This Week on Broadway for December 29, 2024: Jennifer Ashley Tepper

BROADWAYRADIO

12/29/24

James Marino,Jennifer Ashley Tepper,Michael Portantiere,Peter Filichia

This Week on Broadway for December 29, 2024: Jennifer Ashley Tepper

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Peter Filichia, James Marino, and Michael Portantiere talk with Jennifer Ashley Tepper about The Jonathan Larson Project, which is opening at the Orpheum Theatre on February 14, 2025. We also talk about Jennifer Tepper’s new book, Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy That the History Books Left Out.

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Panel:

Peter Filichia | [email protected] | Facebook
PETER FILICHIA is a playwright, journalist, and historian with a number of books. Peter’s new day-by-day wall calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY – 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – has been released! Peter also has columns at Masterworks Broadway, Broadway Select, and many other places.

Michael Portantiere | [email protected] | Facebook
MICHAEL PORTANTIERE is a theater reviewer and essayist. He is the founder and editor of CastAlbumReviews.com. He is also a theatrical photographer whose photos have appeared in The New York Times and other major publications. You can see his photography work at FollowSpotPhoto.com.

James Marino | [email protected] | Facebook
BroadwayStars

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Pre:

Stagecraft: Stagecraft: Michael Griffo on “Pen Pals”

What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?

Guest: Jennifer Ashley Tepper

World Premiere Musical “The Jonathan Larson Project” To Play Orpheum Theatre; Previews February 14, 2025

Applause has published Jennifer Tepper’s new book, Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy That the History Books Left Out.

JENNIFER ASHLEY TEPPER is an acclaimed theatre historian, author, and producer. She has been the Creative and Programming Director at 54 Below for the past decade. She has curated or produced over 7000 shows in this position. Her leadership at the beloved venue has gained praise from publications including The Huffington Post, The New York Times, BuzzFeed, Playbill, Newsday, The New York Post, and more. Tepper’s four volumes of The Untold Stories of Broadway book series have been called an “inspiring Must- Read” by NBC New York and occupied the #1 spot on Amazon.com’s Best Sellers List in Broadway & Musicals. Her new book, Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy that the History Books Left Out was published in November 2024. Women Writing Musicals is the first-ever book about female musical theatre writers. Tepper is the producer of the musicals Be More Chill, Broadway Bounty Hunter, and Love In Hate Nation, projects that are part of a decade-long collaboration with the group known as Joe Iconis & Family. On Broadway, Tepper has also worked on [title of show], The Performers, Godspell, Macbeth, and The Parisian Woman. She is the conceiver of The Jonathan Larson Project, historian consultant on the tick, tick… BOOM! movie (directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda for Netflix) and co-creator of the Bistro Award- winning concert series, If It Only Even Runs A Minute. Her work as a theatre historian also encompasses celebrated live talks and events, including at TEDxBroadway, The Museum of Broadway, Thespian Festivals, and more. Tepper received a 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. She was named one of the 10 professionals on Backstage Magazine’s “1st Annual Broadway Future Power List”, which stated: “Proving herself both a zeitgeist predictor and theatrical historian with her eclectic programming, Tepper is leading the conversation on contemporary musical theatre.”

In her book, Women Writing Musicals: The Legacy That the History Books Left Out, Jennifer tells the stories of over 300 inspiring women who wrote Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals from the turn of the twentieth century to the lyricists who broke new ground writing shows during the Great Depression to the writers who penned protest musicals fighting for social justice during the 1970s to those who are revitalizing the landscape of American theatre today.

The book covers prolific Broadway writers like Betty Comden and Jeanine Tesori, women who have written musicals but gained fame elsewhere like Dolly Parton and Sara Bareilles, and dramatists many have never heard of but should have.

About the book, Kristin Chenoweth says, “The stories about these amazing women are so inspiring! This book is a wonderful resource for actors, and an important read for anyone interested in theatre. How meaningful it is to put girl power where it belongs: in the spotlight. I loved it!”

Lin-Manuel Miranda says, “Jennifer Ashley Tepper has dedicated her life to telling stories that might otherwise fade away around this brilliant, live, ephemeral art form we call musical theatre. With Women Writing Musicals, she is putting the women back in the narrative where they belong, and highlighting generations of unsung innovators and theatre makers that have shaped the musicals we love.”

The Woman Who Wrote About Women Writing Musicals by Peter Filichia

Reviews:

PF: Annie @ The Theater at MSG, through January 5, 2025

Jenn Thompson, Annie Director

MP: Christine Pedi: Snow Bizness @ 54 Below

MP: Melissa Errico: ’Twas The Night After Christmas – A Winter Party with Billy Stritch @ 54 Below

MP: Marilyn Maye @ Birdland

Discussion:

Broadway’s Imperial Theatre May Undergo Major Renovation and Expansion By Margaret Hall
Proposed by the Shubert Organization, the overhaul would include a new marquee and new bathrooms.

45th and 8th Ave Construction

Next Week:

Peter’s Brainteaser:

For their most controversial musical of the ‘30s, Rodgers and Hart wrote a song whose title could have been the name of a song in a musical that Oscar Hammerstein wrote – but not one that he wrote with Rodgers.

Understand that neither the melody nor the lyrics would work in the context of this Hammerstein show, but the title could have applied to this song that has been recorded by many, many singers, including two who both appeared in a Cole Porter film musical.

What’s the name of the song? What’s the Hammerstein musical in which the title would fit? And who are the two singers who recorded it who later appeared in what Cole Porter film musical?

Michael’s Musical Moments

MUSIC: GYPSY, Original Broadway Cast Recording

Music Opener:

OPENER: “Overture”