Podcasts about Gower Champion

In this impactful and inspiring episode of Unstoppable Mindset, host Michael Hingson sits down with Ronald Cocking—performer, educator, and co-founder of the Looking Glass Studio of Performing Arts—to reflect on a remarkable life shaped by rhythm, resilience, and love. Ron's journey into the performing arts began at just five years old, when his passion for tap dance ignited a lifelong commitment to dance and musical theater. From his first professional role at age 15 in My Fair Lady to founding one of Southern California's most impactful arts schools, Ron's story is one of dedication, creativity, and community.   But perhaps the most moving part of Ron's story is his 49-year partnership—both personal and professional—with the late Gloria McMillan, best known as Harriet Conklin from Our Miss Brooks. Together, they created a legacy of mentorship through the Looking Glass Studio, where they taught thousands of students across generations—not just how to act, sing, or dance, but how to live with confidence and integrity.   Ron also reflects on the legacy Gloria left behind, his continued involvement in the arts, and the words of wisdom that guide his life:   “Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” “To find happiness, take the gifts God has given you and give them away.”   This is more than a story of a career in the arts—it's a touching tribute to passion, partnership, and purpose that will leave you inspired.   Highlights:   00:48 – Hear how early radio at home shaped a lifetime love for performance. 03:00 – Discover why drumming and tap both trained his ear for rhythm. 06:12 – Learn how a tough studio change led to ballet, jazz, and tumbling basics. 08:21 – See the “sing with your feet” method that makes tap click for students. 10:44 – Find out how a teen chorus role in My Fair Lady opened pro doors. 13:19 – Explore the drum-and-tap crossover he performed with Leslie Uggams. 15:39 – Learn how meeting Gloria led to a studio launched for $800. 18:58 – Get the long view on running a school for 44 years with family involved. 23:46 – Understand how Our Miss Brooks moved from radio to TV with its cast intact. 32:36 – See how 42nd Street proves the chorus can be the star. 41:51 – Hear why impact matters more than fame when students build careers. 43:16 – Learn what it takes to blend art and business without losing heart. 45:47 – Compare notes on marriage, teamwork, and communication that lasts. 48:20 – Enjoy a rare soft-shoe moment Ron and Gloria performed together. 56:38 – Take away the “teach to fish” approach that builds lifelong confidence.   About the Guest:   My father was a trumpet player, thus I heard music at home often in the early 50's and was always impressed and entertained by the rhythms and beats of Big Band music… especially the drummers.  Each time I would see Tap dancers on TV, I was glued to the screen.  It fascinated me the way Tap dancers could create such music with their feet!   In 1954, at age 5, after begging my Mom and Dad to enroll me in a Tap class, my Dad walked in from work and said “Well, you're all signed up, and your first Tap class is next Tuesday.  I was thrilled and continued studying tap and many other dance forms and performing and teaching dance for all of my life.     In my mid teens, I became serious about dancing as a possible career.  After seeing my first musical, “The Pajama Game” starring Ruth Lee, I new I wanted to do musical theatre.  I got my first professional opportunity at age 15 in “My Fair Lady” for the San Bernardino Civic Light Opera Association and loved every minute of it… and would continue performing for this organization well into my 30's   I met Gloria McMillan in the late 60's while choreographing a summer musical for children.  Gloria's daughter was doing the role of Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”.  Then, about 3 or 4 years later I would meet Gloria again and the sparks flew.  And, yes, she was Gloria McMillan of “Our Miss Brooks” fame on both radio and television.  Wow, was I blessed to have crossed paths with her.  We shared our lives together for 49 years.   On November 4, 1974, Gloria and I opened a performing arts school together named “The Looking Glass Studio of Performing Arts”.  We would teach and manage the school together for 44 years until we retired on June 30, 2018.  We moved to Huntington Beach, California and spent 3 beautiful years together until she left to meet our Lord in heaven on January 19, 2022.   Ways to connect with Ron:   Lgsparon@aol.com     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hi there, wherever you are and wherever you happen to be today. Welcome to unstoppable mindset. I'm your host, Mike hingson, and today we get to chat with Ron Cocking, who is Ron. Well, we're going to find out over the next hour. And Ron was married for many years to another person who is very famous, and we'll get to that, probably not as well known to what I would probably describe as the younger generation, but you're going to get to learn a lot about Ron and his late wife before we're done, and I am sure we're going to have a lot of fun doing it. So let's get to it. Ron, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Ron Cocking ** 01:59 Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Michael, this. I've been looking forward to this.   Michael Hingson ** 02:04 I have been as well, and we're going to have a lot of fun doing it.   Ron Cocking ** 02:08 Do you one note on that last name? It is cocking. Cocking, he comes right? Comes from a little townlet in the coal mining country of England called Cockington.   Michael Hingson ** 02:20 I don't know why I keep saying that, but yeah, cocky, no   02:23 problem.   Michael Hingson ** 02:24 Well, do you go up to the reps recreations at all?   Ron Cocking ** 02:28 Oh my gosh, Gloria. And I know you and Gloria, did do you still do it? I've it's on my schedule for September.   Michael Hingson ** 02:35 I'm gonna miss it this year. I've got a speech to give. So I was going to be playing Richard diamond at recreation. Well, I'll have to be Dick Powell another time, but I thought that you you were still doing   02:50 it. I'm planning on it cool.   Michael Hingson ** 02:53 Well, tell us about the early Ron cocking and kind of growing up in some of that stuff. Let's start with that.   Ron Cocking ** 02:59 Well, the early part of my story was when I was born just a little before television came in, before everyone had a TV in their home. How old are you now? If I maybe, you know, I am now 76   Michael Hingson ** 03:12 Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah, you're one year ahead of me. I'm 75   Ron Cocking ** 03:16 I was born in 49 and so my earliest remembrances my mom and dad and my brother and I lived with our grandfather, and we had no television, but we had this big it must have been about three to four foot tall, this big box on the floor in a very prominent spot in the living room. And that was the Sunday afternoon entertainment. I remember my family sitting around, and I listened and I laughed when they did, but I had no idea what was going on, but that was the family gathering. And just, I know we'll talk about it later, but I I just have this notion that at that time I was laughing, not knowing what I was laughing at, but I bet I was laughing at my future   Michael Hingson ** 04:02 wife, yes, yes, but other things as well. I mean, you probably laughed at Jack Benny and Amos and Andy and   Ron Cocking ** 04:09 yeah, I remember listening to all those folks, and it was just amazing. Then when television came about and my father was a trumpet player, and I loved his trumpet playing, and he practiced often at home. He would sit in his easy chair and play some tunes and scales and that sort of thing. But what captured my ear and my eyes when I went to on rare occasions when I could go to his engagements, it was always the drummer that just stuck out to me. I was mesmerized by the rhythms that they could produce. And when TV came about, I remember the old variety shows, and they often would have tap dancers like. Had a stair gene, Kelly, Peg Leg Bates and the Nicholas brothers, and I just, I was just taken back by the rhythms. It sounded like music to me. The rhythms just made me want to do it. And so I started putting that bug in my parents ears. And I waited and waited. I wanted to take tap dance lessons. And one day, my dad walks in the back door, and I said, Dad, have you signed me up yet? And he said, Yep, you start next Tuesday at 330 in the afternoon. So I was overjoyed, and I went in for my first lesson. And mind you, this was a private tap class. Total Cost of $1.25 and we had a pianist for music, no record player, live piano, wow. And so I, I rapidly fell in love with tap dance.   Michael Hingson ** 05:56 And so you did that when you weren't in school. Presumably, you did go to school.   Ron Cocking ** 06:00 Oh, yeah, I did go to school. Yeah, I did well in school, and I enjoyed school. I did all the athletics. I played little league, and eventually would be a tennis player and water polo and all that stuff. But all through the years, after school was on the way to the dance classes.   Michael Hingson ** 06:16 So you graduated, or I suppose I don't want to insult drumming, but you graduated from drumming to tap dancing, huh?   Ron Cocking ** 06:24 Well, I kept doing them both together. I would dance, and then when my dad would practice, I would beg him to just play a tune like the St Louis Blues, yeah, and so that I could keep time, so I pulled a little stool up in front of an easy chair, and one of the arms of the chair was the ride cymbal, and the other one was the crash cymbal, and the seat of the chair was my snare drum. I would play along with him. And eventually he got tired of that and bought a Hi Fi for my brother and I, and in the bedroom I had a Hi Fi, and I started to put together a set of drums, and I spent hours next to that, Hi Fi, banging on the drums, and I remember it made me feel good. One day, my mom finally said to me, you know, you're starting to sound pretty good, and that that was a landmark for me. I thought, wow, somebody is enjoying my drumming,   Michael Hingson ** 07:18 but you couldn't do drumming and tap dancing at the same time. That would have been a little bit of a challenge. A challenge.   Ron Cocking ** 07:23 No, I would practice that the drums in the afternoon and then head for the dance studio later. And in this case, I was a local boy. I grew up in Riverside California, and my first tap teacher was literally maybe two miles from our house. But that didn't last long. She got married and became pregnant and closed her studio, and then I she recommended that I go see this teacher in San Bernardino by the name of Vera Lynn. And which I did, I remember walking into this gigantic classroom with a bunch of really tall kids, and I was maybe seven or eight years old, and I guess it was kind of an audition class, but after that evening, I she put me in the most appropriate classes, one of which was ballet, which I wasn't too excited about, but they all told me, If you're going to be a serious dancer, even a tap dancer, you need to get the basic body placement from ballet classes. And I said, Well, I am not going to put any tights and a T shirt on. But they finally got me to do that because they told me that the Rams football team took ballet class twice a week at that time. Ah. Said, no kidding. So they got me, they they got you. They got me into ballet class, and then it was jazz, and then it was tumbling, and so I did it all.   Michael Hingson ** 08:43 I remember when we moved to California when I was five, and probably when I was about eight or nine, my brother and I were enrolled by my mother. I guess my parents enrolled us in a dance class. So I took dance class for a few years. I learned something about dancing. I did have a pair of tap shoes, although I didn't do a lot of it, but I, but I did dance and never, never really pursued it enough to become a Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. Well, few of us do. I didn't dislike it. It just didn't happen. But that was okay, but it was fun to, you know, to do it and to learn something about that. And so I even today, I I remember it, and I appreciate it. So that's pretty cool.   Ron Cocking ** 09:32 Well, you would understand what I always told my students, that tap dancing is like singing a song with your feet. Yeah. And I would sing, I would say, you all know, happy birthday, right? So I would sing it, and they would sing it along, and then I'd said, then I would sing it again, and I would sing it totally out of rhythm. And they would wrinkle their nose and look at me and say, okay, so what are you doing? And I'd say, Well, you don't recognize it because the rhythm is not correct. So then I would. Would tap dance Happy birthday, and I'd say, you sing along in your mind and I'm going to tap dance it. And that would always ring a bell in their mind, like, Oh, I get it. The rhythm has to be right on the button, or the people aren't going to recognize   Michael Hingson ** 10:16 that was very clever to do.   Ron Cocking ** 10:18 Yeah, thank you. And they got it, yeah, they got it, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 10:22 which is even, even more important. That's pretty clever. Well, so you did that, and did you do it all the way through high school,   Ron Cocking ** 10:30 all the way through high school? And I think when I was 15, I was, I think I was in the eighth grade, maybe ninth, but I was 15 and got my first chance to I was cast in a professional show for San Bernardino civic light opera Association. And the show was My Fair Lady, and it was my English and journalism teacher at the junior high who had been cast. He was a performer also, but something came up and he couldn't follow through, so he had given the association my name, and I was out in the backyard. My mom came out. Said, Hey, San Bernardino clo just called and they want, they want to see it tonight at seven o'clock. So I put on my dance clothes and went over, and the director, by the name of Gosh, Gene Bayless, came out, and he showed me a couple of steps. And he said, Yeah, let's do it together. And he said, Boy, you unscramble your feet pretty well there kid. And he he looked over into the costumers and said, measure this guy. Let's put him in the show. So I was beside myself. And long story short, I Gosh, I'm over the over the years, I my first show was at age 15 with them, and I participated, did shows with them, until I think my last show, I was about 38 years old, and that last show was anything goes with Leslie uggums, wow.   Michael Hingson ** 11:52 So what part did you play on my fair lady?   Ron Cocking ** 11:55 I was just a chorus kid. I remember in the opening when Eliza sings, that wouldn't it be lovely? Wouldn't it be lovely? I was a street sweeper. I remember I had a broom, and there were three of us, and we were sweeping up that street and working in and around. Eliza Doolittle, of   Michael Hingson ** 12:11 course, being really spiteful. You just said a little while ago, you were beside yourself. And the thing that I got to say to that, quoting the Muppets, is, how do the two of you stand each other? But anyway, that's okay, good in the original Muppet Movie, that line is in there. And I it just came out so fast, but I heard it. I was going, Oh my gosh. I couldn't believe they did that. But anyway, it was so cute, very funny. That's great. So and then you were, you eventually were opposite Leslie UB,   Ron Cocking ** 12:39 yes, that was one of the high points talking about dancing and drumming at the same time. In fact, I used to give a drum a basic drum summer camp where I would teach tappers the basics of music notation, quarter notes, eighth notes, 16th notes. And then we would put a tap orchestra together. Everybody had their own music stand and their own drum pad. I would conduct, and we would play little pieces, and they would they would drum a rhythm, tap, a rhythm, drum, a rhythm, tap, a rhythm. And so anyway, it came full circle. One of the highlights of my dance slash drumming career was this show I did with Leslie uggums, the director had done this prior, and he knew it would work, and so so did the conductor in the entre Act. The top of the second act, the pit orchestra starts and plays like eight measures. And then there were six of us on stage, behind the main curtain, and we would play the next 16 bars, and then we would toss it back to the pit, and then toss it back to us, and the curtain would begin to rise, and we were right into the first song that Leslie uggums sang to get into the second act. Then she wanted to add a couple of songs that she liked, and she was very popular in with the audiences in San Bernardino, so she added a couple of songs, and I got to play those songs with her and and that was just so thrilling. And I with the scene finished, I had to have my tap shoes on, on the drum set. I had to hop down from the riser, and came out, brought one of my Toms with me, and played along with another featured tap dancer that kind of took over the scene at that point. So it was, it was really cool.   Michael Hingson ** 14:31 So with all this drumming, did you ever meet anyone like buddy rip?   Ron Cocking ** 14:35 No, I never met any famous drummers except a man by the name of Jack Sperling, which was one of my drumming idols,   Michael Hingson ** 14:44 Donnie Carson was quite the drummer, as I recall,   Ron Cocking ** 14:48 yeah, he did play yeah and boy, his his drummer, Ed Shaughnessy on his on The Tonight Show was phenomenal. Yeah, he's another of my favorites, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 14:57 well, and I remember. I guess Johnny Carson and Buddy Rich played together, which was kind of fun. They   Ron Cocking ** 15:07 played together, and so did Ed Shaughnessy and Buddy Rich did a little competition on the show one time I realized, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 15:15 right, yeah. Well, and it's interesting to see some of the performers do that. I remember once trying to remember whether what show it was on, maybe it was also a Tonight Show where Steve Martin substituted for Johnny, but he and the steel Canyon, the Steve Canyon band, came out. Of course, he was great on the band, and then flat and Scruggs or flat came out. Or which one? Yeah, which one did the banjo flat, I think, but they, but they banjo together, which was fun?   Ron Cocking ** 15:51 Oh, wow, yeah, yeah. Steve Martin is a tremendous band. He is, Whoa, yeah. I,   Michael Hingson ** 15:56 I have a hard time imagining fingers moving that fast, but that's okay, me too. I saved my fingers for Braille, so it's okay. So where did you go to college?   Ron Cocking ** 16:07 I went to for two years to Riverside City College, Riverside Community College, and then I went for two years to San Bernardino Cal State, San Bernardino, and I was majoring in English because I thought I may want to do some writing. But in the meantime, I became married, I became a father, and so I was trying to work and study and maintain a family life, and I just couldn't do it all. So I didn't quite finish a major at Cal State San Bernardino. I continued actually a nightclub drumming career. And now, now we're getting up to where this our performing arts studio began between Gloria and I.   Michael Hingson ** 16:50 So was it? GLORIA? You married first?   