Broadway To Main Street

In her honor, we are celebrating the Broadway songbook of jazz singer extraordinaire, Cleo Laine. Songs by Cy Coleman, Jerome Kern, and plenty of Sondheim.

We're up, up, and away with this summer's box office superhero. We listen to the 1966 musical version of Superman plus songs and music from his movie and TV adventures.

We're joined by Steve Ross, the Crown Prince of Cafe Society, regaling us with laughter, tales, and songs--at the piano and with recordings of tunes from Little Me, Anyone Can Whistle, The Happy Time and more.

It's called "pastiche" that subtle art practiced by great songwriters paying tribute to the music of the past--as heard in Hairspray, Parade, Kiss Me Kate, Fiorello!, and more.

The perfect Fourth of July musical--more relevant than ever. So, sit down for an hour with this classic as we hear the Broadway cast and the rare film soundtrack, united for posterity.

This episode draws its inspiration from the great theatrical illustrator Al Hirschfeld.  We're joined by the chief archivist of his work, David Leopold, for a musical survey of his favorites: the Gershwins, Julie Andrews, Louis Armstrong and more.  Watch along at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psDdsefFUMA

' Feudin' and fussin' and fightin'--on-stage and off-stage: West Side Story, Hamilton, Camelot and two gals named Patti and Audra.

Broadway to Main Street is all ready for the big event-and you will be too! All the major nominees from 2025 are featured: Maybe Happy Ending, Death Becomes Her, Buena Vista Social Club--and more.

We look back at Broadway fifty years ago to see what was worthy of recognition then. A lot, as it turns out: The Wiz, Angela Lansbury in Gypsy, Shenandoah, Bernadette Peters and much much more.

A special tribute to a great composer, Charles Strouse. Classic and rare tunes from Golden Boy, Bye Bye Birdie, Annie, Applause and many more.

As a run-up to the Great Performances l PBS broadcast of "Girl from the North Country" (May 23), we gather 'round the Bob Dylan legacy and the Broadway songbook, including many renditions by Dylan himself.

Following Tolstoi's dictum, we look at all sorts of families across the years on Broadway: Fiddler on the Roof, Next to Normal, Falsettos, The Addams Family and more.

We march through a tribute to the composer/lyricist with a variety of performances--Mary Testa, Christian Borle, Malcolm Gets, Finn himself--with classics and rarities.

Look out--Bobby Darin is back, in Just in Time with Jonathan Groff on Broadway. Here is Darin working his magic with more than a dozen Broadway classics--giving you the real thing, 

Unless you just want to conga, join us to enjoy this great Bernstein-Comden-Green score; renditions by Rosalind Russell, Donna Murphy, Audra McDonald, Bing Crosby, Julie Andrews and more. 

We open up the funny papers and celebrate Betty Boop, Popeye, Superman, Little Orphan Annie and all the other great cartoon and comic strip characters that made it to Broadway.

Taking our cue from the new Broadway musical  Operation Mincemeat, we look at songs that inspired--and were inspired by-- the WWII homefront here and in the UK:  Bernstein, Berlin, Coward, Weill, Bart and more. 

To celebrate the upcoming Encores! concert of this rare Kurt Weill/Alan Jay Lerner musical, we're putting together a version of the score with performances by Jo Stafford, Nanette Fabray, Kaye Ballard and Victoria Clark and others.

Three of the greatest pop-rock voices of the 1970s--Toni Tennille, Karen Carpenter, and Linda Ronstadt--contributed some beautiful renditions of our favorite show tunes; you'll be on top of the world.

The highways and by-ways of the American musical in songs from 42nd Street, Sunset Boulevard, Park Avenue....you get the idea.