The schedule for the week of July 20-27 follows.
The Magic of Disney on Broadway
July 20: Disney's Broadway musicals are hugely popular with kids, but all three of them offer fascinating portraits of...fathers! It's Father's Day all year round at The Lion King, where Nathaniel Stampley plays King Mufasa; at Mary Poppins, where Daniel Jenkins plays the newly laid-off banker George Banks; and at The Little Mermaid, where Norm Lewis contends with a whole school of teenaged daughters as King Triton. Playbill Radio gets these Disney Dads to open up about their roles, and about their own lives in the next The Magic of Disney on Broadway.
"The Magic of Disney on Broadway" debuts at 7 PM ET Monday, July 20 with repeats scheduled for (all times ET) 3 PM Tuesday, July 21; 10 PM Friday, July 24; 2 PM Saturday, July 25.
Center Stage
July 21: Our guest on Playbill Radio's Center stage this week is Steven Suskin, a walking encyclopedia of the American song. A former Broadway general manager and producer, he now writes a column for Playbill.com, and reviews for Variety. And if you've got books about musical theatre on your shelf, chances are good you've already got one or more of many volumes, including "Show Tunes," "Second Act Trouble" and "Opening Nights on Broadway." In addition to all these, he's spent the better part of the last seven years researching a magnum opus, "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," which painstakingly chronicles the men and women who make musicals sound the way they do by deciding which instruments will play what in the Broadway pit. He joins host Robert Viagas in the Playbill Radio studio to tell how these artists do their work, and to play some classic examples.
Each week's new "Center Stage" show debuts at 7 PM ET Tuesday, with repeats scheduled for (all times ET) 2 AM Wednesday, July 22; 11 PM Wednesday, July 22; 2 PM Thursday, July 23; 11 AM Saturday, July 25; 4 PM Sunday, July 26. Edited versions of the "Center Stage" programs are available as podcasts, including:
The Magic of Disney on Broadway: Drew Seeley
Next to Normal orchestrator Michael Starobin and music director Charlie Alterman
Arthur Laurents (Part 2)
Composer Spotlight
July 23: A tour through the careers of Broadway's one-hit wonders, songwriters who gave us just one hit each, including The Wiz; 1776; Big River; Grease; Promises, Promises and other beloved shows.
Each week's "Composer Spotlight" debuts at 7 PM (ET) Thursday, with repeats scheduled for: (all times are ET) 2 AM Friday, July 24; 11 PM Friday, July 24; 10 PM Sunday, July 26; 2 PM Monday, July 27.
This weekend's programming features The Tin Pan Alley Rag at 11 AM Saturday, July 18 and 4 PM Sunday, July 19; and a salute to Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz at 8 PM Sunday, July 19 and 2 PM Monday, July 20.
