Shows
Theater History and MysteriesHadestown...how do we save the environment? (Hadestown 8/8, episode 37)Send a textTo really understand the smash musical Hadestown, you have to understand…mines. Hear me out.Hadestown isn’t just a re-telling of the ancient Orpheus tale, as the name suggest it’s a story that focuses on a particular location…the underworld.And there is obviously a conscious choice to make the underworld much different than the Greeks imagined it, and much more like the company towns associated with the early industrial era. And not just any company towns, but mining towns. What you can’t really miss about the show is that...
2026-02-2445 minTheater History and MysteriesHadestown...how do we save the environment? (Hadestown 7/8, episode 36)Send a textHadestown is a story about politics. You’ve seen the show, so you know that it’s the ancient Greek story of Orpheus put in a fictional but modern setting – a “a post-apocalyptic American Depression era.” It’s a world of environmental ravage and resource scarcity. Hades himself is unambiguously an industrialist, a mine-owner, and a tyrant. “It was hard times” is a line straight from the dialogue of the showThere is no doubt that Anais Mitchell, the author, is putting political issues right in the front and center of the audience. And the que...
2026-02-101h 09Theater History and MysteriesWhat does Hadestown say about race and gender? (Hadestown 6/8, episode 35)Send a textAre there crazy connections in the world? In 1984 I was a 4th-year college debater at Cal. State Fullerton with aspirations of finishing in the top 16 in the country when my partner quit. In January I was paired up with a sophomore, and we needed an argument nobody else was talking about…right when a change of power in Egypt put Hosni Mubarak in the geopolitical spotlight. We based our entire argument strategy on how various government actions might mess up that transition and the global impact it would have. In our sophomoric tone, common to 20...
2026-01-271h 02Theater History and MysteriesHadestown...and autism (Hadestown 5/8, episode 34)Send a textHadestown Episode 5 script – AutismIn my favorite episode of this show, I went to the Phantom of the Opera sites on Facebook and asked people what they thought about the show and why it worked for them. The follow-up question was whether they would come on to the show and speak about their experiences. Of the responses I got, a surprising number of folks identified that they were neuroatypical. I didn’t even know that was true of them until they told me. But descriptions of hyperfocus and late-life diagnoses were, ho...
2026-01-1355 minTheater History and MysteriesThe Big Song in Hadestown -- Epic 3 (Hadestown 4/8, episode 33)Send a textHadestown Episode 4 script – The song (Epic 3)What does it mean to be a tortured genius? Does it mean getting your show to Broadway, and finding yourself unable to get out of bed one day, crushed by the weight of all the things that happen because of your work? Maybe. And that happened to Dale Wasserman, the author of the Man of La Mancha.Does it mean you wander around inside your own head, unable to tune out the art and music and math and magic inside your...
2025-12-3048 minTheater History and MysteriesMitchell's version of the Orpheus story compared to Virgil and Ovid (Hadestown 3/8, episode 32)Send a textThe ancient poet Virgil died of a fever with his master work still unfinished…and it was left to his executors to finish the work. The book was the Aeneid, and it would be, in its time, the definitive work on the founding myths and stories of the Roman state. This would cement his role as the greatest poet of his day, and it is a legacy that has never died. Virgil is still read today. But the stories he told were his own adaptations. His version of Orpheus was different from that of...
2025-12-161h 12Theater History and MysteriesThe Story of Orpheus -- Virgil vs. Ovid (Hadestown 2/8, episode 31)Send a textThe Romans stand at a key moment in human civilization. Starting with roots in Greece, they are looking back at the Trojan war, they are thinking about their gods. They have founded the first university in the western tradition. And they are modifying and inheriting a series of explanations for the world.Where does the wind come from? What controls the oceans, or causes lightning, or earthquakes? Why do the seasons pass?What is nature like?Their answers, at least in part, involve the gods. And they have been e...
