Shows
Theater History and MysteriesCats -- Is Grizabella a prostitute? Episode 21 (Cats 7 of 8).Send us a textAn already famous poet is working, for the first time, on something light and fun. It’s a children’s book of poems about Cats. All his previous work has basically been about the anxious terror in the modern world, but he is going to do something delightful, for a change. His Dad likes cats, he likes cats, his friends have kids who like cats. The book is about cats.He’s a handful of lines in when he stops himself – he’s writing about a female cat, a fallen star, and he decides...2025-07-2935 min
Theater History and MysteriesCats -- A Cats ghost story. Episode 20 (Cats 6 of 8)Send us a textYou’ve heard this one before. Maybe it’s a beautiful Siren, singing a gorgeous song only to lure unsuspecting sailors on to the rocks and eventually their death. Or a snake, promising you a delicious apple, only to curse all of humanity with the knowledge of good and evil. Or a wolf, disguising itself as an old woman, to trick an innocent child into letting it into their house, only to have the beast devour the youngster as prey.Or maybe a demon posing as a child’s playmate – maybe using the n...2025-07-1548 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- TS Eliot and the Occult...it's actual history. Episode 19 (Cats 5 of 8)Send us a textA young TS Eliot is at Harvard where the field of psychology is just now emerging. You can read Freud, of course, but there’s nothing like behavioral or analytic psychology that have yet to be developed. But there are dreams – and what, exactly, are those? Freud himself starts his book by citing what the Greeks thought that they were, which in many cases were visions of alternate realties, a channeling of the gods, a means of clairvoyance where the future, or at least possible futures, were revealed.What was science suppose...2025-07-0133 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- Sex and spectacle; what makes the musical work! Episode 18 (Cats 4 of 8)Send us a textEpisode #4The year is 1982. The liberatory vibe of the 1960s is long gone…Ronald Reagan is president, and it’s a bad time to be an air traffic controller, or a union member, or an Iranian hostage, or, maybe most tragically, if you’re gay. But there remain progressive voices, and one of those is the Village Voice, still an open champion of the avante garde in the world. If you have a new, edgy, and experimental piece of theater, the Village Voice should be your core audience.But Mic...2025-06-1734 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- from the children's book to the stage. Episode 17 (Cats 3 of 8)Send us a textCats, 3rd episodeA show is about to open in two days. It features a power-packed pair of producers who would re-write Broadway history with two of the biggest musicals of all time, POA and Les Mis. The female lead is in one of the final rehearsals, and it will be her place in history to sing into the world a song so powerful, so vital, so memorable, that it will immediately become a top-10 hit, get re-recorded more than 600 times, including two MORE trips to the top 10 by tw...2025-06-0332 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- How did a guy like TS Eliot write "Practical Cats?" Episode 16 (Cats 2 of 8)Send us a textTS Eliot is the author of Old Possum’s Guide to Practical Cats. That’s a book of poems that will get transformed into one of the greatest broadway musicals of all time. In fact, it might be the Broadway musical – it so shaped what a Broadway musical is that it’s changed the way the world thinks about musicals at all.But that wasn’t the poetry that put TS Eliot on the map. In fact, TS Eliot himself would have smash hits on Broadway during his lifetime…but none of them had any...2025-05-2035 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- TS Eliot and the road to the musical. Episode 15 (Cats 1 of 8)Send us a textTS Eliot had demons. He wrote about his demons. He said that writing poems were like demons escaping from his body, and that when he finished writing them he would experience a “moment of exhaustion, of appeasement, of absolution, and of something very near annihilation, which is in itself indescribable.”He wrote a poem that would become the archetypical anthem of a newly-emerging modernist movement in literature – it was dark, and brooding and anxious, and grim, and disturbing and unsettling. That poem would be called, cheerily enough, the wasteland.And in th...2025-05-0734 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- Is it cool to get rich off of singing about the poor? And why did