Broadway: The American Musical

The episode features interviews with actor Carol Channing, Gershwin sister Frances Gershwin Godowsky, Al Jolson & Co. creator Stephen Mo Hanan, critic Margo Jefferson, writer Miles Krueger, New Yorker theater critic John Lahr, radio host/music critic Jonathan Schwartz, theater historians Max Wilk and Robert Kimball, and director/producer George C.Wolfe. Highlights include rare performance footage of composer Eubie Blake and a specially animated sequence of Rodgers and Hart’s 1927 hit “Thou Swell” from A Connecticut Yankee.

The episode features interviews with actor Julie Andrews, writer/lyricist Betty Comden, choreographer Agnes De Mille, writer/lyricist Adolph Green, Oscar Hammerstein’s grandson Andy Hammerstein, choreographer Michael Kidd, author James Michener, theater historian Steve Nelson, musician John Raitt, choreographer Jerome Robbins, composer Mary Rodgers Guettel, and conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas. Highlights include never-before-broadcast footage of Jerome Robbins’ choreography for On the Town, 1960 TV footage of Rex Harrison re-enacting “I’m an Ordinary Man” from My Fair Lady, and the first American broadcast of 1950 footage of the original Guys and Dolls cast performing in London.

The episode features interviews with writer/producer Mel Brooks, actor Kristin Chenoweth, Walt Disney Corporation CEO Michael Eisner, actor/bookwriter Harvey Fierstein, composer/lyricist Jerry Herman, actor Nathan Lane, playwright/director James Lapine, producer Rocco Landesman, director Arthur Laurents, actor Idina Menzel, Nederlander Theaters chairman James Nederlander Sr., director Susan Stroman, and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Highlights include home movies of Jonathan Larson working as a waiter before leaving his job to create Rent, and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of Wicked in rehearsal and opening on Broadway.