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It's Showtime Podcasts

Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Golden Age of Broadway

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II are two of the greatest entertainers in New York City history. They have delighted millions of people with their unique and influential take on the Broadway musical — serious, sincere, graceful and poignant. In the process they have helped in elevating New York’s Theater District into a critical destination… Read More

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Gilded Age New York ON TELEVISION

Listen To These Podcasts After You Watch HBO’s The Gilded Age

The Gilded Age is finally here! The HBO Julian Fellowes prestige television drama, that is, in the vein of his lavish signature series Downton Abbey. It’s been awhile since New York City history has been depicted on screen; The Alienist, The Deuce and The Knick themselves seem like ancient history. The Gilded Age depicts the… Read More

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Podcasts

An Evening at Sardi’s: Dinner with a side of Broadway history

PODCAST REWIND The famous faces on the walls of Sardi’s Restaurant represent the entertainment elite of the 20th century, and all of them made this place on West 44th Street their unofficial home. Known for its kooky caricatures and its Broadway opening-night traditions, Sardi’s fed the stars of the golden age and became a hotspot for… Read More

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It's Showtime Podcasts

The Shuberts: The Brothers Who Built Broadway

PODCAST There’s no business like show business — thanks to Lee, Sam and JJ Shubert, the Syracuse brothers who forever changed the American theatrical business in the 20th century. Broadway is back! And the marquees of New York’s theater district are again glowing with the excitement of live entertainment. And many of these theaters were… Read More

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It's Showtime

The World of Fosse/Verdon: Eight addresses in Midtown that helped make two Broadway legends

The New York City entertainment world was never the same after Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon met at a rehearsal space in Midtown Manhattan in 1955. Tonight FX Network debuts its tribute to the lives of these collaborators and lovers in the series Fosse/Verdon, based upon the brilliant biography Fosse by Sam Wasson. This look at the complicated lives of two seminal… Read More

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Podcasts The First

The Devil and the First Broadway Musical (“The Black Crook”)

THE FIRST PODCAST The Black Crook is considered the first-ever Broadway musical, a dizzying, epic-length extravaganza of ballerinas, mechanical sets, lavish costumes and a storyline about the Devil straight out of a twisted hallucination. The show took New York by storm when it debuted on September 12, 1866. This is the story of how this… Read More

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It's Showtime

Beyond Hamilton: A flurry of new stage shows take on Robert Moses, Black Crook, Wild Party and more

A string of New York City history related shows is hitting the stage this summer and fall, bringing interesting new interpretations to well-known historical events or revitalizing forgotten old shows in curious ways.  I’ve had so many recommended to me in the past couple weeks that I thought I’d share the list for those of you… Read More

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It's Showtime

Stage Magic: Oh-What-A-Beautiful History of the St. James Theatre

On Sunday The Bowery Boys join up with The Ensemblist to present a special cabaret event at 54 Below — a tribute to the great St. James Theatre! Perhaps some of you may be asking — why do a live show about a individual theater? The St. James Theatre (246 West 44th Street) was prominently… Read More

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It's Showtime Podcasts

Diamond Girl: How Mae West Brought ‘Sex’ and Scandal to Broadway

PODCAST Mae West (star of I’m No Angel and She Done Him Wrong) would come to revolutionize the idea of American sexuality, challenging and lampooning ideas of femininity while wielding a suggestive and vicious wit. But before she was America’s diamond girl, she was the pride of Brooklyn! In this podcast, we bring you the origin… Read More

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Podcasts Pop Culture

New York City in the Golden Age of Television: Behind the scenes with nine classic TV shows filmed in the city

The Beatles in one of their many appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show. [source]PODCAST This is the second part of the Bowery Boys TV Mini-Series, covering the years of New York City television production from the late 1940s to the 1960s.  Some of the most classic television shows ever made — and many still around today… Read More

Beware the New York vampires: A seductive film star inspires an army of ‘golden haired’ Broadway sex goddesses

 Maneater: Theda Bara in an unconventional portrait. Her publicist claimed it was her lover and that ‘not even the grave could separate them’.“A vampire is a good woman with a bad reputation, or rather a good woman who has had possibilities and wasted them” — Florenz Ziegfeld Progressive, liberated women were clearly so frightening one… Read More

When Jupiter aligned with Mars: Hair on Broadway

Forty years ago today, April 29, 1968, the musical Hair debuted on Broadway and basically changed New York’s theater industry — where shows come from, how they’re staged, what you can even doon stage. Here’s ten reasons why Broadway’s first rock musical is so important, and why today you should probably fish out your Fifth… Read More

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It's Showtime

Broadway’s first musical: The Black Crook

The Broadway theater season begins again with another new batch of musicals hitting the boards — from an unusual adaptation of War And Peace to a stage version of a Robert DeNiro drama.  Some believe that this musical tradition begins all the way back in September 12, 1866, back when musicals based on movies and popular Founding… Read More

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Bowery Boys

Every Bowery Boys History podcast in chronological order by subject

Sixteen years ago (officially on June 19, 2007) we recorded the very first Bowery Boys podcast, appropriately about Canal Street, the street just outside the window of Tom’s apartment on the Lower East Side. That’s right! If our podcast were a person, it could now legally drive in the state of New York. (For more information,… Read More

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Bowery Boys Movie Club Podcasts

The Muppets Take Manhattan: The Bowery Boys Movie Club in Jim Henson’s New York

It’s spring in New York City and time for some frivolity! So we’ve just released an unusually whimsical episode of Bowery Boys Movie Club to the general Bowery Boys Podcast audience, exploring the 1984 comedy treat The Muppets Take Manhattan. And that’s not all! Sticking to the theme of 1980s New York City, the latest episode of the Bowery… Read More