Ron Cocking ** 16:53 No, okay, no, Gloria was married. Gloria was a prior, prior marriage for 20 some years, or 20 years, I guess. And I had been married only two years, I think. And when we first, well, we actually met while we were both. I'll tell you the story in a minute, if you want to hear it. Sure, the first time I ever met Gloria Macmillan, I had no idea who she was, because she her name was Gloria Allen at the time that was, that was her married name that she took after the arm is Brooks TV show. Well, she took that the new name before the TV show even ended. But I was choreographing a children's summer musical, and the director came up said, hey, I want you to meet this young lady's mom. So the young lady was Gloria's daughter, her oldest daughter, Janet. And I said, Sure. So he said, This is Gloria. Allen, Gloria, this is Ron. And we shook hands, and I said, Nice to meet you. And that was it. And so the show happened. It ran for a couple of weeks, and Gloria was a wonderful stage mom. She she never bothered anyone. She watched the show. She was very supportive of her daughter. Didn't, didn't stage manage   Michael Hingson ** 18:09 whatsoever, which wasn't a helicopter mom, which is good,   Ron Cocking ** 18:12 definitely that, which was just really cool. So and so I was maybe three, four years later, so Gloria obviously knew that I could dance, because she had seen me choreographed. So I got a phone call from Gloria Allen, and I said, Okay, I remember her. She wanted to meet because she was thinking about starting an acting school and wanted someone to teach actors some dance movement. So I went over for a interview and took my little at that time, about two and a half year old, daughter, three year old, and we chatted, and oh my gosh, I just this, this beautiful woman swept me off my feet. And of course, I by the end of the conversation, I said, Gosh, you know, we talked about how we would integrate the acting and the dance, and I said, Can I have your phone number? Nope, I got the old well, we'll call you. Don't call us. And so I had to wait for a few days before I got a call back, but I got a call back, and I don't remember a lot of details, but the sparks flew really, really quickly, and we started planning our school. And if you can believe that this was 1973 when we started planning, maybe it was early 74 and we invested a whole total of $800 to get ourselves into business. We bought a record player, some mirrors, some paint, and a business license and a little shingle to hang out front. We had a little one room studio, and we. Opened on November 4, 1974 and we would close the studio on June 30, 2018 Wow.   Michael Hingson ** 20:08 Yeah. So you, you had it going for quite a while, almost, well, actually, more than 40 years. 44 years. 44 years, yes. And you got married along the way.   Ron Cocking ** 20:20 Well along the way, my my wife always said she fell in love with my daughter, and then she had to take me along with her. Yeah. Well, there you go. So we were together constantly, just running the school together. And then eventually I moved over to San Bernardino, and it was, gosh, some 1213, years later, we got married in on June 28 1987 and but nothing really changed, because we had already been living together and raising five children. GLORIA had four from a private prior marriage, and I had my little girl. So we we got all these five kids through elementary and junior high in high school, and they all went to college. And they're all beautiful kids and productive citizens, two of them still in show biz. Her son, my stepson, Christopher Allen, is a successful producer now and of Broadway shows. And our daughter, Barbara Bermudez, the baby that Gloria fell in love with. She's now a producer slash stage manager director. She does really well at big events with keynote speakers. And she'll, if they want her to, she will hire in everything from lighting and sound to extra performers and that sort of thing. And she's, she's just busy constantly all over the world, wow.   Michael Hingson ** 21:43 Well, that's pretty cool. And what are the other three doing?   Ron Cocking ** 21:47 One is a VP of Sales for it's a tub and shower company, jacuzzi, and the other one is a married housewife, but now she is a grandmother and has two little grandkids, and they that's Janet, the one that I originally had worked with in that children's show. And she and her husband live in Chino Hills, California, which is about 40 minutes from here. I live in Huntington Beach, California now,   Michael Hingson ** 22:14 well, and I'm not all that far away from you. We're in Victorville. Oh, Victorville, okay, yeah, the high desert. So the next time you go to Vegas, stop by on your way, I'll do that, since that's mainly what Victorville is probably most known for. I remember when I was growing I grew up in Palmdale, and Palmdale wasn't very large. It only had like about 20 703,000 people. But as I described it to people, Victorville wasn't even a speck on a radar scope compared to Palmdale at that time. Yeah, my gosh, are over 120,000 people in this town?   Ron Cocking ** 22:51 Oh, I remember the drive in the early days from here to Vegas in that you really felt like you could get out on the road all alone and relax and take it all in, and now it can be trafficking all all the   Speaker 1 ** 23:04 way. Yeah, it's crazy. I don't know. I still think they need to do something to put some sort of additional infrastructure, and there's got to be another way to get people to Vegas and back without going on i 15, because it is so crowded, especially around holidays, that one of these days, somebody will get creative. Maybe they'll get one of Tesla's tunnel boring tools, and they'll make a tunnel, and you can go underground the whole way, I don't know,   Ron Cocking ** 23:32 but that would be, that would be great. Something like that would happen.   Michael Hingson ** 23:38 Well, so you you started the school and and that did, pretty cool. Did, did Gloria do any more acting after our Miss Brooks? And then we should explain our Miss Brooks is a show that started on radio. Yes, it went on to television, and it was an arm is Brooks. Miss Brooks played by e vardin. Was a teacher at Madison High, and the principal was Osgood Conklin, played by Gail Gordon, who was absolutely perfect for the part. He was a crotchety old curmudgeon by any standards. And Gloria played his daughter, Harriet correct. And so when it went from radio to television, one of the things that strikes me about armas Brooks and a couple of those shows, burns and Allen, I think, is sort of the same. Jack Benny was a little different. But especially armas Brooks, it just seems to me like they they took the radio shows and all they did was, did the same shows. They weren't always the same plots, but it was, it was radio on television. So you, you had the same dialog. It was really easy for me to follow, and it was, was fascinating, because it was just like the radio shows, except they were on television.   Ron Cocking ** 24:56 Yeah, pretty much. In fact, there were a lot, there's lots of episodes. Episodes that are even named the same name as they had on the radio, and they're just have to be reworked for for the television screen,   Michael Hingson ** 25:08 yeah, but the the dialog was the same, which was so great,   Ron Cocking ** 25:13 yeah, yeah. And to see what was I going to add, it was our Miss Brooks was one of the very few radio shows that made the transition to television with the cast with the same intact. Yeah, everybody looked like they sounded. So it worked when they were in front of the camera. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 25:33 it sort of worked with Jack Benny, because most of the well, all the characters were in it, Don Wilson, Mary, Livingston, Dennis day, Rochester, world, yeah. And of course, Mel Blanc, yeah, oh.   Ron Cocking ** 25:49 GLORIA tells a story. She she and her mom, Hazel, were walking down the street on the way to do a radio show in the old days in Hollywood, and here comes Mel blank, he says, he pulls over. Says, Hey, where are you girls headed because I know that he probably recognized them from being at at CBS all the time, and they said, We're headed to CBS. He said, hop in. Oh, that's where I'm going. So Mel Brooks gave her a ride to the Mel Blanc, yeah, would have been   Michael Hingson ** 26:15 fun if Mel Brooks had but that's okay, Young Frankenstein, but that's another story. It is. But that's that's cool. So did they ever? Did she ever see him any other times? Or was that it?   Ron Cocking ** 26:30 No, I think that was it. That's the one story that she has where Mel Blanc is involved.   Michael Hingson ** 26:36 What a character, though. And of course, he was the man of a million voices, and it was just incredible doing I actually saw a couple Jack Benny shows this morning and yesterday. One yesterday, he was Professor LeBlanc teaching Jack Benny how to play the violin, which was a lost cause.   Ron Cocking ** 26:59 Actually, Jack Benny was not a bad view. No,   Michael Hingson ** 27:01 he wasn't violent. No, he wasn't. He had a lot of fun with it, and that stick went straight in from radio to television, and worked really well, and people loved it, and you knew what was going to happen, but it didn't matter. But it was still   Ron Cocking ** 27:16 funny, and I'm sure during the transition they there was a little bit of panic in the writers department, like, okay, what are we going to do? We got to come up with a few shows. We got to get ahead a little bit. So the writing being just a little different, I'm sure that's part of the reason why they went back and kind of leaned on the old, old script somewhat, until they kind of cut their teeth on the new this new thing called television   Michael Hingson ** 27:39 well, but they still kept a lot of the same routines in one way or another.   Ron Cocking ** 27:45 Yeah, when they work, they work, whether you're just listening or whether you're watching,   Michael Hingson ** 27:48 right, exactly what other shows made it from radio to television with the cast   Ron Cocking ** 27:53 intact? You know, I am not up on that number. I   Michael Hingson ** 27:57 know there were a couple that did. RMS, Brooks was, well, oh no, I was gonna say Abbott and Costello, but that was different, but our Miss Brooks certainly did. If   Ron Cocking ** 28:09 the Bickersons did, I forget the two actors that did that show, but that was a really, Francis   Michael Hingson ** 28:13 Langford and Donna Michi could be, but I think burns and Allen, I think, kept the same people as much as there were. Harry bonzell was still with them, and so on. But it was interesting to see those. And I'm awake early enough in the morning, just because it's a good time to get up, and I get and be real lazy and go slowly to breakfast and all that. But I watched the Benny show, and occasionally before it, I'll watch the burns and Allen show. And I think that the plots weren't as similar from radio to television on the burns and Allen show as they weren't necessarily in the Benny show, but, but it all worked.   Ron Cocking ** 28:58 Yeah, yeah. That's why they were on the air for so long?   Michael Hingson ** 29:02 Yeah, so what other kind of acting did Gloria do once? So you guys started the school   Ron Cocking ** 29:10 well after she well, when we started the school, we found ourselves, you know, raising five children. And so I continued playing nightclub gigs. I had one, one nightclub job for like, five years in a row with two wonderful, wonderful musicians that were like fathers to me. And Gloria actually went to work for her brother in law, and she became a salesperson, and eventually the VP of Sales for a fiberglass tub and shower business down here in Santa Ana. So she drove that 91 freeway from San Bernardino, Santa Ana, all the time. But in,   Michael Hingson ** 29:47 yeah, you could do it back then, much more than now. It was a little better   Ron Cocking ** 29:51 and but in, but twist in between, she managed. Her mom still did a little bit of agency. And she would call Gloria and say. Want you to go see so and so. She did an episode of perfect strangers. She did an episode with Elliot of the guy that played Elliot Ness, stack the show Robert Stack the show was called Help Wanted no see. I guess that was an in but wanted, anyway, she did that. She did a movie with Bruce Dern and Melanie Griffith called Smile. And so she kept, she kept her foot in the door, but, but not, not all that much she she really enjoyed when John Wilder, one of her childhood acting buddies, who she called her brother, and he still calls her sis, or he would call her sis, still. His name was Johnny McGovern when he was a child actor, and when he decided to try some movie work, he there was another Johnny McGovern in Screen Actors Guild, so he had to change his name to John Wyler, but he did that mini series called centennial, and he wanted Gloria for a specific role, to play a German lady opposite the football player Alex Karras. And they had a couple of really nice scenes together. I think she was in three, maybe four of the segments. And there were many segments, it was like a who's who in Hollywood, the cast of that show   Michael Hingson ** 31:28 does that was pretty cool.   Ron Cocking ** 31:32 But anyway, yeah, after Gloria finished armas Brooks, she became married to Gilbert Allen, who, who then became a Presbyterian minister. So Gloria, when you said, Did she continue acting? There's a lot of acting that goes on being a minister and being a minister's wife, and she would put together weddings for people, and that sort of thing. And she did that for 20 years. Wow. So she Gloria was a phenomenon. She did so many things. And she did them all so very well, in my   Speaker 1 ** 32:04 opinion. And so did you? Yeah, which is, which is really cool. So you, but you, you both started the school, and that really became your life's passion for 44 years. Yes,   Ron Cocking ** 32:16 we would get up in the mornings, go do a little business, come home, have a little lunch, go back about 132 o'clock, and we would normally crank up about four after the kids get out of school, and we would teach from four to nine, sometimes to 10. Go out, have some dinner. So yeah, we pretty much 24/7 and we had had such similar backgrounds. Hers on a national radio and television scale, and mine on a much more local, civic light opera scale. But we both had similar relations with our our moms after after the radio tapings and the TV things. GLORIA And her mom. They lived in Beverly Hills, right at Wilshire and Doheny, and they had their favorite chocolate and ice cream stops. And same thing for me, my mom would take me there, two doors down from the little studio where I was taking my tap classes. There was an ice cream parlor, haywoods ice cream. And that was, that was the the lure, if you go in and if you do your practicing, Ronnie, you can, I'll take it for an ice cream so that I did my practicing, had plenty of little treats on the way, so we had that in common, and we both just had very supportive moms that stayed out of the way, not, not what I would call a pushy parent, or, I think you mentioned the helicopter, helicopter, but it   Michael Hingson ** 33:37 but it sounds like you didn't necessarily need the bribes to convince you to tap dance, as you know, anyway, but they didn't hurt.   Ron Cocking ** 33:46 No, it didn't hurt at all, and it was something to look forward to, but I I just enjoyed it all along. Anyway, I finally got to to really showcase what I could do when I was cast as the dance director in the show 42nd street. Oh, wow. And I was lucky. We were lucky. San Bernardino clo was able to hire John Engstrom, who had done the show on Broadway. The earlier version that came, I think it was on Broadway in the mid or to late 70s. He had worked side by side with Gower Champion putting the show together. He told us all sorts of stories about how long it took Gower to put together that opening dance. Because everything in the opening number you you see those steps later in the show done by the chorus, because the opening number is an audition for dancers who want to be in this new Julian Marsh show. So the music starts, the audience hears, I know there must have been 20 of us tapping our feet off. And then a few seconds later, the curtain rises about two and a half feet. And then they see all these tapping feet. And then the main curtain goes out, and there we all are. And. I my part. I was facing upstage with my back to the audience, and then at some point, turned around and we did it was the most athletic, difficult, two and a half minute tap number I had ever done, I'll bet. But it was cool. There were five or six kids that had done it on Broadway and the national tour. And then during that audition, one more high point, if we have the time, we I was auditioning just like everybody else. The director had called and asked if I would audition, but he wasn't going to be choreographing. John Engstrom was so with there was probably 50 or 60 kids of all ages, some adults auditioning, and at one point, John pulled out one of the auditioners, and he happened to be one of my male tap dance students. And he said, Now I want everybody to watch Paul do this step. Paul did the step. He said, Now he said, Paul, someone is really teaching you well. He said, everybody that's the way to do a traveling timestamp so and that, you know, I'll remember that forever. And it ended up he hired. There were seven myself and seven other of my students were cast in that show. And some of them, some of them later, did the show in Las Vegas, different directors. But yeah, that, that was a high point for me.   Speaker 1 ** 36:19 I'm trying to remember the first time I saw 42nd street. I think I've seen it twice on Broadway. I know once, but we also saw it once at the Lawrence Welk Resorts condo there, and they did 42nd street. And that was a lot of that show was just a lot of fun. Anyway,   Ron Cocking ** 36:39 it's a fun show. And as John said in that show, The chorus is the star of the show.   Speaker 1 ** 36:45 Yeah, it's all about dancing by any by any definition, any standard. It's a wonderful show. And anybody who is listening or watching, if you ever get a chance to go see 42nd street do it, it is, it is. Well, absolutely, well worth it.   Ron Cocking ** 37:00 Yeah, good. Good show. Fantastic music, too. Well.   Michael Hingson ** 37:03 How did you and Gloria get along so well for so long, basically, 24 hours a day, doing everything together that that I would think you would even be a little bit amazed, not that you guys couldn't do it, but that you did it so well, and so many people don't do it well,   Ron Cocking ** 37:21 yeah, I don't know I from, from the the first time we met, we just seemed to be on the same wavelength. And by the way, I found out as time went by, Gloria was like Mrs. Humble. She wasn't a bragger, very humble. And it took me a while to find out what an excellent tap dancer she was. But when we went to the studio in the early days, we had, we just had one room. So she would teach actors for an hour, take a break. I would go in teach a tap class or a movement class or a ballet class. I in the early days, I taught, I taught it all. I taught ballet and jazz and and and and   Michael Hingson ** 38:01 tap. Well, let's let's be honest, she had to be able to tap dance around to keep ahead of Osgoode Conklin, but that's another story.   Ron Cocking ** 38:09 Yeah. So yeah, that. And as our studio grew, we would walk every day from our first studio down to the corner to a little wind chills donut shop wind chills donuts to get some coffee and come back. And about a year and a half later, after walking by this, this retail vacant spot that was two doors from our studio, we said, I wonder if that might be, you know, something for us, it had a four lease sign. So, long story short, we released it. The owner of the property loved knowing that Gloria Macmillan was that space. And so luckily, you know when things are supposed to happen. They happen as people would move out next to us, we would move in. So we ended up at that particular studio with five different studio rooms. Wow. And so then we can accommodate all of the above, acting, singing classes, all the dance disciplines, all at the same time, and we can, like, quadruple our student body. So then we made another move, because the neighborhood was kind of collapsing around us, we made another room and purchased a building that had been built as a racquetball club. It had six racquetball courts, all 20 by 40, beautiful hardwood. We made four of them, five of them into studios, and then there was a double racquetball racquetball court in the front of the building which they had tournaments in it was 40 by 40 we moved. We made that into a black box theater for Gloria. And the back wall of the theater was one inch glass outside of which the audiences for the racquetball tournaments used to sit. But outside the glass for us, we had to put curtains there, and out front for us was our. Gigantic lobby. The building was 32,000 square feet. Wow, we could it just made our heart, hearts sing when we could walk down that hallway and see a ballet class over here, a tap class over there, singers, singing actors in the acting room. It was beautiful. And again, it was just meant for us because it was our beautiful daughter, Kelly, who passed away just nine months after Gloria did. She's the one that said, you guys ought to look into that. And I said, Well, it's a racquetball court. But again, the first moment we walked in the front door, you start. We started thinking like, whoa. I think we could make this work. And it worked for another 20 years for us and broke our hearts to basically rip it apart, tear the theater down, and everything when we were moving out, because we we couldn't find another studio that was interested in in coming in, because they would have had to purchase the building. We wanted to sell the building. Yeah. So anyway, of all things, they now sell car mufflers out of there.   