Is there a more iconic musical than “Guys and Dolls?” Probably not. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to do well and my guests for this episode are a testament to how to make a classic musical really sing.

This is a show that can be dominated by its many engaging male characters, so I wanted to push aside the Guys for just a bit and talk to the Dolls. “Guys and Dolls” is never supposed to be realistic but there’s a danger in making it too broad for an audience to care about the characters. Adelaide has the potential to be portrayed as a caricature of female ditziness and Sarah Brown can come off as a one-note prude. But in a 2008 production of “Guys and Dolls” that enthralled Richmond audiences, Rachel Abrams and Rita Neidich gave those two character heart, soul and sass.

Rachel and Rita offer their remembrances about that particular production but also dig into some of the psychology of “Guys and Dolls” and how that translates to today. What’s it like being a woman in a male-dominated show? Their answers may surprise you.

As always, please check out ChasingPhantom.net for more information on "Guys and Dolls" as well as relevant video clips. And follow Rita Neidich on Instagram or her website to see if she might be performing somewhere near you!

Both me and my guest in this episode had the chance to see "Waitress" on Broadway and we chose not to. And boy, were we both sorry!

It's not often with this podcast that we talk about a show you can see right now. But "Waitress" is one of those shows that had suddenly started appearing on regional stages all over the country so there's a pretty good chance it has, is or soon will be appearing somewhere near you. 

It's a feel-good story that also deals with a couple serious issues along the way, providing escapism for audiences while not letting them totally forget about some of the not-so-great stuff going on in the world. 

Luckily for me, I got a chance to talk with one of the co-stars of the Virginia Repertory Theatre production of "Waitress" that just opened this past week. Kylee Marquez-Downie has been an emerging talent for a few years and this production marks a chance for more people to see just how amazing she is.

It turns out that she's also a smart, insightful and thoughtful interview and we have a great time reviewing the the impact of Sara Bareilles, how "Waitress" depicts modern relationships, and many more topics.

Be sure to check out my website, ChasingPhantom.net, for more information on "Waitress" and links to many relevant video clips. And if you happen to be in central Virginia and it's still June/July 2025 when you're listening, go to VA-Rep.com for tickets to see Kylee in person in this excellent production.

Art about other art is fascinating to me, and only one of the many reasons I love "Amadeus," a play about music. Of course, it's also about envy of another man's genius: the play cemented the image of Salieri in popular culture. But really, at its heart, it's a play about faith and Salieri's contentious battle with his own faith, and also, playwright Peter Schaffer's ongoing artistic conversation about faith.

In the podcast, me and classical music expert and VCU professor Daniel Myzzyk mostly talk about the classical music of it all. But we also start out with an interesting related tangent about birds, consider the verisimilitude of the movie version's depiction of the Viennese court, and tease out some of the historical realities about Mozart.

As always, you'll want to check out my website, ChasingPhantom.net, for more information about "Amadeus," some fun clips from the movie, and this time, the evidence of some time spent down a Tim Curry rabbit hole.

And if considering "Amadeus" ignites a spark of interest in classical music, Richmonders should be sure and check out VCU's website for upcoming classical performances. It's a great low-cost, easy-access way to enjoy some wonderful music.

Is it mime? Is it puppetry? Is it augmented sketch comedy? Rather than try to categorize "Mummenschanz," it seems best to just wonder at the inventiveness and enjoy the fun of the experience. That was certainly what people were doing in the 1970s and for many decades afterwards.

"Mummenschanz" holds the record for longest running special on Broadway. Scheduled for a limited engagement after a successful national tour, the troupe proved too popular to shut down, drawing crowds for over 3 years. The brainchild of 3 performers, they ultimately had to hire additional members, sending them back out on the road while they continued on in NYC.

My guest, Heidi Rugg, knows a lot about this kind of performance, having founded the Barefoot Puppet Theater and also having seen "Mummenschanz" during one of their tours. Beyond just talking about this very special special, she namechecks Julie Taymor who elevated puppetry to new heights with "The Lion King" and introduces me (and you I expect) to Center For Puppetry Arts in Atlanta.

Most of all, you gotta check out the clips at my website, ChasingPhantom.net - you can't really appreciate "Mummenschanz" without seeing it!

Over the past 20 years or so, a handful of shows have revolutionized what can be done on Broadway. You could point to "Hamilton" as one of the biggest of those but that revolution actually started with "In the Heights," which remains my favorite of the two. Call me a traditionalist at heart but I love that it's a warmer and more personal show. And fantasizing about winning the lottery is simply more relatable that worrying about building a new nation.

Speaking of warm, my guest for this conversation is the always personable Fernando Rivadeneira who played the Piragua Guy in the Richmond production of "In the Heights" back in 2018. We chat about his discovery of this show and the joy of experiencing the many iterations of it, including the movie version. I loved revisiting the songs of the show - and discovering aspects of the production I never knew about like the web series, Legally Brown. If you've never heard of it before, it's a really fun watch.

As always, please check out my website, ChasingPhantom.net, for a little more background on "In the Heights" and associated video clips.

Why is a conversation with Jordan Schildcrout always a good time? Because in the course of just 30 minutes chatting about the relatively obscure play “Cactus Flower,” you’ll hear about additionally fascinating plays like “Two for the Seesaw” and “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window.” Jordan and I dig into both the weird and wonderful aspects of “Cactus Flower,” the show that brought Lauren Bacall back to Broadway. The movie version would win Goldie Hawn her only Oscar and feature a decent comic turn by the legendary Ingrid Bergman and a befuddling romantic lead performance by Walter Matthau.

