Description

Happy Valentine's Day, fellow Broadway Babies. Oh, Doctor Jesus, help us please this week. Alex and Daisha got plenty of somethin' to say about this 2012 musical, which was adapted from an opera that was adapted from a play that was adapted from a book. Prepare thyself for our special V-Day episode on "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess" (sry DuBose Heyward), starring Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis as the classic/problematic title characters. Join us in an intense discussion about the appropriateness of writing stories about communities and cultures you don't belong to, the beautiful Gershwin/Heyward music and how harmful stereotypes about race and ethnicity are because they ain't necessarily so.

Podcast cover art: David Taylor

Twitter: @bwaybabies Facebook: Facebook.com/broadwaybabiespodcast

Cast recording: iTunes | Spotify | Amazon Prime

Songs

• Summertime (performed by Nikki Renee Daniels)
• I Got Plenty of Nothing (by Norm Lewis and company)
• Bess, You Is My Woman Now (by Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis)
• My Man's Gone Now (by Bryonha Marie Parham and company)
• Oh, Doctor Jesus (by Bryonha Marie Parham and company)
• It Ain't Necessarily So (by David Alan Grier and company)

Show Notes

• An in-depth NPR interview with Audra McDonald about all aspects of the production
• Stephen Sondheim's aforementioned letter to the New York Times criticizing — no, roasting — the Broadway revival and its female-led creative team.
• Audra responding to the criticism of the production.
• Look, what a helpful study guide about the history of the opera that I found
• Fantasia yassss — probably the first time a lot of younger folks heard "Summertime" 
• An interesting thinkpiece from HuffPost about whether white people can tell the stories of other cultures