Michael Hingson ** 41:02 That's a little different way, way. Yeah, social shock, did any of your students become pretty well known in the in the entertainment world?   Ron Cocking ** 41:11 I wouldn't say well known, but a lot of them have worked a lot and made careers. Some of our former students are now in their 50s, middle 50s, pushing 60, and have done everything from cruise ship to Las Vegas to regional some national tours, even our son, Christopher, he did the national tour of meet me in St Louis with Debbie Boone, okay, and he's the one that is Now a successful producer. He's his latest hit. Well, his first, what can be considered legitimately a Broadway hit show was the show called shucked, and it opened about two years ago, I think, and I finally got to go back to New York and see it just a month before it closed. Very hilarious. Takes place in Iowa. The whole show is built around a county in which everybody that lives there makes their living off of corn, making whiskey. And it is a laugh, way more than a laugh a minute. But anyway, we had one of Gloria's acting students who was hired on with a Jonathan Winters TV sitcom called Davis rules. It ran for two seasons, and here he was like 16 or 17 years old, making, I think it was. He was making $8,000 a week, and he was in heaven. He looked like the Son he played, the grandson of Jonathan Winters and the son of Randy Quaid and so he, yeah, he was in heaven. And then after that, he did a very popular commercial, the 711 brain freeze commercial for Slurpee. The Slurpee, yeah, and he made the so much money from that, but then he kind of disappeared from showbiz. I don't know what he's doing nowadays,   Speaker 1 ** 43:00 but it's, it's, it's interesting to, you know, to hear the stories. And, yeah, I can understand that, that not everybody gets to be so famous. Everybody knows them, but it's neat that you had so many people who decided to make entertainment a career. So clearly, you had a pretty good influence on a lot of, a lot of kids.   Ron Cocking ** 43:20 Yes, I over the years, Gloria and I felt like we had 1000s of children of our own, that they that we had raised together. It's really a good feeling. And I still get phone calls. We got a phone call once a few years back from from one of our students who had been trying to crack the nut in New York, and she called us like 530 in the morning, because, of course, it was Yeah, but she had just signed her first national tour contract and was going to go out with the show cabaret. So fortunately, we were able to drive up to Santa not let's see, it's just below San San Jose. The show came through San Jose, and we got to see her up there. But those kinds of things are what made us keep teaching, year after year, all these success stories. Of course, we have former students that are now lawyers. Those are actors. Well, we   Michael Hingson ** 44:17 won't hold it and we understand, yeah and they are actors, by all means. How many teachers did you have in the studio when you had the big building?   Ron Cocking ** 44:26 Gosh, at one time, we had 10 or 12 teachers, teaching vocal teachers, two or three ballet teachers, jazz teachers, and you both taught as well. And we both continued teaching all through that time. We never just became managers, although that's that was part of it, and mixing business with art is a challenge, and it takes kind of a different mindset, and then what an unstoppable mindset you have to have in order to mix business with performing, because it's too. Different sides of your brain and a lot of patience and a lot of patience. And guess who taught me patience? Uh huh, Gloria Macmillan.   Michael Hingson ** 45:09 I would Conklin's daughter, yes, and I'll bet that's where she learned patience. No, I'm just teasing, but yeah, I hear you, yeah. Well, I know Karen and I were married for 40 years, until she passed in November of 2022 and there's so many similarities in what you're talking about, because we we could do everything together. We had challenges. Probably the biggest challenge that we ever had was we were living in Vista California, and I was working in Carlsbad, and the president of our company decided that we should open an office, because I was being very successful at selling to the government, we should open an office in the DC area. And so we both got excited about that. But then one day he came in and he had this epiphany. He said, No, not Virginia. I want you to open an office in New York. And Karen absolutely hated that she was ready to go to Virginia and all that.   Speaker 1 ** 46:15 But the problem for me was it was either move to New York or take a sales territory that didn't sell very much anymore. The owner wasn't really willing to discuss it, so we had some challenges over that, but the marriage was strong enough that it that it worked out, and we moved to New Jersey, and Karen made a lot of friends back there, but, you know, we always did most everything together. And then when the pandemic occurred, being locked down, it just proved all the more we just did everything together. We were together. We talked a lot, which is, I think one of the keys to any good marriages, and you talk and communicate.   Ron Cocking ** 46:56 Yes, in fact, when after we closed the studio in 2018 it took us a few more months to sell our home, and then when we moved down here, it was only about, I don't know, I don't know if it was a full year or not, but the pandemic hit and but it really didn't bother us, because we had, we had been working the teaching scene for so many years that we basically Were done. We basically walked out of the studio. We did. Neither of us have the desire to, well, let's continue in at some level, no, we cherished our time together. We have a little porch out in front of our home here, and it gets the ocean breeze, and we would sit for hours and chat. And oddly enough, not oddly, one of our favorite things to do, we have a website that we went to that had, I think, every radio show of armas Brooks ever made. And we would sit listen to those and just laugh. And, in fact, Gloria, there are some. She said, You know what? I don't even remember that episode at all. So yeah, that that was an interesting part. But yeah, Gloria and I, like your wife and you really enjoyed time together. We never talked about needing separate vacations or anything if we wanted to do something. We did it   Speaker 1 ** 48:16 together, yeah, and we did too. And you know, for us it was, it was out of desire, but also was easier for us, because she was in a wheelchair her whole life. I was I'm blind. I've been blind my whole life. And as I tell people, the marriage worked out well. She read, I pushed, and in reality, that really is the way it worked, yeah, yeah. Until she started using a power chair. Then I didn't push. I kept my toes out of the way. But still, it was, it was really did meld and mesh together very well and did everything   Ron Cocking ** 48:49 together. That's fantastic. I'm proud of you, Michael, and it really   Michael Hingson ** 48:53 it's the only way to go. So I miss her, but like, I keep telling people she's somewhere monitoring me, and if I misbehave, I'm going to hear about it. So I got to be a good kid,   Ron Cocking ** 49:04 and I'll hear I'll get some notes tonight from the spirit of Gloria McMillan too. I prayed to her before I went on. I said, please let the words flow and please not let me say anything that's inappropriate. And I think she's guided me through okay so far.   Michael Hingson ** 49:20 Well, if, if you do something you're not supposed to, she's gonna probably hit you upside the head. You know, did you two ever actually get to perform together?   Ron Cocking ** 49:30 Oh, I'm glad you asked that, because, well, it had been years since I knew that she was a darn good tap dancer. In fact, I had a tap dancing ensemble of of my more advanced kids, and if they wanted to dedicate the extra time that it took, we rehearsed them and let them perform at free of charge once they made it to that group, they they did not pay to come in and rehearse with me, because I would spend a lot of time standing there creating so. So we were doing a performance, and we wanted to spotlight, I forget the exact reason why we wanted to spotlight some of Gloria's career. Talk about radio a little bit. And I said, Gloria, would you do a little soft shoe routine? And because we had invited a mutual friend of ours, Walden Hughes, from the reps organization, and he was going to be the guest of honor, so I talked her into it. At first she wasn't going to go for it, but we had so much fun rehearsing it together. And it wasn't a long routine, it was relatively short, beautiful music, little soft shoe, and it was so much fun to say that we actually tap danced together. But the other times that we actually got to work together was at the old time radio conventions, mostly with reps, and that's really when I got to sit on stage. I was kind of typecast as an announcer, and I got to do some commercials. I got to sing once with Lucy arnazza. Oh, life, a life boy soap commercial. But when Gloria, Well, Gloria did the lead parts, and oh my gosh, that's when I realized what a superb actress she was. And if I don't know if you've heard of Greg Oppenheimer, his father, Jess Oppenheimer created the I Love Lucy shows, and so Gloria loved Jess Oppenheimer. And so Greg Oppenheimer, Jess Son, did a lot of directing, and oh my gosh, I would see he came in very well prepared and knew how the lines should be delivered. And if Gloria was not right on it, he would say, No, wait a minute, Gloria, I want you to emphasize the word decided, and that's going to get the laugh. And when he gave her a reading like that man, the next time she went through that dialog, just what he had asked for. And I thought, Oh my gosh. And her timing, after watching so many armist Brooks TV and listening to radio shows. GLORIA learned her comedic timing from one of the princesses of comedy timing is Eve Arden, right? They were so well for obvious reasons. They were so very similar. And if you have time to story for another story, do you know have you heard of Bob Hastings? He was the lieutenant on McHale's navy. McHale's Navy, right? Yeah. Well, he also did a lot of old time radio. So we went up to Seattle,   Michael Hingson ** 52:32 our two grandkids, Troy Amber, he played, not Archie. Was it Henry Aldridge? He was on,   Ron Cocking ** 52:40 I think you're right. I'm not too up on the cast of the old time radio show. Yeah, I think you're right. But anyway, he was there, and there was an actress that had to bow out. I don't know who that was, but our grandsons and Gloria and I, we walked in, and as usual, we say hi to everybody. We're given a big packet of six or eight scripts each, and we go to our room and say, Oh my gosh. Get out the pencils, and we start marking our scripts. So we get a phone call from Walden, and he said, hey, Ron Bob. Bob Hastings wants to see Gloria in his room. He wants to read through he's not sure if he wants to do the Bickersons script, because he you know, the gal bowed out and right, you know, so Gloria went down   Michael Hingson ** 53:23 couple of doors, coming   Ron Cocking ** 53:26 Yes, and she so she came back out of half an hour, 40 minutes later, and she said, well, that little stinker, he was auditioning me. He went in and she went in and he said, Well, you know, I don't know if I want to do this. It doesn't seem that funny to me. Let's read a few lines. Well, long story short, they read the whole thing through, and they were both, they were both rolling around the floor. I'll bet they laughing and so and then jump to the following afternoon, they did it live, and I was able to watch. I had some pre time, and I watched, and they were just fantastic together. I left after the show, I went to the green room, had a little snack, and I was coming back to our room, walking down the hall, and here comes Bob Hastings, and he says, oh, Ron. He said, Your wife was just fantastic. So much better than the other girl would have been. So when I told GLORIA That story that made her her day, her week. She felt so good about that. So that's my Bob Hastings story. Bob Hastings and Gloria Macmillan were great as the Bickersons.   Speaker 1 ** 54:29 Yeah, that was a very clever show. It started on the Danny Thomas show, and then they they ended up going off and having their own show, Francis Langford and Donna Michi, but they were very clever.   Ron Cocking ** 54:42 Now, did you realize when now that you mentioned Danny Thomas? Did you realize that Gloria's mom, Hazel McMillan, was the first female agent, talent agent in Hollywood? No, and that's how you know when the. They moved from from Portland, Oregon, a little city outside of Portland. They moved because Gloria's mom thought she had talent enough to do radio, and it wasn't a year after they got here to LA that she did her first national show for Lux radio at the age of five. That was in 1937 with with Edward G Robinson. I've got a recording of that show. What's what show was it? It was a Christmas show. And I don't remember the name of the of it, but it was a Christmas show. It was Walden that sent us. Sent   Michael Hingson ** 55:33 it to us. I'll find it. I've got it, I'm sure.   Ron Cocking ** 55:35 And so, yeah, so, so Gloria was a member of what they called the 500 club. There was a group of, I don't know, nine or 10 kids that by the time the photograph that I have of this club, it looks like Gloria is around 12 to 14 years old, and they had all done 500 or more radio shows. Wow, that's a lot of radio show. There's a lot of radio So Gloria did, I mean, I got a short my point was, her mom was an agent, and when Gloria was working so consistently at armas Brooks, she said, Well, I'm kind of out of a job. I don't need to take you. GLORIA could drive then. And so she came back from the grocery store, Ralph's market near Wilshire and Doheny, and she came back said, Well, I know what I'm going to do. I ran into this cute little boy at the grocery store. I'm going to represent him for television. And she that's, she started the Hazel McMillan agency, and she ran that agency until she just couldn't anymore. I think she ran it until early 1980s but she, my god, she represented people like Angela Cartwright on the Danny Thomas show and Kathy Garver on, all in the family a family affair. Family Affair. Yeah. Jane north. Jane North went in for Dennis the Menace. He didn't get the role. He came back said, Hazel, I don't think they liked me, and they didn't. They didn't call me back or anything. Hazel got on that phone, said, Look, I know this kid can do what you're asking for. I want you to see him again. He went back and they read him again. He got the part, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 57:21 and he was perfect for it.   Ron Cocking ** 57:22 He was perfect for that part was, I'm sorry.   Michael Hingson ** 57:27 It's sad that he passed earlier this year.   Ron Cocking ** 57:29 Yeah, he passed and he had, he had a tough life, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 57:36 well, you know, tell me you, you have what you you have some favorite words of wisdom. Tell me about those.   Ron Cocking ** 57:45 Oh, this goes back to the reason why I came across this when I was looking for something significant to say on the opening of one of our big concert programs. We used to do all of our shows at the California theater of Performing Arts in San Bernardino, it's a really, a real gem of a theater. It's where Will Rogers gave his last performance. And so I came across this, and it's, I don't know if this is biblical, you might, you might know, but it's, if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. And that's what I felt like Gloria and I were trying to do. We wanted to teach these kids as as professionally. We treated our students as they were, as if they were little professionals. We we expected quality, we expected them to work hard, but again, Gloria taught me patience, unending patience. But we knew that we wanted them to feel confident when the time came, that they would go out and audition. We didn't want them to be embarrassed. We want we wanted them to be able to come back to us and say, Boy, I felt so good at that audition. I knew all the steps I was and I and I read so well it was. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And so that aspect of it, we felt that we were feeding them for a lifetime, but we also were creating all of these arts patrons, all these lovers of the arts, 1000s of kids now love to go to musicals and movies and plays because they've kind of been there and done that at our studio. And so anyway, that's and whether, whether or not it was their confidence in show business or whether it was their confidence we've had so many calls from and visits from parents and former students saying, Boy, I just was awarded a job. And they said my my communication skills were excellent, and I owe that to Gloria. I was on the beach the other day, and I looked over and there was this young man and his wife. I assumed it was his wife. It was they were setting. Up their beach chairs, and I looked and I say, Excuse me, is your name Brandon? And he said, No, but he said, Is your name Ron? And I said, Yes. He said, No, my name is Eric. And I said, Eric puentes. And so we reminisced for a while. He took tap from me. He took acting from Gloria, and he said, you know, he was sad to hear of Gloria's passing. And he said, You know, I owe so much to Gloria. I learned so much about speaking in front of groups. And he is now a minister. He has his own church in Redlands, California, and he's a minister. And of all the billion people on the beach, he sits next to me. So that's one of those things when it's supposed to   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:41 happen. It happens. It does. Yeah, well, and as we talked about earlier, you and Gloria did lots of stuff with reps, and I'm going to miss it this time, but I've done a few, and I'm going to do some more. What I really enjoy about people who come from the radio era, and who have paid attention to the radio era is that the acting and the way they project is so much different and so much better than people who have no experience with radio. And I know Walden and I have talked about the fact that we are looking to get a grant at some point so that we can train actors or people who want to be involved in these shows, to be real actors, and who will actually go back and listen to the shows, listen to what people did, and really try to bring that forward into the recreations, because so many people who haven't really had the experience, or who haven't really listened to radio programs sound so forced, as opposed to natural.   Ron Cocking ** 1:01:46 I agree, and I know exactly what you're saying. In fact, Walden on a couple of at least two or three occasions, he allowed us to take some of Gloria's acting students all the way to Seattle, and we did some in for the spurred vac organization Los Angeles, we did a beautiful rendition of a script that we adapted of the Velveteen Rabbit. And of all people, Janet Waldo agreed to do the fairy at the end, and she was exquisite. And it's only like, I don't know, four or five lines, and, oh my gosh, it just wrapped it up with a satin bow. And, but, but in some of our kids, yeah, they, they, they were very impressed by the radio, uh, recreations that they were exposed to at that convention.   Speaker 1 ** 1:02:37 Yeah, yeah. Well, and it's, it is so wonderful to hear some of these actors who do it so well, and to really see how they they are able to pull some of these things together and make the shows a lot better. And I hope that we'll see more of that. I hope that we can actually work to teach more people how to really deal with acting from a standpoint of radio,   Ron Cocking ** 1:03:04 that's a great idea. And I know Walden is really sensitive to that. He Yeah, he would really be a proponent of that.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:10 Oh, he and I have talked about it. We're working on it. We're hoping we can get some things. Well, I want to thank you for being here. We've been doing this an hour already.  

