. It all makes sense.

Adventure Theatre MTC's Assistant Production Manager extraordinaire Brittany Truske is here for a good but tough musical. The 3rd in our Pulitzer Prize-winning musical series and the most controversial.

Topics include: seeing a show blind, auto-tuning one tiny phrase, and are there any happy songs in Act 2?

Trigger Warning: Next to Normal deals with the issues of prescription drug abuse, electroshock therapy, and suicide. If these topics are not your favorite, we've got 111 other episodes for you to enjoy. And please remember that there is always someone to talk with at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255.

When one has a Shakespeare scholar as a guest, one talks about Shakespeare. Especially when the guest and one agree on so much about Shakespeare.

La-Ti-Do co-founder Don Mike Mendoza is back! This time we're talking about that most puzzling of musicals, the Sondheim/Rodgers/Laurents collaboration that ended all those friendships.

Topics include: Why? Seriously why? What? And why?

Also TRIVIA!

The final bit of my December 2016 conversation with Tony Award-winner Daisy Eagan is a nostalgic trip down problematic lane and a hopeful look forward.

Actor/teacher/maker/mama Tia Shearer Bassett is here to talk about the musical about the boat that sank, and Leo & Kate barely come up.

Topics include: Michael Cerveris, Brian D'Arcy James, and the audacity of hope.

Don Mike returns in 3 weeks to talk about DO I HEAR A WALTZ? but before he does, here's a snip from that conversation about MEAN GIRLS which opens this week at the August Wilson.

The gang from Decomposition Podcast is here to talk about another Kander & Ebb revival that outran its original production.

Topics include: songs about pineapples, emabarassing things Kit Kat girls do, & how it would feel to write a song that unintentionally becomes a Neo-Nazi anthem.

Actress Holly Twyford talks about her musical debut as Desiree in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC at Signature. A daunting undertaking for which she is currently nominated for a Helen Hayes Award.

Actor Harrison Smith is here for one of the most important and difficult to listen to musicals ever.

Topics include: JRB, Prince, Uhry, Guettel, and the terrifying capacity of James Finley.

Logan Culwell-Block is back for this excised conversation about collaboration. Also Barbara Dickson. Also Logan didn't really think ASSASSINScame out in 1976. That was an auditory error.

Music director and pianist extraordinaire Elisa Rosman is here for two LPs about a single show that was two shows (really three shows) and is now one show but is still good enough for three shows.

Topics include: The great William Finn, the great Chip Zein, and leaving crying after you came laughing.

Three quick conversations excised from Danielle Mohlman's episode about JESUS CHRIST SUPERTAR including an amazing surprise I'm so excited for you to hear omigod, you guys.

Artistic Director of the Santa Fe Playhouse Vaughn Irving is here with another Zeitler!

Topics include: drummers, grooves, and what does an artistic director do anyway?

See It's the Rest of the World That Looks So Small NOW at the Silver Spring Black Box!

I'm on Decomposition Podcast this week defending the honor of Tony Award-winner Billy Joel. This week's intermission is an excerpt from that appearance. The full episode is available over at Decomposition Podcast.

Featured recordings:

52ND STREET - Billy Joel (1978)

STORM FRONT - Billy Joel (1989)