originally released: July 22, 2020 • updated intro: December 23, 2020 Three-time Tony-nominee Rebecca Luker is here for a walk through her career and the show Sheldon Harnick calls our “greatest American opera.” Topics Include: getting an agent out of town, auditioning for Hal Prince, balancing your work and your life, and of course we talk about T…

originally released: June 17, 2020 • updated intro: April 9, 2021 Writer/performer/amazing human Amy Oestreicher comes to us with us to complete the Falsettos trilogy (by going back to Part 1). Topics Include: Bill Finn calling on the phone, convincing teachers to let you do your own version of the assignment, tap dancing so hard you need surgery, …

originally released: May 8, 2019 Composer/lyricist (and former subject of this podcast), Doug Cohen is here for the first-ever Sondheim tribute. Topics include: cut songs, Ethel Merman, Sondheim's singing voice, the glorious Nancy Walker, and drowning your babies. Featured recordings: Sondheim: A Musical Tribute - Original Broadway Cast Recording (…

originally released: June 30, 2021 Tony nominee and favorite of this podcast, Liz Callaway is here for the first show she saw on Broadway at 9, a decade before she’d appear on the same stage in a show by the same creative team. Topics include: the Mets, reunion concerts, auditioning for Sondheim without knowing it, demos, and luck. Liz Callaway Dot…

It's TONYS TIME!! Patrick, Lauren Halvorsen (Nothing for the Group), and Robbie Rozelle (Center Stage Records) break down this incredibly overpacked Tony season. Who will win? Who will lose? Who won't show up? Who wasn't invited? Which version of The Wild Party should've been on Broadway 24 years ago? We cover it all! Patrick's magic 2024 Tonys You…

Friend of the podcast, repeat guest, and genuine ray of sunshine Joanna McKee passed away today and I’m at a loss. Listen to her talk about the musical Anastasia and hear the joy in her heart. originally released: March 25, 2020 original notes: Joanna works in the Education Department at the Kennedy Center and she is here to take us to school about…

originally released: October 3, 2018 Designer, record producer, performer, and talent-whisperer Robbie Rozelle is here to bring some joy into Patrick's life (he says). Topics include: Jerry Herman's pros, Jerry Herman's cons, Jerry Herman's women, and the movie version of Mame which is just the worst. Featured recordings: Mame - Original Broadway C…

originally released: June 22, 2016 Roddy is the Executive Director for the U.S. House of Representative’s LGBT Caucus. He is also our first guest drawn “from the house” and Patrick’s brother. Roddy and Patrick gab about Angela Lansbury, intermissions, and the unbearable heaviness of this show’s plot. Featured recording: ANYONE CAN WHISTLE - Origina…

originally released: October 12, 2016 Actor and director Kari Ginsburg is here to talk about one woman’s fall from grace as she facilitates the rise of her daughter from the front of a cow to the greatest stripper in the history of the world. Featured recordings: GYPSY - The Original Broadway Cast (1959) Twitter.com/OriginalCastPodFacebook.com/Orig…

originally released: April 21, 2021 NPR’s Glen Weldon is here for the musical that (according to him) made him gay. Topics include: Herb Alpert (not the dirty one), Charles Emerson Winchester III, Doolittle as a father, Nathan Lane chewing scenery, Eliza’s agency, keeping media fresh, and why album covers are important. Glen Weldon’s Profile on NPR…

originally released: July 13, 2022 Emmy-winner and former The Daily Show head-writer Elliott Kalan is here for a musical running now about then but really about way back then which seems to have been lost now. Topics include: losing on Jeopardy!, adding jokes by Larry David, ethical use of a resurrection machine, Frank Loesser, the House Committee …

Clint is the paterfamilias of the McElroy family of podcasters as well as a comic book author, theatre director, and general enthusiast of all things. And he’s here for his favorite original cast album of a show he was IN on BROADWAY (kinda). Topics include: spelling your way to Broadway glory, not making fun of the kids, getting choreo tips from J…