1 - Life on the Wicked Stage - Marge and Gower Champion – 19512 - The Song of the Fool - Hal Kemp – 19303 - The Blacksmith and his Anvil - Prince's Orchestra – 19144 - Don't Be a Fool, You Fool - Bennie Krueger – 19265 - The Rogue Song - Jack Parker with Vincent Lopez and his Orchestra - 19306 - Fool Me Some More - Bing Crosby with Gus Arnheim's Orchestra – 19307 - My Inlaws Made an Outlaw Out of Me - Hank Penny – 19468 - The Cop on the Beat - Charlie Palloy with The High Steppers - 19329 - I'm a Fool to Care - Ray Smith and his Pinetoppers – 194810 - Bully of the Town - Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys - 194911 - You Wouldn't Fool Me, Would You? - Annette Hanshaw – 192912 - The Happy Blacksmith - Prince's Orchestra – 191513 - What A Fool I've Been (To Believe in You) - Tom Gerun and his Orchestra – 193014 - Dancing Fool - Vincent Lopez and his Hotel Pennsylvania Orchestra – 192215 - Battle Axe - Jimmie Lunceford and his Orchestra – 194116 - Three Short Stories - The Mercury Theater – 1938

This is the second part of this Encore Episode from 2021 featuring a conversation with Irene Sankoff & David Hein — the dynamic writing team and married couple that created the international smash hit musical Come From Away which recently topped American Theatre magazine's list of the most produced plays in America in 2025/26. On the previous episode Irene and David related how they got hooked on musicals, and how they went from their first show based on a true story — My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding — to deciding to create a musical based on the real life events that happened in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland in the days following 9/11. They also described what it was like to attend the 10th Anniversary of the events in Gander and then begin to transform the stories they heard there into a musical during an early workshop production at The Canadian Music Theatre Project at Sheridan College. We also explored the classic Broadway shows that influenced and inspired the writing of their book, music, and lyrics for Come From Away. If you missed part one you may want to go back and catch up on that episode before you listen to this one. Today we look at the extensive development process that CFA went through on its journey to Broadway — including a workshop in Seattle, a series of productions at the La Jolla Playhouse, The Seattle Rep, Ford's Theater in DC. and the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, as well as a thrilling concert presentation in Gander where it all began.  Back in 2015, I served as the Executive Producer and Artistic Director of The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle and, as such, I had the great pleasure of co-producing that original Seattle workshop of Come From Away. This was the first time that the show's Tony award winning director Christopher Ashley and choreographer, Kelly Devine began to work on the show — and it was great fun to recall that exciting experience with Irene and David. Come From Away is the fifth musical to originate in Canada and eventually open on Broadway.  The first was 1974's Rockabye Hamlet with book, music and lyrics by Cliff Jones. This rock musical adaptation of Shakespeare was originally titled Kronborg 1582 and was well received, first as a radio series on the CBC, and then at the Charlottetown Theatre Festival and on tour in Canada, before being retitled and opening on Broadway with Gower Champion as the director. It became a legendary flop and closed after 7 performances. Next, in 1980 came the intimate and engaging Billy Bishop Goes To War written by John McLachlan Gray the show featured one actor to playing18 different roles to tell the story of real life Canadian fighter pilot Billy Bishop during the first World War. This show nearly doubled the run of Rockabye Hamlet closing after 12 performances. However, over the next ten years Billy Bishop Goes To War received scores of productions at theaters all across North America.  The Story Of My Life, with music and lyrics by Neil Bartram and book by Brian Hill, opened on Broadway in 2009. Unfortunately, it had an even shorter run than either of the previous two Canadian shows. However, one year earlier, a group of Canadian writers finally scored a significant hit with The Drowsy Chaperone – book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, and music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert & Greg Morrison. This delightful show opened on Broadway in 2008, received Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score, and ran for 674 performances.   There have been a few other Canadian writers that found success on Broadway – Galt McDermott being the most famous of them – but that was with shows that originated in the US. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meg presents one of Mindhunter John Douglas' first profiling case studies: the murder of Francine Elveson. Jessica reports on the shockingly dramatic opening night of Gower Champion's 42nd Street on Broadway.Please check out our website, follow us on Instagram, on Facebook, and...WRITE US A REVIEW HEREWe'd LOVE to hear from you! Let us know if you have any ideas for stories HEREThank you for listening!Love,Meg and Jessica