the show fail in France? Episode 14 (8 of 8)Send us a text A young music producer has just seen a production of Jesus Christ, Superstar and was hit by his muse … he wandered the streets of Manhattan, unable to sleep. A native of France, Alain Boublil felt he had to keep walking until he found a theme that could match the power and emotional intensity of what he’d just seen, and something uniquely French. He came to the defining national moment…the French Revolution. That idea would develop into a rock opera, then a concept album, and finally transform into what has been rightly called the...2025-04-2246 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- From novel to stage...and why did it fail in France? Episode 13 (7 of 8)Send us a textErrata: At about the 12 minute mark I say that Phantom of the Opera is a Victor Hugo story. It isn't -- it's French, but the author is Gaston LaRoux.A young music producer has just seen a production of Jesus Christ, Superstar and was hit by his muse … he wandered the streets of Manhattan, unable to sleep. A native of France, Alain Boublil felt he had to keep walking until he found a theme that could match the power and emotional intensity of what he’d just seen, and something uniquely French. ...2025-04-0834 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- Let the seances end...for now... Episode 12 (6 of 8).Send us a textStarting in September 1853 Victor Hugo, exiled to an island off the coast of France because the now-Emperor Louis Napoleon has told the army to shoot Hugo on sight, has been holding a series of seances. There are been hundreds of them. They have all been transcribes. Scores of people have participated. Many have served as amateur mediums. he results have been spectacular; they’ve made contact with their tragically deceased daughter, and other ghosts on the island, and some of history’s most important figures, from Plato to Jesus to Shakespeare.And...2025-03-2548 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- Let the seances begin! Episode 11 (5 of 8).Send us a textSeance transcript images:Pages 1187 and 1189 of the seance transcripts contain the words "fille" and "morte," but neither includes the words Leopoldine. Page 1189 of the seance transcripts. Page 1187 of the seance transcripts.Show summary:It is September 11, 1853, and the already famous author Victor Hugo has been mourning the loss of his daughter for 2 years. He’s also been exiled from France, and having barely escaped with his life he’s now living on a small island off the French coast named Jersey. He’s there with...2025-03-1142 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- The meaning of the book before the musical. Episode 10 (4 of 8).Send us a textThanks almost entirely to his mistress, Victor Hugo escaped France with his life and an early manuscript of Les Miserables. While living in exile and on an island close to the coast but under British control, he finishes the book 10 years later. It’s an immediate international smash hit, with an appeal so broad that even soldiers on BOTH sides of the US civil war love it. From there it’s a roller coaster…hugely popular between 1860 and 1900 it falls out of favor as France turns conservative between 1900 and 1940. Its popularity re-energiz...2025-02-2534 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- Plot summary and the real people who inspired it. Episode 9 (3 of 8).Send us a textThis episode covers 5 real historical figures that helped inspire the novel, and a whirlwind plot summary of the original Victor Hugo novel.Errata: For some reason I kept referring to the character Marius as "Marcus" -- please just skip that. Here's a link to the image of the Bishop's plaque, identifying that character in the novel is based on the actual Bishop of Deign.IntroductionAgainst the odds, an early draft of Les Miserables made it out of Paris, with it...2025-02-1142 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- The completion of the book and how unlikely it was ever written. Episode 8 (2 of 8).Send us a textIt's 1860, and Victor Hugo, having taken to the barricades against the hated Louis Napoleon, has escaped Paris with a price on his head. And his mistress, not his wife, has successfully smuggled both he and his unfinished manuscripts out of France. But now he's in exile, living in an island off the French coast but under British control. How is he going to get his masterwork published? And as the text comes to be finished, it will be rightly remembered as a definitive statement on the French Revolution. But where in the book is the Revolution? The text is 1,500 pages