Drinking White Russians and holding to the ground as the ground keeps shifting.

Featured Songs: “Sweet Willow” and “How to Let Go” from Willow - A New Musical (2020) • “Feelings” from The Apple Tree - Original Broadway Cast (1966) • “Blue Rondo a la Turk” from Time Out - The Dave Brubeck Quartet (1959)

Ted is President of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, co-founder of Encores!, and many other things. But his biggest claim to fame came while he was in college and got a job as a gopher on the original Broadway production of Follies. He wrote a book about it. It’s a great book. You should buy Ted’s book.

Buy Ted’s book about Follies: Everything Was Possible.

Topics Include: making a musical about banking, the break-up of Bock & Harnick, out-of-town in Detroit, taking notes for Hal Prince, and caring for the Rodgers & Hammerstein canon.

Keepin’ it calm in late 2020.

Filmmaker Jeremy O’Keefe is with us this week to talk about a musical that I disparaged on the show 2 weeks ago. So that’s karma for you.

Topics Include: Wilmington, Delaware, being afraid of growing up at 16, Tony Randall, sleeping on the sidewalk for Renttickets, and Big 2 which is my idea and you can’t steal it and Jeremy has first look so don’t even ask.

We’re talking about the new musical Einstein’s Dreams and your reaction to the episode on 1776.

Featured Songs: “Einstein’s Dreams” sung by Alexandra Silber and “High-Speed Motion” sung by Talia Cosentino and the Ensemble from Einstein’s Dreams - Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording (2019)

From the Buried Broadway podcast, actor Mikey Bevarelli is here for a musical by an Aussie based on an American movie by an Aussie based on an American movie.

Topics Include: audience expectations, Andy Karl, big Broadway scores, the little things, Let My People Come, and Ned Ryerson.

I’m away this week so here’s some an excised portion from my conversation with Serena Berman about Hair. Mainly deleted because I talk a lot. I had a lot to say about Hair.

Serena Berman dot com

Featured Song: “Going Down” from Hair - The Original Broadway Cast Recording (1968)

Journalist Theresa J. Beckhusen is here for a musical adaptation of a half-heard history lesson retold through the lens of “everything’s fine!”

Topics Include: not-so-bad-for-1969, Thomas Jefferson’s views on enslavement, how dumb “The Egg” is, Mr. Feeny, Vietnam, and one song that is actually more relevant now than it even was then.

Two big musical discoveries made recently but I’m saving one so here’s the other!

Featured Songs: “I Wouldn't Have You Any Other Way” and “Maggie Flynn” from Maggie Flynn - The Original Broadway Cast Recording (1968), music and lyrics by Hugo Peretti & Luigi Creatore & George David Weiss

Performer-singer-mentor and Helen Hayes Award-winning writer Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi is here for a Tony-winning revue of 30s music staged in the 80s but that lives forever.

Topics Include: songs about weed, Billy Porter, Nell Carter, the black experience through white eyes, art that shouldn’t survive, and the good reasons why Lady Dane does not like Hamilton.

Intermissions are back! But in a slightly different format! Exclamation! I hate Grease!!

Featured Songs: “Summer Nights” from Grease! - The Original Broadway Cast Album (1972) • “An Element of Magic” from Reporting Live - Hannah Whitney and Jacob Samuels (2011)

Music theatre writer Michael Finke is here for Bill Finn’s song cycle about death. . . It’s not as much of a bummer as it may sound.

Topics Include: Hell’s Kitchen, Joe Papp, Jack Eric Williams, 14 Dwight Ave (Natick, MA), how anything can be a musical, and Michael’s forthcoming album!

Strathmore artist-in-residence singer/songwriter Christian Douglas is here for a musical by another singer/songwriter. Christian’s written and recorded an album during our time inside and just got out of the Army. Those things are connected but they’re both interesting and true.

Topics Include: the Jessie Mueller of it all, Sara v. Ms. Bareilles, life in the singing Army, and stories about ordinary people.

Straight back into Toronto and the Off2Broadway podcast, it’s Stefania Lounsbury taking us back to the Goodman household and all contained therein.

Topics Include: Alice Ripley’s eyes, the over-analysis of musical theatre, Pretty Woman, Superboy, the Invisible Girl, and does Billy Elliot actually have a tragic ending?

Straight outta Toronto and the Off2Broadway podcast, it’s Tara Stanton taking us back to Oz not once, not twice, but SEVEN TIMES!

Topics Include: Hamilton, projections, the magic, the joy, the love, and living a 2-show life.

Five-time Tony Award-nominee Douglas Carter Beane brings us an overlooked Rodgers & Hart classic.

Topics Include: putting on shows in barns, woke for 1939, a more talented but more annoying version of Shirley Temple, aircraft on stage pre-Miss Saigon, and how Hollywood turned Lorenz Hart from gay to short for the biopic.

Three-time Tony-nominee Rebecca Luker is here for a walk through her career and the show Sheldon Harnick calls our “greatest American opera.”

Topics Include: getting an agent out of town, auditioning for Hal Prince, balancing your work and your life, and of course we talk about The Secret Garden and I play “How Could I Ever Know” are you kidding?

Tony-winning choreographer Christopher Gattelli (Newsies, SpongeBob SquarePants, Altar Boyz, The King and I, High Fidelity, et al.) brings our third dive into a show that you either love deeply or have no strong opinion on either way.

Topics Include: harrowing at the start, Pouncival, hidden ᗅᗺᗷᗅ references, and what Channing Tatum did not sign up for.

Children’s TV host Carly Ciarrocchi is here for a wonderful conversation about how one show can set your whole world in motion.

Topics Include: discount Disney DJ for bar mitzvahs, working together, finding what you’re good at, live children’s TV, and getting rejected in a letter you sent yourself.

Actor/performer/writer Tori Bouton is here for the last year’s Tony Award-winner for Best Musical.

Topics Include: Amber Gray, tragic endings, Amber Gray, why we sing this song, Amber Gray, Andre DeShields, and Amber Gray.