Justin is the oldest brother on the My Brother, My Brother and Me podcast but is also a best-selling author, voice actor, and community theatre director. And he’s here with a show that rode the early-90s obsession with the late-60s to Tony glory! Topics include: how Tommy is like Joseph from a protagonist standpoint, seeing the original Broadway pr…

Bruce is (along with his producing partner Jack W. Batman) a two-time Tony Award winning producer of shows such as Pippin, Be More Chill, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, and the very show we’re talking about today! Topics include: what a producer does, why shows are so expensive, what a producer should do, being an extra in Fame, and the…

Em is an actor in New York and DC who brings us this most classic of musicals as revived St. Ann’s Warehouse revival that ****s. There is really no other way to put it. That’s how we all remember it. I bleep it every time but that’s what we’re saying. It’s the Oklahoma! that ****s. Topics include: the buttery/flaky crust of nostalgia, Rebecca Naomi…

Dani is a Helen Hayes Award-winning playwright and actor who brings us this JRB musical by way of a Clint Eastwood movie by way of a 90s romance novel about Kelli O’Hara making out with Laura Benanti’s ex-husband. Topics include: wet old men, the dangers of casting Steven Pasquale, complicated women, the high stakes of everyday life. Dani Stoller D…

Stephen is the incoming President & CEO of the Music School of Delaware of which Patrick is an alumnus (but Stephen doesn’t know that when we start so keep it under your hat). Topics include: sensitive kids, deceptive simplicity, passing on Rooster, mom’s lullabies, George C. Wolfe’s Annie, and the teachers who poured themselves into us. The Music …

Did you know we had a bonus podcast on our PATREON page? Well, we do. Each month, you can listen to The Original Cast at the Movies, a long-form movie discussion podcast with musical theatre implications. Beth Amann and Kari Ginsburg are here to kick off The Original Cast at the Movies's new theme: THE YEAR OF BARBARA (HARRIS)! We'll be covering 13…

Let’s rap. FINAL “The Year of Barbra” live stream 12/9 (Thu): The Way We Were (1973) with Robbie Rozelle & Len Rodino FIRST “The Year of Barbara (Harris)” live stream 12/20 (Wed): Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) with Kari Ginsburg & Beth Amann 48 Hour Film Project: Yes We Cannes - Buy a ticket and vote for WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SAVE THE FUTURE Buy one …

Jenny is the President and CEO of Washington Performing Arts and she’s here for a trip downtown, across the world, and back in time. Topics include: the Berlin Wall, A Night at the Opera, Leonard Bernstein, being asked to change your name, arts education, the Air Force Band, and what you can accomplish without a building. Washington Performing Arts…

It is impossible for me to overstate how special it was to speak with Austin Pendleton. An actor’s actor, playwright, director, and a wonderfully kind human being. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I do. Topics include: working with jazz artists, Salvador Dalí on the phone at 4:00am, trying to blow off Jerome Robbins (and failing), promises …

Eleni comes to us from the Kennedy Center’s Digital Learning Center to talk about a musical that lives in her very soul and bones. Topics include: preteen sunset, channelling Maria Callas, tired performances, unfinished lyrics, Betty Schaefer’s agency, and (of course) a swimming pool named “Andrew.” Kennedy Center Education ”Who Doesn’t Love Opera?…

Stuart is 1/3 of The Flop House podcast (the 3rd third to guest on this show) as well as the proprietor of both Hinterlands and Minnie’s Bar in Brooklyn. And he’s here with a Danish Heavy Metal concept album that is more well-thought-out than The Who’s Tommy. Topics include: deep dives and rabbit holes, allegorical mother draining, being a completi…

Patrick and Patrick have been friends for multiple decades and they talk entirely about Swing! and they don’t almost immediately diverge into talking about the Harry Connick Jr/Jessie Mueller revival of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever that Patrick was in and I don’t know how these rumors get started. Topics include: the dark corners of Joe Allen…

Playwright and actor Vince Gatton is here to talk about an album that is not his favorite show but has a strong hold on him nonetheless. Topics include: unusual ways, first recordings vs best recordings, burning out cassettes, disgustingly wonderful fithiness, and what happens when you can get Elaine Paige instead of Sarah Brightman but not until t…