long, and one of the five volumes is entirely dedicated to a revolt that happened over two days in 1832. But in th...2025-01-2845 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- Victor Hugo and the French Revolution. Episode 7 (1 of 8).Send us a textIt’s 1848 and there is yet another violent transfer of power going on in France. One of its greatest citizens – both a member of the legislative body and the Legion of Honor, has been in hiding for 9 days with a price on his head. If he’s found by the wrong people he will surely be killed. He is an author and he does have a pile of manuscripts he’s working on, but first he’s got to get out of France. How did he do it? Was he the hero who saved the manus...2025-01-1441 minTheater History and MysteriesThe Phantom of the Opera -- The Broadway musical. Episode 6 (part 3 of 3).Send us a textErrata For some reason I keep calling Andrew Lloyd-Webber Andrew Lloyd-Wright, which is weird because I know nothing about architecture. Anyway, the author of Phantom of the Author is Andrew Lloyd-Webber, not Andrew Lloyd-Wright. Together, however, I feel they would make a spectacular opera house. Intro: On Oct 13, 2016 the Phantom of the Opera is scheduled to open in the Mogador Theater. The narrative is, of course, set in the majestic, surreal, very gothic Palais Garnier, and the opera house is also key to the plot.The...2024-12-3157 minTheater History and MysteriesPhantom of the Opera -- The Silent Movie and how Lon Chaney saved the story. Episode 5 (part 2 of 3).Send us a textIt’s the fall of 1923, and Lon Chaney Sr. has just starred in a smash hit based on Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. There is going to be a follow-up show, and it is going to be a hit. But who’s idea was it? And why will that matter to the critical reception of a musical that won’t come out for another 80 years?Flash forward two years, and now It’s the summer of 1925. Universal Pictures has invested a pile of money in a new movie, but there’s a war...2024-12-171h 02Theater History and MysteriesPhantom of the Opera -- The original book before the movie before the musical. Episode 4 (part 1 of 3).Send us a textThis is EPISODE 4. The next episode, EPISODE 5, will drop on December 16.It’s 1786, and a male ballet dancer (“Dahn- sir”) and ballerina both dance at the Paris opera house, and the man falls in love with the woman. But so does a solider, and in the love triangle the dahn-sir is killed. With his dying breath he asks that he be buried in the opera house to be near his love in death if not in life, and his bones are later used as props in theater productions.Could t...2024-12-031h 12Theater History and MysteriesThe Man From La Mancha -- The Broadway musical. Episode 3 (part 3 of 3).Send us a textIn the early 1970s and a writer for plays, movies, and television is holed up in Palm Springs at one of the most unusual restaurants in operation. There was a sole proprietor, the menu has one dish, and there is no advertising or tourists because there are only 4 tables. The topic of conversation is whether to turn a stage play into a musical, and the server, cook, owner, and sole employee is also a psychic. The cook is consulted about the project and predicts: “It will be extremely successful,” she says, “In fact...2024-08-2849 min
Theater History and MysteriesThe Man From La Mancha -- Miguel de Cervantes, maybe the most interesting author ever. Episode 2 (part 2 of 3).Send us a textThis is the story of how one of the greatest books ever written, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, became one of the most successful musicals in broadway history, which of course was The Man from La Mancha by Dale Wasserman.The year is 1579, and a solider being held in an Algerian prison, and he’s about to make his 4th, and failed, attempt to escape. And this is only one of a multitude of life mishaps that makes it very unlikely the solider even survived. And it wasn’t until the ag...2024-08-201h 05
Theater History and MysteriesThe Man of La Mancha -- Don Quixote, the best Spanish novel ever. Episode 1 (part 1 of 3).Send us a textThank you to the fan from Los Angeles who writes: "Hi. I've been enjoying your Cervantes podcast but unless the show on Broadway that was made from the book by Cervantes turned it into a spy story, the proper title of the musical is "Man of La Mancha." Not the man and not from." All true, I can only identify this as errata.This is the story of how one of the greatest books ever written, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, became one of the most successful musicals in broadway h...2024-08-1233 min