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With BEN FRANCIS author of CAREFUL THE SPELL YOU CAST
This is the third and final part of my conversation with Ben Francis whose amazingly compelling new book is titled Careful the Spell You Cast — How Stephen Sondheim Extended the Range of the American Musical.
Just like the book, our discussion has been structured around Sondheim’s collaborators. In this episode we discuss his work with George Furth, John Weidman, Hugh Wheeler & James Lapine. And, as always, Sondheim’s mentor and surrogate father Oscar Hammerstein II plays a big role in this conversation as well.
Along the way nearing everyone of Sondheim’s musicals are discussed including A Little Night Music, Anyone Can Whistle, Assassins, Company, Do I Hear A Waltz?, Follies, Gypsy, Into the Woods, Merrily We Roll Along, Passion, Road Show, Sunday In The Park With George, Sweeney Todd, and West Side Story as well as Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Allegro.
Ben Francis’ other works include contributions to the Oxford Handbook Of Sondheim Studies, the Oxford Handbook of British Musicals, and the Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music, as well as Christopher Hampton: Dramatic Ironist.
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With author Jack Viertel
With special guest Robert W. Schneider host of the new podcast BROADWAY BOUND
With MAYA CANTU author of GREASEPAINT PURITAN: Boston to 42nd Street In The Queer Backstage Novels of Bradford Ropes
With author OLIVER SODEN
A conversation with Caseen Gaines, author of FOOTNOTES: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way
In this episode, host David Armstrong, along with special guest, Albert Evans, begin to tell the amazing story of how Immigrants, Jews, Queers, and African-Americans invented America's signature art form -- the Broadway Musical.