2025-12-0359 minTheater History and MysteriesThe Greek Mythology behind Hadestown -- Hadestown (1/8, episode 30).Send a textIn ancient Rome, there is a poet. What we now call western civilization is just beginning to find its first roots take hold … there’s an academy, and Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle are writing books that will be read for centuries. In fact, books that we still read and talk and think about today. And in this line, just around the time of Jesus, is our poet.His star is rising, then crossed. The Encyclopedia Brittanica documents his rise: “No single work of literature has done more to transmit the riches of the Greek...
2025-11-1841 minTheater History and MysteriesIntermission episode -- Interview with Superteacher Michael Despars (1/1, Epsiode 29)Send a textNormally we release every other Tuesday, but this is our first special episode that uses the more traditional podcasting interview format. This off-week episode comes just in-between Jesus Christ Superstar and Hadestown, which will start next week.* * * * *Imagine a scared kid going to their first day of high school. Maybe they’re new at the school and don’t have any friends yet, maybe they’re just a nerd and not all the cool kids are being nice, maybe they have some stuff going on at home and they’re nervous and uptight all the time.For...
2025-11-1152 minTheater History and MysteriesSuperstar and the lost Gospel of Judas -- Jesus Christ Superstar (5 of 5; Episode 28)Send a textIt is the 4th century AD…Jesus has been dead for at least 300 years but the stories and ideas about him have not. After having been persecuted for decades, and fed to lions in the Coliseum, the Christians are now becoming the dominant religion under the new emperor Constantine. But they aren’t the only Christians, and they aren’t the only ones with ideas about who Jesus was, and who Judas was. They are becoming the institution that would later start the inquisition, and torture and suppress every other form of thought.We aren...
2025-11-0455 minTheater History and MysteriesHow did people react to Superstar, a story about Jesus from Judas' perspective? -- Jesus Christ Superstar (4 of 5; Episode 27)Send a textThere is a new musical about to open, and boldly it declares that it will re-tell the story of the crucifixion, and do so from the perspective of…Judas. The advanced publicity is massive – as will become a hallmark of the coming age of megamusicals – and the theme of the show has not escaped notice. No less an evangelical figure than Billy Graham himself said the show was “bordering on blasphemy and sacrilege.”His concern about the content is shared. In a rare moment of agreement between Graham and the National Secular Society, both...
2025-10-2151 minTheater History and MysteriesHow the musical was written -- Jesus Christ Superstar (3 of 5; Episode 26)Send a textThere is a new show out there, and this one is, boldly enough, a re-telling of the story of Jesus Christ from the perspective of Judas. That, by itself, is likely to be controversial. And to take on this sacred topic the cast prepares itself by…covering the body of performer playing Christ and having the castmates lick it off of him, to get “closer to Jesus.”The stage crew is pulling together the props and set pieces to make the show work which include… plastic tambourines, fish, enormous protozoa-like creatures, representations of the man...
2025-10-071h 07Theater History and MysteriesThe Judas story in (and outside) the Bible -- Jesus Christ Superstar (2 of 5; Episode 25)Send a textIt is 1432 and the small, medieval French village is abuzz. There’s a travelling theater troupe and they’re going to perform what is, far and away, the most exciting show the town will ever see. It happens every year, but only once a year, and everyone – from the smallest child to the oldest farmer – is going to see it. It’s like a modern musical; you’ve seen it before, but the performance itself is so spectacular you see it again.The crowd is absolutely alight before the show even starts. There is energy...
2025-09-231h 07Theater History and MysteriesJudas in the Bible, and who wrote the Bible, anyway? Jesus Christ Superstar (1 of 5; Episode 24)Send a textThe year is 1525 and William Tyndale is doing what nobody has done before…he has translated the Bible from Latin to English. This as not well received; the church condemned the book, and one Bishop Tunstall bought all available copies and publicly burned them. Cardinal Wolsey condemned Tyndale as a heretic. The English government had sent agents out for his arrest.That did not end matters for Tyndale. He roamed the continent staying where it was safe for 10 years, spending much time in Antwerp. But then, in 1535, he was betrayed by Henry Phillip...