Jordan wrote an essential book of Broadway history, “In the Long Run: A Cultural History of Broadway’s Hit Plays,” so not only knows about specific shows, but has a broader perspective on where “Cactus Flower” fits in among the pantheon of long-running plays. We touch on the history of the manic pixie dream girl stereotype, the resonance of Bacall and Vaccaro’s voices, and do our due diligence in talking about “Just Go With It,” the Adam Sandler / Jennifer Aniston modern-day retelling of the “Cactus Flower” story.

Why does a seemingly outdated show like “Boeing Boeing” succeed but something like “Cactus Flower” seems relegated to the dust bin of history? Find out in this episode!

As always, check out ChasingPhantom.net for some great video clips related to the show and to listen to past episodes.

Easter is this weekend and, while you might think I'm featuring the show "Sugar Babies" to make an allusion toward those sweet treats found in children's Easter baskets, well, you're right! BUT, thanks to my always incredibly knowledgeable guest, Phil Crosby, it came to light that this throwback vaudeville revue would also make sense to highlight because of Ann Miller's star turn in the movie "Easter Parade." Phil makes the astute point that Miller, who was the co-headliner of "Sugar Babies" with Mickey Rooney, was not often given her due as an excellent light comic actor. In "Easter Parade," he says that she holds her own in a packed cast replete with stars light Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, and more.

Miller was clearly a good foil and formidable match against Rooney and a large part of why "Sugar Babies," which now seems outdated and a bit of an anachronism, was so popular. It's a show that gives Phil and I the opportunity to dig into what vaudeville was, why it was so popular as a form early in the 20th century, why there was such a large audience eager to check out a show featuring it, and to explore the throughline from shows like "Sugar Babies" to variety shows like "The Carol Burnette Show."

As always, Phil brings an amazing backlog of Broadway scuttlebutt to the conversation and we even touch on a very direct connection between "Sugar Babies" and place both Phil and I call home, Richmond, VA.

Also as always, you'll want to check out my website, ChasingPhantom.net, for more information and video clips from or related to "Sugar Babies." You'll be glad you did!

"Promises, Promises" had a dream team of talent, both backstage and onstage. Neil Simon, Hal David, and Burt Bacharach are the big three, but it was also directed by Robert Moore ("The Boys in the Band" off-Broadway, "Woman of the Year") and choreographed by Michael Bennett. It was also based on an incredible movie, "The Apartment." What could go wrong?

Nothing did go wrong, really: the show was very popular and its best song, "Never Fall in Love Again," was a big radio hit. But it's another one of those shows that doesn't really age well, the gender dynamics and workplace ethics being wildly out of step with modern sensibilities. The movie came out at 1960, at the tail end of the 50s, a decade where the story makes more sense. By the end of the 60s, with shows like "Hair" getting a lot of attention, this one seems like a dinosaur just on the edge of extinction. 

I had one of the captains of my dream team of guests in the studio talking to me about "Promises, Promises" - Dr. Jesse Rabinowitz, who actually saw the original production on Broadway when he was a pre-teen. He brings his usual mix of savvy analysis and rampant good humor to our lively conversation.

Wanna see just how odd of a routine "Turkey Lurkey Time" is? Check out my website, ChasingPhantom.net, for video clips from "Promises, Promises" as well as links to previous episodes.

It's about music, it's about race relations, but it's NOT about how to be a good radio disc jockey. In giving a very loose account of the rise and fall of true-life music pioneer Dewey Phillips, the musical "Memphis" amps up the conflicts - which you would expect - in part by making the Phillips surrogate, Huey Calhoun, kind of an asshole. Still, the story of a DJ breaking conventions of the 1950s by playing "race records" on white radio stations is very compelling, has great songs and downright electrifying choreography. So how did I not even know about this show?

I explore that question, and many much more interesting ones, in my conversation with true-life radio DJ and amazing human, Melissa Chase. While Huey Calhoun becomes a sensation in "Memphis" by breaking into the DJ booth at a radio station and locking everyone else out, Melissa became a star by being really good at her job. A lot of being a good radio DJ comes down to a person's voice and I am a big fan of Melissa's as it was a near-constant refrain during the mid-2000s in my life running kids to and from school. She has that wonderful quality of always having a smile in voice.

One of the best things related to this show is that a very high-quality filmed version of the Broadway show is available to stream. I highly recommend it for what is about as close to a live theater experience as you can get.

You're going to want to check out the video clips from this show at my website, Chasing Phantom.net. And if you want to stream "Memphis," here's a link to the YouTube version. 

Am I too on the nose here? Pretty much any time seems like a good time to reflect on the founding of the United States of America, but boy howdy, does this current time we're in seem like a specifically good time to do so. The musical "1776" is a not-quite-historically-correct dramatization of the drafting and ratification of the Declaration of Independence. It focuses on John Adams as the instigator, the leader who pushes a reluctant Continental Congress toward making a historic decision.

This is a show focused nearly-exclusively on men so it was fascinating and unexpected when Debra Clinton directed the 2016 Virginia Repertory Theatre production of the musical. Deb is an exceptional director (and actor and original show developer) and has some great insight into her experience of herding an oversized cast of alpha males toward a single artistic goal.

As always, please check out my website, ChasingPhantom.net, for video clips and more information related to "1776." This will be particularly useful if you want a push to consider watching (or rewatching) the movie version of this musical. Please reach out to me at [email protected] with suggestions, questions or feedback of any kind. Also, not that it will impact much of anything, this podcast stands with Ukraine.