This week's episode of Broadway Nation is the second half of my conversation with author Ron Fassler, whose latest book is titled The Show Goes On — Broadway Hirings, Firings, and Replacements. Among the outstanding Broadway performers and creatives who are at the center Ron's fascinating stories include Abe Burrows, Bernadette Peters, Chita Rivera, Comden & Green, Cynthia Erivo, Fantasia, Frank Loesser, Gower Champion, Harold Prince, Howard Keel, Iva Withers, Jane Russell, Jeff Conaway, Jerry Orbach, Jerry Zaks, Jo Swerling, John Cullum, John Kander & Fred Ebb, John Travolta, LaChanze, Leonard Bernstein, Leroy Anderson, Lewis J. Stadlin, Michael Bennett, Michelle Lee, Robert Preston, Rosalind Russell, Shelly Winters, Sheila Smith and Yvonne De Carlo. And the musicals referenced include 1776, Carousel, Company, Follies, Grease, Guys And Dolls, How To Succeed in Business, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Mack & Mabel, Minnie's Boys, Oklahoma!, The Color Purple, Wonderful Town and more! Ron Fassler is a historian,  theater critic, and former actor whose previous book is, Up in the Cheap Seats — A Theatrical Memoir of Broadway. Become A PATRON of Broadway Nation! This episode is made possible in part through the generous support of our Patron Club Members, such as Carl Baldasso. If you are a fan of Broadway Nation, I invite you to become a PATRON! For as little as $7.00 a month, you can receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions of many of the discussions that I have with my guests — in fact, I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions. And you will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast. And all patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgement of your vital support of this podcast. And If you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Madolyn Smith Osborne had the kind of fairy tale show business beginning that most can only fantasize about. While still in school at The University of Southern California, she won her first paycheck with a serendipitous audition before famed choreographer, Gower Champion, when a lead dancer and understudy had to be replaced in the Broadway-bound production of Pal Joey starring Lena Horne.  Madolyn's passion for musical theater as well as her training with beloved choreographers Bill and Jacqui Landrum, prepared her well for the opportunity. A year later, on the eve of graduating from USC's School of Dramatic Arts., her mentor, the late, iconic theatre and film producer and Academy Award-winning actor, John Houseman, launched a swan song of sorts for her with a production of Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well, in which Madolyn starred in the role of Helena. Mr. Houseman had invited various industry professionals to see the show in the 99-seat Stop Gap Theater on campus, including his former protege, film director, Jim Bridges, who, upon seeing Madolyn's performance, invited her to play the role of John Travolta's mistress, Pam, in the cult classic, Urban Cowboy. Madolyn went on to give multiple award-winning performances in the L.A. theater scene. Among her triumphs, she created the title role of Emily in Stephen Metcalfe's play of the same name, which was directed by the renowned producer-director, Jack O'Brien, during its premiere at San Diego's revered Old Globe Theatre.  When Madolyn was studying with legendary actress, Kim Stanley, and opera singer, Gloria Lane, she became a founding member of L.A. Theatre Works.  Madolyn also enjoyed a terrific TV and film career in which she found herself starring in features opposite the likes of no less than Steve Martin in All of Me, Roy Scheider in 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Chevy Chase in Funny Farm, Joe Pesci in The Super, and in TV shows like Due South, Cheers, If Tomorrow Comes, and Sadat. But at the height of her powers, all of that was abruptly interrupted by a chronic illness that she fights to this day.Madolyn resides in Toronto, Canada with her husband, former NHL hockey great, Mark Osborne, and 2 adult daughters who live nearby.            For the record, Madolyn and I have known one another for more years than either of us will admit, having met and worked together on a few productions while we were both in drama school at the USC. 

Today, I'm thrilled to announce the release of my episode with legendary comedian and Broadway performer Rita Rudner. Tune in to hear her talk about all the facets of her career, including learning wings for Gower Champion, the show she calls “the first feel-bad musical,” the advantages of working with her husband, the difficult transition from musical theater into comedy, why she doesn't do topical material, the ins and outs of making jokes about your family, why Bob Fosse would never hire her, how she almost did a musical with Gary Beach, running into Robert Morse at Starbucks, adapting her novel into a play, the ageism she's faced in the comedy business, why she was never in A Chorus Line, the word she's removed from her act, forming a close friendship during Follies, the skills she learned in The Magic Show, opening a new theater with So Long, 174th Street, and so much more.

Tony  Award Nominee, Larry Carpenter is a theater and television director and producer who has won four DGA Awards and Seven Daytime Emmy Awards for his work on One Life to Live, General Hospital and As the World Turns. He has taught at the Juilliard School of Drama, New York University, and American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Today Larry joins us to discuss the life and career of 8 time Tony Award Winner Mr  Gower Champion and his work as associate director on the Broadway productions A Broadway Musical, The Act with Liza Minnelli, Rockabye Hamlet, and Forty Second Street which ran for 3,486 performances.

This is the second half of my conversation with author Liza Gennaro, whose fascinating book is titled: Making Broadway Dance.  If you missed part one you may want to catch up on that episode before listening to this one. Liza is currently the Dean of Musical Theater at the Manhattan School of Music and she also has had a very active and successful career as a dancer and choreographer. Interestingly, she is closely related to this subject matter of her book because her father was the Tony Award winning choreographer and star dancer, Peter Gennaro. He is profiled in the book as well as in this episode. By the end of Part 1, we had made it to the late 1940s when Agnes de Mille was dominating the field of Broadway choreography. Between 1943 and 1945, De Mille had four hits in a row – Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Bloomer Girl, and Carousel – and three of them choreographed in her signature “Americana” style. This unprecedented string of successes made her the most powerful choreographer in the commercial theater, and soon led to her becoming the first director-choreographer of the “Golden Age” with Rodgers & Hammerstein's Allegro. De Mille's most significant contribution to the Broadway Musical was breaking the mold of the traditional Broadway chorus girl by insisting on hiring actor/dancers who could fully embody the characters that they were playing.  This new approach to Broadway dance, and this new kind of Broadway dancer, would be adopted by everyone who followed in her footsteps – especially Jerome Robbins – who years later would write, “Agnes broke the conception of what the Broadway dancer could be in the Broadway Musical. What they looked like, what was desired of them, and what their contribution to the show was.” And, as you will hear, Robbins took that idea and ran with it, just as De Mille's “Americana” style was starting to lose its luster. That's just the beginning Later in the episode Liza and I discuss Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, Graciela Daniele, Susan Stroman, Kathleen Marshall, Bill T. Jones, Stephen Hoggett, Lorin Latarro, Kelly Devine, Sergio Trujillo, Jerry Mitchell and more! Become a PATRON of Broadway Nation! I want to thank our Broadway Nation Patron Club members, such as John Schroeder and Alan Brodie whose generous support helps to make it possible for me to bring this podcast to you each week. If you would like to support the creation of Broadway Nation, here is the information about how you too can become a patron. For a just $7.00 a month you will receive exclusive access to never-before-heard, unedited versions of many of the discussions that I have with my guests — in fact I often record nearly twice as much conversation as ends up in the edited versions. You will also have access to additional in-depth conversations with my frequent co-host Albert Evans that have not been featured on the podcast.  All patrons receive special “on-air” shout-outs and acknowledgement of your vital support of this podcast. And if you are very enthusiastic about Broadway Nation there are additional PATRON levels that come with even more benefits. If you would like to support the work of Broadway Nation and receive these exclusive member benefits, please just click on this link: https://broadwaynationpodcast.supercast.tech/ Thank you in advance for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, I'm honored to announce the release of my interview with Broadway star Wanda Richert, who played Peggy Sawyer in the original production of 42nd Street. Tune in to hear some of the stories of her legendary career, including her love story with Gower Champion, understudying Gwen Verdon, working with Michael Bennett on A Chorus Line, the challenges of playing Carla in Nine, the show that almost got her to return to New York, the experience of being a prodigy, her last Broadway performance, and so much more. You won't want to miss this exclusive conversation!

SHE LOVES ME  Book by Joe Masteroff, Music by Jerry Bock, & Lyrics by Sheldon HarnickWorks Consulted & Reference :She Loves Me (Libretto) by Joe Masteroff & Sheldon HarnickSense of Occasion by Harold PrinceTo Broadway, To Life! The Musical Theatre of Bock & Harnick by Philip Lambert She Loves Me (2016 Live Capture ) Directed by Scott EllisMusic Credits:"Overture" from Dear World (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Jerry Herman | Performed by Dear World Orchestra & Donald Pippin"The Speed Test" from Thoroughly Modern Millie  (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan | Performed by Marc Kudisch, Sutton Foster, Anne L. Nathan & Ensemble"Why God Why" from Miss Saigon: The Definitive Live Recording  (Original Cast Recording  / Deluxe)  | Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Lyrics by Alain Boublil & Richard Maltby Jr.  | Performed by Alistair Brammer"Back to Before" from Ragtime: The Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens | Performed by Marin Mazzie"Chromolume #7 / Putting It Together" from Sunday in the Park with George (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim | Performed by Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Judith Moore, Cris Groenendaal, Charles Kimbrough, William Parry, Nancy Opel, Robert Westenberg, Dana Ivey, Kurt Knudson, Barbara Bryne"What's Inside" from Waitress (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Sara Bareilles | Performed by Jessie Mueller & Ensemble"Tonight at 8" from She Loves Me (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Jerry Bock, Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick | Performed by Jenn Colella and 'Come From Away' Company"Maria" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording)  | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Evadne Baker, Anna Lee, Portia Nelson, Marni Nixon"My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording) | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Julie Andrews"Corner of the Sky" from Pippin (New Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz | Performed by Matthew James Thomas“What Comes Next?” from Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda | Performed by Jonathan Groff

This is a special Encore episode of Broadway Nation in celebration of the 63rd Anniversary of the Off-Broadway musical phenomenon, The Fantasticks. That show opened at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village on May 3, 1960, and went on to play there for an incredible 42 years closing in January of 2002. Then four years later the show reopened at the Snapple Theater Center in Times Square where is ran another 11 years.  As you will hear, even though this show was performed off-Broadway, it had a significant impact and influence on the final decade of the Golden Age of Broadway and well beyond, right up to today.   For example, one thing that has always interested me, is that The Fantasticks ends its first act with a delirious happy ending and the entire cast posed in an iconic tableau. The second act then picks up with that exact same image, but the bloom is now definitely off the rose, or as Tom Jones' lyric puts it, now the “plum is too ripe.” Act two then tells the story of what happens after happily ever after. Sound familiar? Yes, this is remarkably similar to what happens in both Sunday In the Park With George and Into The Woods. So, it seems to me that more than two decades after the premiere of The Fantasticks, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine were still being strongly influenced by its structure, either consciously or subliminally. This episode was recorded back in September of 2020 so there are a few references that are now out of date.  Original Episode Notes: As the 1950's came to a close, Broadway Musicals were at the very center of American culture. Then in 1960, as if on cue, two immensely popular shows – The Fantasticks, and Bye, Bye Birdie – kick off the decade by foreshadowing several major changes in American culture that will dramatically affect the Broadway Musical, and by the end of the decade, leave its very future in doubt.  The brilliant creators profiled in this episode include Schmidt & Jones, Strouse & Adams, Michael Stewart, Gower Champion, Jerry Herman, and Bock & Harnick. As well as the string of classic musicals that bring the “Golden Age Of Broadway” to its climax — Oliver!; Stop The World I Want To Get Off; The Roar Of The Greasepaint And The Smell Of The Crowd, Man Of La Mancha; Fiddler On The Roof, and what I call the "Big Transgressive Lady" Shows – Hello, Dolly!, Sweet Charity, and Mame. If you enjoy BROADWAY NATION please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 642, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Could You Translate That For Me? 1: It's the all-American way of saying "Rouge, blanc et bleu". red, white and blue. 2: It's the English translation of the German word in the lyric "Let me call you liebchen, I'm in love with you". sweetheart. 3: "Benevolenza", you can give old clothes to it or you can have it "toward men". goodwill. 4: Meaning "counselor", it's the Italian word describing Robert Duvall's role in the service of "The Godfather". consigliere. 5: Literally "God out of a machine", it's the Latin phrase for an unlikely and providential intervention. Deus ex machina. Round 2. Category: Indians 1: The "three sisters of the Iroquois" were beans, squash and this food. corn (maize). 2: In 1867 this nation built its capitol in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Cherokee. 3: In his later years, this Apache warrior was a popular celebrity at many U.S. fairs. Geronimo. 4: Today no one is allowed to day hike in the Canyon de Chelly in Arizona without this tribe's permission. Navajo. 5: A hogan is a type of dwelling associated with this tribe. Navajo. Round 3. Category: Heloise's Hints For Teens 1: Gum stuck to your shirt? Stick the shirt in this to harden the gum, then use a credit card to scrape it off. the freezer. 2: Get decorative by gluing stray buttons on these items that hold things to your bulletin board. pushpins (or tacks). 3: Brewed bags of the chamomile type of this can soothe skin that's been irritated by the sun, but cool them first. tea. 4: The cider type of this salad dressing ingredient is a perfect addition to a soothing bath. vinegar. 5: Hey, pet owners; this clay-based product can help soak up grease spots in the garage. kitty litter. Round 4. Category: Tv Trivia 1: MTV game show hosted by Ken Ober, or a device to turn off an MTV game show hosted by Ken Ober. Remote Control. 2: The "Mary Tyler Moore Show" character whose wife's name was Edie. Lou Grant. 3: A Bulova watch ticking on the screen in 1941 on NBC. the first television commercial. 4: From the Swahili word for "doctor", the show featured a cross-eyed lion. Daktari. 5: This actress, who has a home in Kenya, played Kenya bush pilot Beryl Markham on TV. Stefanie Powers. Round 5. Category: Dance Partners 1: In movie musicals of the '50s, her name preceded " and Gower Champion". Marge. 2: He was Cyd Charisse's dance partner in "On an Island with You" before he escaped to "Fantasy Island". Ricardo Montalbán. 3: In Lear's poem, "...hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon". the Owl and the Pussycat. 4: Born Vernon Blythe and Irene Foote, they were famous for their fancy footwork. the Castles. 5: In the 1947 film "Good News", Peter Lawford did "The Varsity Drag" with this tiny blonde. June Allyson. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/

