Why I‘ll Never Make It

Carmen Cusack and the Journey to Finding Her Bright Star


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One of the main themes and messages of this podcast has always been that success can mean different things to different people and the path of how someone gets there, if they get there, is always unique to the person. Today’s episode is with someone that I had the privilege of working with in the musical adaptation of First Wives Club back in 2015 in Chicago (with Faith Prince and Christine Sherrill). We were gearing up for a hopeful Broadway transfer that unfortunately never happened.

However, Carmen Cusack gave a memorable performance in that show and a few years later went on to star in her Broadway debut of Bright Star and most recently Flying Over Sunset. Her journey to Broadway has been a very unique one – from Denver and Texas to London and Shanghai, but as you’ll hear in her stories, the bumpy road to success is as much a personal journey as it is a professional one...

  • Story #1- Jazz lounges not Broadway theaters are her true musical home
  • Story #2- Her tumultuous relationship with Sunday in the Park with George
  • Story #3- James Lapine and Flying Over Sunset
  • Story #4- Finding her musical voice through the loss of theater during Covid 

  • The Final Five Questions

    Learn more of the details of her journey from Denver to Broadway, as she chronicles her various roles and milestones. It highlights both the struggle and the joy of her time onstage, and finding the freedom to explore her own voice and artistry. Find it on the WINMI Blog.


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      Why I’ll Never Make It is an award-winning, Top Theater Podcast hosted by actor and singer Patrick Oliver Jones and is a production of WINMI Media. Background music is by John Bartmann and Blue Dot Sessions is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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      Why I‘ll Never Make ItBy Patrick Oliver Jones

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