2025-09-0949 min
Musical Theatre Radio presents "Be Our Guest"Be Our Guest with Dr. Jon C. Bruschke Phd (Theatre History and Mysteries - Podcast)Jon Bruschke is a former college debate coach turned musical theatre obsessive. What makes his perspective unique is how he approaches a show, like a debate topic.Every week for over a decade, Jon had to prep 150–200 page files analyzing complex political, legal, and economic issues from every angle, then coach students to defend or refute them in high-stakes national tournaments. Now, he’s applying that same analytical rigor to musicals.He covers topics like: Unpacking the French Revolution in Les MisérablesTracing the roots of Cats back to T.S. Eliot and post-war surrealismComparing Chicago to real legal publi...
2025-09-0239 minTheater History and MysteriesThe Phantom of the Opera could save your life. Episode 23, (interstitial 1/1).Send a textI have promised that this podcast will explore the lessons that different shows have for theater and for life, and to explore the unexpected and unlikely connections the bring cross human lives on the plane of theater. To help me better understand all that, I reached out to the internet to ask, anyone who was willing, to share with me what made their favorite show work. That’s it – not anything deep or all that philosophical, just why Phanton of the Opera drew you in.What I got back was so, so much m...
2025-08-2655 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- Feline Failures (productions that tanked), Episode 22 (Cats 8 of 8).Send a textI am writing this on Father’s Day, 2025, and to mark this occasion I will share my greatest parenting victory. Last spring, during Taylor Swift’s eras Tour my daughter did all the things one does to try to get a ticket. Tried the presale, pre-registered, looked at the fan resale sites, looked at the predatory reseller sites, put alerts on all her accounts. But, no dice. The only tickets that were available were well out of our price range.And then, 2 days before the last concert in LA, a family friend found ti...
2025-08-1236 min
Theater History and MysteriesCats -- Is Grizabella a prostitute? Episode 21 (Cats 7 of 8).Send 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 not...
2025-07-2935 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- A Cats ghost story. Episode 20 (Cats 6 of 8)Send 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 name “C...
2025-07-1548 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- TS Eliot and the Occult...it's actual history. Episode 19 (Cats 5 of 8)Send 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 supposed to do w...
2025-07-0133 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- Sex and spectacle; what makes the musical work! Episode 18 (Cats 4 of 8)Send 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 Micha...
2025-06-1734 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- from the children's book to the stage. Episode 17 (Cats 3 of 8)Send 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 two ot...
2025-06-0332 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- How did a guy like TS Eliot write "Practical Cats?" Episode 16 (Cats 2 of 8)Send 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 anythi...
2025-05-2035 minTheater History and MysteriesCats -- TS Eliot and the road to the musical. Episode 15 (Cats 1 of 8)Send 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 the mi...
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 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 most s...
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 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. He came t...
2025-04-0834 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- Let the seances end...for now... Episode 12 (6 of 8).Send 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 the...
2025-03-2548 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- Let the seances begin! Episode 11 (5 of 8).Send 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 his w...
2025-03-1142 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- The meaning of the book before the musical. Episode 10 (4 of 8).Send 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-energizes starting w...
2025-02-2534 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- Plot summary and the real people who inspired it. Episode 9 (3 of 8).Send 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’s au...
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 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 that sk...
2025-01-2845 minTheater History and MysteriesLes Miserables -- Victor Hugo and the French Revolution. Episode 7 (1 of 8).Send 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 manuscript...
2025-01-1441 minTheater History and MysteriesThe Phantom of the Opera -- The Broadway musical. Episode 6 (part 3 of 3).Send 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 sho...
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 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 council...
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 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 thi...
2024-12-031h 12Theater History and MysteriesThe Man From La Mancha -- The Broadway musical. Episode 3 (part 3 of 3).Send 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, it...
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 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 age of...
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 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 history, w...
2024-08-1233 min