Happy Birthday to Katherine Dunham, Helen Lewis, Gower Champion, Ron Smedley, and Ohad Naharin! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dawn-davis-loring/support

HELLO DOLLY COMPOSER: Jerry Herman LYRICIST: Jerry Herman BOOK: Michael Stewart SOURCE: Thornton Wilder's play The Merchant of Yonkers (1938) DIRECTOR: Gower Champion CHOREOGRAPHER: Gower Champion PRINCIPLE CAST: David Burns (Vandergelder), Carol Channing (Dolly), Charles Nelson Reilly (Cornelius) OPENING DATE: Jan 16, 1964 CLOSING DATE: Dec 27, 1970 PERFORMANCES: 2,844 SYNOPSIS: Widowed matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi has been tasked to find a wife for the cantankerous, well-known, half-a-millionaire, Horace Vandergelder. Dolly doesn't need to look too hard as she is the one who plans to marry Horace. The unparalleled success of the title song from Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly! is explored through the succinct multiple meanings in its lyrics and the iconography associated with its original staging by Gower Champion and executed by Carol Channing. The history of the song (as popularized by Louis Armstrong), the title of the musical, and the many famous actors who appeared in its original run and subsequent productions are analyzed within the equation of one of the most recognizable sequences in Broadway history. 1995 Revival director Lee Roy Reams examines the way impactful branding, casting, and design decisions made by infamous producer, David Merrick, cemented Hello, Dolly! within pop culture history. Lee Roy Reams' ten Broadway credits run the gamut from Sweet Charity, Applause, Lorelei, Hello, Dolly and 42nd Street to La Cage aux Folles, Beauty and the Beast and The Producers. SOURCES FURTHER READING/VIEWING/LISTENING RESOURCES Hello, Dolly, Original Cast Recording. RCA Victor (1964) Hello, Dolly starring Walter Matthau and Barbra Streisand, directed by Gene Kelly, 20th Century Fox (1969) Showtune: A Memoir by Jerry Herman, published by Dutton (1996) Filichia, Peter. The Great Parade: Broadway's Astonishing, Never-to-Be-Forgotten 1963-1964 Season. St. Martin's Press, 2015. Goldman, William. The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway. Limelight Editions, 1984. Ilson, Carol. Harold Prince: A Director's Journey. Limelight Editions, 2004. Mordden, Ethan. Open a New Window. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Prince, Hal. Contradictions: Notes on twenty-six years in the theatre. Dodd, Mead; First edition, 1974. Shapiro, Eddie. Nothing Like a Dame: Conversations with the Great Women of Musical Theater. Oxford University Press; Reprint edition, 2014. Viertel, Jack. The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built. Sarah Crichton Books, 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The first of a two-part program featuring Broadway composer, Charles Strouse, known for BYE BYE BIRDIE, GOLDEN BOY, ANNIE, and APPLAUSE. Strouse discusses his life and career, including his collaborations with lyricist Lee Adams, writer Michael Stewart, and director Gower Champion, as well as stars like Dick Van Dyke and Paul Lynde. Together with Adams and Martin Charnin, Strouse performs some of his own songs live at the piano, recorded at the 92nd Street Y.   Featured songs: “Ditto,” “Take Ten Terrific Girls,” “The Arts,” “I Lost The Rhythm,” “Overture to BYE BYE BIRDIE,” “The Telephone Hour, “Rosie,” “Put On A Happy Face,” and “Hymn For A Sunday Evening.”   Originally produced and broadcast in 1982. For more information go to AnythingGoesPL.com or BPN.FM/Anything Goes. Theme music arranged by Bruce Coughlin. Associate producer Jeff Lunden. Anything Goes – Backstage with Broadway's Best – is produced and hosted by Paul Lazarus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the second half of my recent conversation with author Liza Gennaro, whose fascinating new book is titled: Making Broadway Dance.  If you missed part one you may want to catch up on that episode before listening to this one. Liza is currently the Dean of Musical Theater at the Manhattan School of Music and she also has had a very active and successful career as a dancer and choreographer. Interestingly, she is closely related to this subject matter of her book because her father was the Tony Award winning choreographer and star dancer, Peter Gennaro. He is profiled in the book as well as in this episode. By the end of Part 1, we had made it to the late 1940s when Agnes de Mille was dominating the field of Broadway choreography. Between 1943 and 1945, De Mille had four hits in a row – Oklahoma!, One Touch of Venus, Bloomer Girl, and Carousel – and three of them choreographed in her signature “Americana” style. This unprecedented string of successes made her the most powerful choreographer in the commercial theater, and soon led to her becoming the first director-choreographer of the “Golden Age” with Rodgers & Hammerstein's Allegro. De Mille's most significant contribution to the Broadway Musical was breaking the mold of the traditional Broadway chorus girl by insisting on hiring actor/dancers who could fully embody the characters that they were playing.  This new approach to Broadway dance, and this new kind of Broadway dancer, would be adopted by everyone who followed in her footsteps – especially Jerome Robbins – who years later would write, “Agnes broke the conception of what the Broadway dancer could be in the Broadway Musical. What they looked like, what was desired of them, and what their contribution to the show was.” And, as you will hear, Robbins took that idea and ran with it, just as De Mille's “Americana” style was starting to lose its luster. That's just the beginning Later in the episode Liza and I discuss Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, Michael Bennett, Graciela Daniele, Susan Stroman, Kathleen Marshall, Bill T. Jones, Stephen Hoggett, Lorin Latarro, Kelly Devine, Sergio Trujillo, Jerry Mitchell and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Por fin le ha tocado el turno a “SHOW BOAT”, el musical basado en la novela de Edna Ferber, autora de novelas río llevadas también al cine como “Cimarron” o “Gigante” y conocido en España por la película que dirigió George Sidney en 1951 con Howard Keel, Kathryne Grayson, Ava Gardner, Agnes Moorehead y el matrimonio Marge y Gower Champion. El musical se estrenó en 1927 y fue un punto de inflexión en la historia del musical ya que por primera vez las canciones, los números cómicos y los bailes ayudaban a avanzar la historia y estaban integrados en la misma, una propuesta de Oscar Hammerstein que se atrevió a poner en escena el tema del racismo y que volvería a tratar en musicales como “Carmen Jones” o “South Pacific”. “Show Boat” abrió una vía al musical lejos de la ópera o la operetta y trataba temas serios que hicieron cuestionar el término de “comedia musical” y que a pesar de estar escrito hace más de noventa años, sigue subiendo a escena en forma de ópera o de musical. En el podcast hemos utilizado la grabación de estudio que se hizo en 1988 con Frederica Von Stade (Magnolia y Kim), Jerry Hadley (Ravenal), Karla Burns (Queenie, la cocinera negra), Bruce Hubbard (Joe, el marido de Queenie), Teresa Stratas (Julie Laverne), Steve Barton (Steve el marido de Julie), David Garrison y Paige O’Hara (Frank y Ellie, los actores de comedia) con The Ambrosian Chorus y la London Sinfonietta dirigidos por John McGlinn. 00h 00'00" Old man river 00h 02'19" Presentación 00h 04'17" Cabecera 00h 05'24" Inicio 00h 05'57" Obertura 00h 12'25" Cotton Blossom 00h 18'23" Captain Andy's ballyhoo / Hey Julie... 00h 25'05" Where's the mate for me? / Make believe 00h 34'16" Old man river 00h 40'34" Can't help lovin' that man 00h 48'10" Life upon the wiked stage 00h 52'07" 'Til good luck comes my way 00h 54'50" Misery comin' around 01h 02'10" Looks like a swell 01h 08'22" You are love 01h 15'46" Oh tell me did you ever 01h 22'12" At the fair 01h 26'56" Why do I love you? 01h 36'17" Make believe (Reprise) 01h 38'08" Bill 01h 42'53" Can't Help Lovin that Man (Reprise) 01h 44'56" I might fall back on you 01h 48'46" After the ball 01h 52'38" Hey feller 01h 55'30" Old man river (Reprise) 01h 58'00" You are love (Reprise) 02h 00'05" Why do I love you 02h 04'05" Finale ultimo 02h 06'52" Curiosidades 02h 08'51" I have the room above her 02h 13'55" Ah, still suits me 02h 18'40" Can't help lovin’ that man (Ava Gardner) 02h 22'50" Nobody else but me

This is the second part of my recent conversation with Irene Sankoff & David Hein -- the dynamic writing team and married couple that created the international smash hit musical Come From Away. Five productions of Come From Away have recently reopened around the world: Broadway, Toronto, London, Sydney and on tour across America. A new Dutch production has just opened, as well, and a live filmed version of the show is streaming on Apple TV+. On the previous episode Irene and David related how they got hooked on musicals, and how they went from their first show based on a true story -- My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding -- to deciding to create a musical based on the real life events that happened in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland in the days following 9/11. They also described what it was like to attend the 10th Anniversary of the events in Gander and then begin to transform the stories they heard there into a musical during an early workshop production at The Canadian Music Theatre Project at Sheridan College. We also explored the classic Broadway shows that influenced and inspired the writing of their book, music, and lyrics for Come From Away. If you missed part one you may want to go back and catch up on that episode before you listen to this one. Today we look at the extensive development process that CFA went through on its journey to Broadway - including a workshop in Seattle, a series of productions at the La Jolla Playhouse, The Seattle Rep, Ford's Theater in DC. and the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, as well as a thrilling concert presentation in Gander where it all began.  Back in 2015, I served as the Executive Producer and Artistic Director of The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle and, as such, I had the great pleasure of co-producing that original Seattle workshop of Come From Away. This was the first time that the show's Tony award winning director Christopher Ashley and choreographer, Kelly Devine began to work on the show -- and it was great fun to recall that exciting experience with Irene and David. Come From Away is the fifth musical to originate in Canada and eventually open on Broadway.  The first was 1974's Rockabye Hamlet with book, music and lyrics by Cliff Jones. This rock musical adaptation of Shakespeare was originally titled Kronborg 1582 and was well received, first as a radio series on the CBC, and then at the Charlottetown Theatre Festival and on tour in Canada, before being retitled and opening on Broadway with Gower Champion as the director. It became a legendary flop and closed after 7 performances. Next, in 1980 came the intimate and engaging Billy Bishop Goes To War written by John McLachlan Gray the show featured one actor to playing18 different roles to tell the story of real life Canadian fighter pilot Billy Bishop during the first World War. This show nearly doubled the run of Rockabye Hamlet closing after 12 performances. However, over the next ten years Billy Bishop Goes To War received scores of productions at theaters all across North America.  The Story Of My Life, with music and lyrics by Neil Bartram and book by Brian Hill, opened on Broadway in 2009. Unfortunately, it had an even shorter run than either of the previous two Canadian shows. However, one year earlier, a group of Canadian writers finally scored a significant hit with The Drowsy Chaperone – book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar, and music and lyrics by Lisa Lambert & Greg Morrison. This delightful show opened on Broadway in 2008, received Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score, and ran for 674 performances.   There have been a few other Canadian writers that found success on Broadway – Galt McDermott being the most famous of them – but that was with shows that originated in the US.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For Video Edition, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/TdXaB8vhEqs For two decades, Tommy Tune was the maestro presiding over a string of glittering Broadway musicals that took the tradition of complete musical staging by a director-choreographer into a new era defined by spectacle and technology. He was last in a grand lineage led by Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, Bob Fosse, and Michael Bennett, but also provided a link to a new generation of choreographers-turned-directors like Susan Stroman, Jerry Mitchell, and Casey Nicholaw. Unlike his fellow director-choreographers, Tune also maintained a successful performing career. His nine Tony Awards (plus a tenth, for Lifetime Achievement) were earned across four categories, not only for choreography and direction, but also as both featured and lead actor in a musical, for Seesaw and My One and Only--a distinction no one else can claim. Everything is Choreography: The Musical Theater of Tommy Tune is the first full scale book about the career of this prodigious artist. It celebrates and examines with a critical eye his major projects, and summons for readers a glorious period of dance, performance, and theatrical imagination.  Now available for Pre-Order: https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Choreography-Musical-BROADWAY-LEGACIES/dp/0190090731/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3KWXUZQAC37QX&dchild=1&keywords=kevin+winkler+tommy+tune&qid=1627771116&sprefix=kevin+winkler+tommy%2Cstripbooks%2C148&sr=8-1  

