Broadway Breakdown

Hosts Briana Phipps, Jacque Borowski and Lacretia Lyon discuss the Hedwig and the Angry Inch Theater Show. Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical about a fictional rock and roll band fronted by a genderqueerEast German singer, Hedwig Robinson. The book is by John Cameron Mitchell, and the music and lyrics are by Stephen Trask. The story draws on Mitchell's life as the son of a U.S. Army Major General who once commanded the U.S. sector of occupied West Berlin. The character of Hedwig was inspired by a German divorced U.S. Army wife who was a Mitchell family babysitter and moonlighted as a prostitute at her Junction City, Kansas, trailer park home. The music is steeped in the androgynous 1970s glam rock style of David Bowie (who co-produced the Los Angeles production of the show), as well as the work of John Lennon and early punk performers Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. The musical opened Off-Broadway in 1998, and won the Obie Award and Outer Critics Circle Award Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megapho