This is the final part of my conversation with Broadway actor, singer, dancer, director and choreographer Lee Roy Reams, at least for now. I am sure I will have Lee Roy back for another discussion in the not so distant future. There is no end to the amazing insights and classic show-biz stories that he has locked in his memories. If you missed the first two parts you may want to listen to those episodes first.  We begin this episode with Lee Roy sharing his experience playing "Cornelius Hackle" in the 1978 Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! which was directed by an amazing woman named Lucia Victor. During her 45 year career on she was involved in more than 30 Broadway shows as a performer, producer, Casting director, stage manager and most significantly as the Production Stage Manager, Assistant To Gower Champion, and/or Production Supervisor on the original productions of Hello, Dolly, I Do, I Do, and 42nd Street. Along the way you will hear hilarious and heartbreaking stories about Carol Channing, David Merrick, Marge Champion, Bob Fosse and more! And most thrillingly Lee Roy takes us inside the creation of the smash his Broadway musical 42nd Street, illustrates the genius of its director & choreographer, Gower Champion, and shares all the incredible drama of its legendary Opening Night! Broadway Nation is written and produced by me David Armstrong. If you enjoy this podcast please follow, rate and review the Broadway Nation on apple podcasts or wherever you listen. This will really does help other people who may be interested to discover the show as you have. Special thanks to KVSH 101.9 The Voice of beautiful Vashon,, Island, WA, and to the entire team at the Broadway Podcast Network..   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"It's time for a cheer-up song" because hosts Bobby and Kristina are finally back after an extended intermission to discuss 1978's A Broadway Musical on the act two opener of My Favorite Flop.   ABOUT A BROADWAY MUSICAL Based on the real-life experiences of the creative teams' journeys working on the original Broadway productions of The Wiz and the musical version of Golden Boy, A Broadway Musical tells the story of a sleazy white theatre producer's attempt to adapt an African-American writer's serious play as a commercial stage musical. The musical features a book by William F. Brown, music by Charles Strouse, and lyrics by Lee Adams. Following a dismal October–November tryout with Helen Gallagher and Julius LaRosa at the theatre in the Riverside Church in Morningside Heights, the producers fired most of the cast and creative personnel, including director/choreographer George Faison. Gower Champion was called in to rescue the Broadway-bound production with only a month to go, but he feared that the show's defects were too serious to remedy and insisted on receiving a "Production supervised by" credit only. After 14 previews, the Broadway production opened and closed the same night at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on December 21, 1978. It lost $1 million. The creators hoped that the backstage story about the making of a musical would cash in on the success of A Chorus Line as well as the popularity of the black-themed musical, including Brown's own The Wiz, which was still running at the time. But Brown's much-criticized book failed to capture any of the socially-relevant subject matter in a serious way and instead became a clichéd spoof of show business lawyers, idealistic young playwrights, glitzy Las Vegas performers, blue-haired matinée ladies, and the black-themed musical itself. The Wiz proved to be Brown's only success.   Original Broadway Cast Warren Berlinger as Eddie Bell Gwyda DonHowe as Stephanie Bell Irving Allen Lee as James Lincoln Larry Marshall as Richie Taylor Anne Francine as Shirley Wolfe Jackée Harry as Melinda Bernard Tiger Haynes as Sylvester Lee Reggie Jackson as Louie Patti Karr as Maggie Simpson Christina Kumi Kimball as Kumi Kumi Robert Melvin as Junior Martin Rabbett as Jake Larry Riley as Lonnie Paul Albert Stephenson as Big Jake Alan Weeks as Stan Howard Sydney Anderson as Richie Taylor's Lawyer Gwen Arment as Rehearsal Pianist Nate Barnett as Policeman Michael Gallagher as Richie Taylor's Lawyer Jo Ann Ogawa as Richie's Secretary Loretta Devine as Smoke and Fire Backup Singer

Put on your Sunday clothes and polish up those silver trays, because IN THE SPOTLIGHT is diving into Hello, Dolly! Join Michael and Anika as they talk about the show's surprisingly ancient inspirations and complex road to Broadway - including which parts of the score might not actually be composed by the great Jerry Herman. Come for the insights into one of Broadway's greatest shows, stay for how often we confuse the names Ernestina and Ermengarde. Press play - it only takes a moment! HELLO, DOLLY! Book by Michael Stewart | Music & Lyrics by Jerry Herman | Based on “The Matchmaker” by Thornton Wilder  Episode Segments:2:03 - Speed Test4:07 - Why God Why7:37 - Back to Before14:20 – Putting It Together32:25 - What's Inside50:28 - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?1:06:42 - Our Favorite Things1:19:04 - Corner of the Sky1:21:55 – What Comes Next?Works Consulted & Reference :Hello, Dolly! (Original Libretto) by Michael StewartThe Matchmaker by Thorton WilderShowtune by Jerry HermanJerry Herman: Poet of the Showtune by Stephen CitronGower Champion: Dance and Musical Theatre by David Payne-CarterThe Great Parade: Broadway's Astonishing Never-to-Be-Forgotten 1963-1964 Season by Peter Filichia“An Evening With Jerry Herman – Up Close & Personal” (The Kennedy Center)“Interview with Jerry Herman” (Theater Talk)Music Credits:"Overture" from Dear World (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Jerry Herman | Performed by Dear World Orchestra & Donald Pippin"The Speed Test" from Thoroughly Modern Millie  (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music by Jeanine Tesori, Lyrics by Dick Scanlan | Performed by Marc Kudisch, Sutton Foster, Anne L. Nathan & Ensemble"Why God Why" from Miss Saigon: The Definitive Live Recording  (Original Cast Recording  / Deluxe)  | Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Lyrics by Alain Boublil & Richard Maltby Jr.  | Performed by Alistair Brammer"Back to Before" from Ragtime: The Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens | Performed by Marin Mazzie"Chromolume #7 / Putting It Together" from Sunday in the Park with George (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim | Performed by Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Judith Moore, Cris Groenendaal, Charles Kimbrough, William Parry, Nancy Opel, Robert Westenberg, Dana Ivey, Kurt Knudson, Barbara Bryne"What's Inside" from Waitress (Original Broadway Cast Recording)  | Music & Lyrics by Sara Bareilles | Performed by Jessie Mueller & Ensemble"Elegance” from Hello, Dolly! (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Jerry Herman & Bob Merrill| Performed by Eileen Brennan, Jerry Dodge, Sondra Lee, & Charles Nelson Reilly"Maria" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording)  | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Evadne Baker, Anna Lee, Portia Nelson, Marni Nixon"My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music (Original Soundtrack Recording) | Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II | Performed by Julie Andrews"Corner of the Sky" from Pippin (New Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz | Performed by Matthew James Thomas“What Comes Next?” from Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording) | Music & Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda | Performed by Jonathan Groff

On this week's show, Jamie and Rob talk through Jamie's personal top ten list of showstopping production numbers, celebrating some of the greatest moments in Broadway musical theatre history. They take a look at the extraordinary work of choreographers like Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett, Tommy Tune, Onna White, Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, and Agnes DeMille, and dig into some of the more unheralded contributions from composer/lyricists, orchestrators, dance arrangers, and designers that combined with top-notch performers to make the best showstoppers. What's number one? Tune in to find out. This week's music: “Glory” from “Pippin”, “Overture”, and “Mame” from “Mame”. “42nd Street” from “42nd Street (Original Recording)”, “Wedding Dance” from “Fiddler on the Roof (New Broadway Cast Recording)”. “Steam Heat” from “The Pajama Game”, “Dance at the Gym: Bass, and Jump” from “Bernstein: West Side Story”, “Ballet” from “Oklahoma! (1998 Royal National Theatre Cast Recording)”, “Turkey Lurkey Time” from “Promise, Promises”. “The Rich Man's Frug” from “Sweet Charity (Original Cast Recording)”, “H-A-P-P-Y / We'll Take A Glass” from “Grand Hotel” and “The Music and the Mirror” from “A Chorus Line”. Find us on Twitter & Instagram: @fabulousinvalid Facebook: www.facebook.com/fabulousinvalid Rob's reviews: www.stageleft.nyc Email us at: office@fabulousinvalid.com  Jamie DuMont Twitter: @jamiedumont  Instagram: @troutinnyc Rob Russo Twitter/Instagram: @StageLeft_NYC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What better way to celebrate Backstage Babble's 30th episode than with a legendary dancer from Broadway's Golden Age, Eileen Casey? Tune in to hear her talk about why Cab Calloway was "just terrible," the brilliance of Gower Champion, not caring for Ron Field's choreography, why someone had to be fired from Promises, Promises, the out-of-town Seesaw, why Marilyn didn't work, and more!

As the 1950’s came to a close, Broadway Musicals were at the very center of American culture. Then in 1960, as if on cue, two immensely popular shows – The Fantasticks, and Bye, Bye Birdie – kick off the decade by foreshadowing several major changes in American culture that will dramatically affect the Broadway Musical, and by the end of the decade, leave its very future in doubt.  The brilliant creators profiled in this episode include Schmidt & Jones, Strouse & Adams, Michael Stewart, Gower Champion, Jerry Herman, and Bock & Harnick. As well as the string of classic musicals that bring the “Golden Age Of Broadway” to its climax – Oliver!; Stop The World I Want To Get Off; The Roar Of The Greasepaint And The Smell Of The Crowd, Man Of La Mancha; Fiddler On The Roof, and what I call the "Big Transgressive Lady" Shows – Hello, Dolly!, Sweet Charity, and Mame. If you enjoy BROADWAY NATION please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SHOWS: Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Chicago, Crazy For You   Michael Kubala has long been one of the most respected hoofers working on Broadway. His Broadway shows include Dancin, A Broadway Musical, Woman of the Year, Marilyn, Jerome Robbins Broadway, Crazy for You, and Chicago, as well as countless tours and regional productions.   Michael pulls back the curtain on his career to discuss how he leapt for Gower Champion, what it was like surviving Marilyn: The Musical, and why the rehearsal process for Jerome Robbins Broadway is infamous!   Also, Michael shines the spotlight on Gower Champion, Jerome Robbins, and Lauren Bacall!   Become a sponsor of Behind The Curtain and get early access to interviews, private playlists, and advance knowledge of future guests so you can ask the legends your own questions. Go to: http://bit.ly/2i7nWC4   To book a room at Shetler Studios, head on over to: https://www.shetlerstudios.com

Charming social introductions? Expert mandolin instructions? And the elegance of hay and feed. (BTW: Simpsons joke sign: “Sneed’s Seed and Feed, Formerly Chuck’s”) - Learn all about Jerry Herman and Gower Champion’s match-making musical Hello, Dolly!

He created a revolution in the American musical theatre when he wrote the lyrics for The Fantasticks, the longest running musical in New York City history. And, as if that wasn't enough, Tom Jones also wrote the lyrics to such musicals as 110 In The Shade, I Do! I Do!, Celebration, Harold and Maude, and more! Tom pulls back the curtain on his career to discuss how he first met Harvey Schmidt, what it was like creating The Fantasticks”, and why he doesn't think he will ever retire. Also, Tom shines the spotlight on Mary Martin, Robert Preston, and Gower Champion! Become a sponsor of Behind The Curtain and get early access to interviews, private playlists, and advance knowledge of future guests so you can ask the legends your own questions. Go to: http://bit.ly/2i7nWC4 To book a room at Shetler Studios, head on over to: https://www.shetlerstudios.com

Filichia, Peter. Broadway Musicals: The Biggest Hit & the Biggest Flop of the Season 1959 to 2009. Applause Books, 2010. Mordden, Ethan. Open a New Window: the Broadway Musical in the 1960s. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Bloom, Ken, and Frank Vlastnik. Broadway Musicals: the 101 Greatest Shows of All Time. Black Dog & Leventhal Pubs., 2010. Taylor, Theodore. Jule: the Story of Composer Jule Styne. Random House, 1979. Citron, Stephen. Jerry Herman: Poet of the Showtune. Yale University Press, 2004. Channing, Carol. Just Lucky I Guess: A Memoir of Sorts. Simon and Schuster, 2007. Viertel, Jack. Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built. Sarah Crichton Books,Farrar, Straus and Grioux, 2017. Kissel, Howard. David Merrick, the Abominable Showman: the Unauthorized Biography. Applause, 1993. Hoffman, Warren. The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical. Rutger University Press, 2014. Gilvey, John Anthony. Before the Parade Passes by: Gower Champion and the Glorious American Musical. St. Martin's, 2005. Nachman, Gerald. Showstoppers!: the Surprising Backstage Stories of Broadway's Most Remarkable Songs. Chicago Review Press, 2017. Suskin, Steven. Opening Night on Broadway: a Critical Quotebook of the Golden Era of the Musical Theatre, Oklahoma (1943) to Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Schirmer Books, 1993. Taubman, Howard. “'Hello, Dolly!' Wins Half of Theater Wing's 20 Tonys; Osborne's 'Luther' Is Named Season's Best Drama. The New York Times, 25 May 1964. Taubman, Howard. “Theater: 'Hello, Dolly!' Has Premiere; Carol Channing Star of Musical at St. James.” The New York Times, 17 Jan. 1964. Grode, Eric. “Well, Hello, Dollys!” The New York Times, 22 Mar. 2017. Skipper, Richard. “Call on Dolly!.” Call on Dolly!. Brantley, Ben. “Even From Afar, Carol Channing Served Up That Broadway Wow.” The New York Times, 15 Jan. 2019. Funke, Lewis. “Merman 'Hello, Dolly's!' Lucky 7th.” The New York Times, 30 Mar. 1970. “WELLO, DOLLY!' CUTS LONGEST‐RUN CAKE.” The New York Times, 10 Sept. 1970. Phillips, Mccandlish. “Broadway Bids 'Dolly!' a Fond Adieu.” The New York Times, 28 Dec. 1970. Giordano, Frank. “Who Will Play Dolly in 2001?” The New York Times, 3 May 1970. Burke, Tom. “Hello, David, Must We Talk.” The New York Times, 6 Sept. 1970. “Johnson, on Stage With Capital Cast, Sings 'Hello, Dolly'.” The New York Times, 5 Nov. 1967. “'Hello, Barry' Thwarted By 'Dolly' Named Lyndon.” The New York Times, 18 July 1964. “Carol Channing In Short Good-by To 'Hello, Dolly!'.” The New York Times, 8 Aug. 1965. Sloane, Leonard. “Advertising: Dolly Says' Hello' to Marketing.” The New York Times, 1 Dec. 1964. Gottfried, Martin. “Is All Black Theater Beautiful? No.” The New York Times, 7 June 1970. Johnson, Thomas A. “The Black Theatergoer: Who Is He?” The New York Times, 21 Jan. 1970. “Hello, Dolly!' Raises Prices.” The New York Times, 14 May 1965. Gardner, Paul. “Dolly Levi Sees the World.” The New York Times, 8 Aug. 1965. “After 1,272 Performances Carol Says Good-by Dolly.” The New York Times, 12 June 1967. Kerr, Walter. “Merman: A Kid Who Wins All the Marbles.” The New York Times, 12 Apr. 1970. Taubman, Howard. “Theater ‘Funny Girl’; Musical Based on Life of Fanny Brice.” The New York Times, 27 Mar. 1964. Zolotow, Sam. “'FUNNY GIRL' LAG: WHO'S LAUGHING?; Five Delays for Premiere Irk Agents and Audiences.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Mar. 1964. Stang, Joan. “SHE COULDN'T BE MEDIUM; Barbra Streisand, New Star in Town, Traces Her Rise to 'Funny Girl'.” The New York Times, 5 Apr. 1964. “Dispute Leads Chaplin To Quit 'Funny Girl'.” The New York Times, 17 June 1965. Calta , Louis. “NEW 'FUNNY GIRL' PREPARES CALMLY; Following Barbra Streisand Doesn't Worry Mimi Hines.” The New York Times 11 Dec. 1965. Colleran, Jim. “15 Fun Facts About FUNNY GIRL.” Tams Witmark. Lennart, Isobel. “FROM THE TAMS ARCHIVES: Isobel Lennart's Memories of FUNNY GIRL.” Tams Witmark. Healy, Patrick. “Producer Explains Scrapping 'Funny Girl'.”. The New York Times, 4 Nov. 2011. “The Verdict: Read Reviews of London's Funny Girl Revival Starring Sheridan Smith.” Playbill, 2 Dec. 2015.

Stewart Lane and Bonnie Comley the driving forces behind the successful streaming service BroadwayHD join me to talk about the May 15th launch of one of the most iconic productions of all time 42nd Street.The high energy musical was recently filmed from a production on the West End of London. The legendary theater luminary Mike Bramble, who passed away in February, directed and collaborated on the editing for film. Stewart and Lane were executive producers on the digital production for BroadwayHD.Along with Gower Champion, Bramble was also the co-writer on the 1981 production that is credited with revitalizing Broadway in the 80s. We welcome our new sponsor Molekule - The only air purifier that destroys allergens.Unlike HEPA filters, Molekule destroys indoor air pollutants at a molecular level, completely removing them from the air you breathe. Molekule uses Photo Electrochemical Oxidation (PECO) nanotechnology to eliminate allergens, mold, bacteria, viruses, and airborne chemicalsMolekule is your best defense against allergy season. Molekule has reinvented the air purifier to destroy airborne pollutants including viruses, bacteria, gaseous chemicals and mold. Using breakthrough Photo Electrochemical Oxidation (PECO) Molekule doesn’t just collect air pollutants, it destroys them on a molecular level. When you turn on Molekule you’re creating the purest air possible, combating allergy season by destroying allergens in the home. We have a great deal for you can get $75 dollars off your first order, visit https://molekule.com/ and at checkout enter code streamonPromotional consideration for Stream On with Jim Williams comes from Boom Media. For all of your streaming media needs, they have you covered. It does not matter if you are just cutting the cord and need some hand-holding they have what you need. Checkout all the great streaming options at https://boommedia.org/ If you need assistance picking the right streaming box or stick that meets your needs they will help. Looking for the best live streaming service at the lowest price? Consider it done!Meanwhile, if you are an old hand at streaming they got you covered as well! Check them out at boommedia.org for all of your streaming video needs. Have questions or comments? No problem just asks away on social media Twitter @JWMediaDC Instagram – Jimwilliams200 and email at jimwilliamsmedia@gmail.com

Anyone going to a performance of Hello, Dolly! - running now at the SHN Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco through March 17 - with an appetite for an enlightened look at male/female relationships is likely to leave quite hungry. The current national tour of the 2017 revival of the 1964 Broadway smash based on Thorton Wilder’s 1955 revision of his 1938 play extrapolated from an Austrian playwright’s 1842 extension of an English dramatists 1835 one-act reflects the then-common attitudes towards a women’s place in society and the home. Anyone going to a performance of Hello, Dolly! with an appetite to see a Broadway legend at work, or hear magnificent musical classics delivered with gusto, or see a bevy of athletic dancers spring across the stage in spirited numbers based on Gower Champion’s original choreography, or be dazzled by the color and craftsmanship at work in Santo Loquasto’s scenic and costume design, is likely to leave the theatre with their appetite satiated. Tony-winner Betty Buckley (Cats, Sunset Boulevard) plays Dolly Gallagher Levi, a matchmaker and jill-of-all-trades in 19th century New York engaged by the well-known Yonkers half-a-millionaire Horace Vandergelder (Lewis J. Stadlen) to find him a bride, an assignment which Dolly intends to fill herself. Sub-plots involve Vandergelder’s niece Ermengarde and her paramour Ambrose Kemper (played by Morgan Kirner and Garret Hawe) and Feed Store clerks Cornelius and Barnaby (played by Nic Rouleau Jess LeProtto). At age 71, Buckley does her damnedest to make the part made famous by Carol Channing (at age 42) her own, and succeeds to an extent. It’s obvious and understandable that her choreography has been limited and that she lacks the vocal power to deliver some of the musical’s biggest moments (“Before the Parade Passes By” was disappointingly flat) but she really delivers in the show’s quieter moments when she engages with the memories of her late husband. The supporting cast is outstanding with Rouleau and LeProtto really scoring as the clerks unleashed in New York City and Analisa Leaming and Kristen Hahn as the objects of their affections. MVP of this production goes to Stadlen, a reliable Broadway performer for the past 50 years who often toils in the anonymity common to great character actors. His eyebrows are as expressive as anything else on stage. Go ahead, roll your eyes during “It Takes a Woman” but don’t be surprised to find yourself cheering after “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” and “The Waiters’ Gallop” and, at the very least, smiling through almost everything else. ‘Hello, Dolly! ’runs through March 17 at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco. Dates and times vary. For more information, go to shnsf.com

In one of the funniest episodes to date, Carole Cook brings Rob and Kevin into her LA home to look back on her eighty plus years in the business! From summer stock (where she does Sophie Tucker in Kismet....don't ask) to The Lucy Show, to being the second person to play Dolly to being the first person with a witty line, the incomparable Carole Cook looks back on her time in theatre, movies, and television, with wit, grace, and a penchant for four letter adjectives. Carole pulls back the curtain on her career to discuss how she caught the eye of Lucille Ball, what it was like being onstage to hear Gower Champion had died, and why she is still making headlines at 94 years old! Also, Carole shines the spotlight on Joanne Worley, John Kenley, and David Merrick. Become a sponsor of Behind The Curtain and get early access to interviews, private playlists, and advance knowledge of future guests so you can ask the legends your own questions. Go to: http://bit.ly/2i7nWC4

We enter the 1960s with Bye Bye Birdie, music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, book by Michael Stewart, and directed and choreographed by Gower Champion. Does it hold up well? What's with all the Ann-Margret hype? Find out here.

The musical theatre goddess that is Debbie Gravitte swings by Shetler Studios to tell Rob and Kevin about her amazing career that got started doing Annie Get Your Gun with Gower Champion all the way up to her filling Eydie Gorme's shoes in the 50th Anniversary concert of Golden Rainbow! In between, there is Perfectly Frank, Zorba, Swing, Jerome Robbins Broadway (for which she won the Tony Award), They're Playing Our Song, and so much more! Debbie pulls back the curtain on her career to discuss how Anthony Quinn fooled an audience into forgiveness, what it was like working for Jerome Robbins, and why Bea Arthur's love of oysters was unsettling! Also, Debbie shines the spotlight on Debbie Reynolds, Ruth Brown, and Stephen Schwartz! Become a sponsor of Behind The Curtain and get early access to interviews, private playlists, and advance knowledge of future guests so you can ask the legends your own questions. Go to: http://bit.ly/2i7nWC4

Get out your tap shoes, Francis, because four time Tony nominated choreographer, Randy Skinner, is here to waltz us all back in time for an intimate retrospective of his career. From working at the famed Kenley Players to being the keeper of the 42nd Street flame, Randy's career includes turns (both onstage and off) with 42nd Street, Babes in Arms, Ain't Broadway Grand, State Fair, Do Re Mi, George M, Lone Star Love, White Christmas, Of Thee I Sing, No No Nanette, On Your Toes, Dames at Sea, and many more! Randy pulls back the curtain on his career to discuss how Ginger Rodgers influenced his work, what it was like learning from Gower Champion, and why he loves the art of teaching. Also, Randy shines the spotlight on Fred Astaire, David Merrick, and John Kenley! Become a sponsor of Behind The Curtain and get early access to interviews, private playlists, and advance knowledge of future guests so you can ask the legends your own questions. Go to: http://bit.ly/2i7nWC4 

The Secret Service might make her nervous but it doesn't stop the wonderful Anita Gillette from telling all in this fascinating interview. Anita invited Rob and Kevin over to her apartment to look back on her Broadway credits including Gypsy, All-American, Mr. President, Cabaret, and many others. Anita pulls back the curtain on her career, including how Irving Berlin dealt with critics, what it was like to work on the 1 performance flop Kelly, and why David Merrick sent her a bill! Also, Anita shines the spotlight on Neil Simon, Gower Champion, and Ethel Merman! Become a sponsor of Behind The Curtain and get early access to interviews, private playlists, and advance knowledge of future guests so you can ask the legends your own questions. Go to patreon.com and search Behind The Curtain: http://bit.ly/2i7nWC4

Put on a happy face because the Tony Award winning composer of Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, Annie, and countless others, Charles Strouse, invites Rob and Kevin into his penthouse apartment for a two part interview about his life and career. Charles pulls back the curtain on his career, including how a Texas oil tycoon became his biggest benefactor, what was the inspiration behind “Once Upon a Time”, and why Sammy Davis Jr. was his best audience! Also, Charles shines the spotlight on Gower Champion, Bert Lahr, and Chita Rivera! Become a sponsor of Behind The Curtain and get early access to interviews, private playlists, and advance knowledge of future guests so you can ask the legends your own questions. Go to patreon.com and search Behind The Curtain: http://bit.ly/2i7nWC4

We are starting 2017 off with a bang: A 2 hour interview with the Tony Award winning Michael Rupert, who has been in the business for over fifty years! Michael pulls back the curtain on his amazing career which includes working as a child actor in TV shows like My Three Sons, getting a Tony nomination as a teenager for The Happy Time, the existential crisis of taking over for Pippin in the 70s, winning a Tony Award in the 80s for Sweet Charity, bringing comfort to many as Falsettos' Marvin in 90s, and being introduced to a whole new generation through Legally Blonde in the 2000s. Also, Michael discusses how his kindness won over Gower Champion, the art of Bob Fosse's manipulation, and the difference between West Coast and East Coast audiences. Plus: Jerry Mitchell's rehearsals, William Finn's genius, and in depth discussions on two of our favorite musicals 3 Guys Naked From The Waist Down & Mail.

Theater Talk celebrates the 50th anniversary of "Hello, Dolly!" w/ original cast member Sondra Lee, director/actor Lee Roy Reams, and dance legend Marge Champion who assisted her late then-husband Gower Champion while he created the '64 hit.

"Legally Blonde"'s resident legal shark Michael Rupert talks about why his role as that musical's unsavory Professor Callahan is consistent with other roles he often plays and talks about being the senior member of a youthful company; recalls being cast at age 15 by Gower Champion in "The Happy Time" and what he learned from Robert Goulet, Charles Durning and Kander & Ebb in that production; describes working with Bob Fosse on two productions -- replacing John Rubenstein in the title role of "Pippin" (which Rupert says was Fosse's metaphor for the Manson Family) and later playing Oscar in the 1986 revival of "Sweet Charity"; reflects on the role of Marvin in the various incarnations of William Finn's "Falsettos" over more than a decade; and chronicles his parallel theatrical career as the composer of "3 Guys Naked Form The Waist Down", "Mail" and the upcoming "Streets Of America". Original air date - February 15, 2008.

Legally Blonde's resident legal shark Michael Rupert (winner of a 1986 Tony Award for his Featured Role in Sweet Charity) talks about why his role as that musical's unsavory Professor Callahan is consistent with other roles he often plays and talks about being the senior member of a youthful company; recalls being cast at age 15 by Gower Champion in The Happy Time and what he learned from Robert Goulet, Charles Durning and Kander & Ebb in that production; describes working with Bob Fosse on two productions -- replacing John Rubenstein in the title role of Pippin (which Rupert says was Fosse's metaphor for the Manson Family) and later playing Oscar in the 1986 revival of Sweet Charity; reflects on the role of Marvin in the various incarnations of William Finn's Falsettos over more than a decade; and chronicles his parallel theatrical career as the composer of 3 Guys Naked Form The Waist Down, Mail and the upcoming Streets Of America.

"Legally Blonde"'s resident legal shark Michael Rupert talks about why his role as that musical's unsavory Professor Callahan is consistent with other roles he often plays and talks about being the senior member of a youthful company; recalls being cast at age 15 by Gower Champion in "The Happy Time" and what he learned from Robert Goulet, Charles Durning and Kander & Ebb in that production; describes working with Bob Fosse on two productions -- replacing John Rubenstein in the title role of "Pippin" (which Rupert says was Fosse's metaphor for the Manson Family) and later playing Oscar in the 1986 revival of "Sweet Charity"; reflects on the role of Marvin in the various incarnations of William Finn's "Falsettos" over more than a decade; and chronicles his parallel theatrical career as the composer of "3 Guys Naked Form The Waist Down", "Mail" and the upcoming "Streets Of America". Original air date - February 15, 2008.