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[0:00] Mo Brady: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. Welcome, I'm Mo Brady.

[0:17] Mo Brady: Hey there, podcast listeners. Here at The Ensemblist, we have always striven to celebrate the hard work and passion of Broadway ensemblists. And all the way back in our second full season, which first aired in 2016, our co-creator Nika Graf Lanzarone and I took a journey through Broadway's past to learn about its future. Our co-creator Nika Graf Lanzarone and I took a journey through Broadway's past to find the history of the ensemble. We explored how the ensemblist experience has changed, and been changed, by some of theater's most influential shows, writers, and subject matter. And so, in this new miniseries, we will be sharing some of the best moments from that miniseries we made four years ago.

[1:10] Mo Brady: Every generation has their show that changed everything. You're thinking of yours right now, but chances are, another listener's thinking of a different show.

[1:19] Mo Brady: You're not thinking of Cats?

[1:21] Mo Brady: Um, no.

[1:22] Mo Brady: Okay.

[1:23] Mo Brady: A show that changes how audiences perceived theaters, how composers write it, and how actors train for the future. And while every theater lover has their own opinion about which show has been the most influential—

[1:34] Mo Brady: Cats.

[1:35] Mo Brady: A great barometer of which shows that changed everything trickled into the art form is the Pulitzer Prize.

[1:41] Mo Brady: Okay, I guess that is a great barometer. Since the first Pulitzer Prize for drama was awarded in 1918, only nine musicals have won this coveted prize. And while some of the nine shows continued to be regarded as musical theater's most influential contributors, others have been all but forgotten to popular culture. Or so we think.

[1:59] Mo Brady: Unlike many other theater awards, the Pulitzer Prize is given to the text, not the production as a whole. So, this is an opportunity to look beyond the hype, beyond the spectacle, and beyond the preconceived notions about these shows, and go straight to the source. And for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to read out the Maxwell House Haggadah with their families, we're asking the same question of these nine musicals that we ask every Passover. Why is this show different from all other shows?

[2:24] Mo Brady: That's an excellent question, Nika.

[2:26] Mo Brady: I'd like to say I came up with it, but I didn't.

[2:31] Mo Brady: And because we're the Ensemblist, the experts we're collaborating with this season are fellow actors who have worked on one or more of these monumental musicals.

[2:49] Mo Brady: In addition to the expert artists we're bringing into the studio, we wanted to get a sense of the historical and political climate during their creation. What was the typical Broadway show like when the play debuted, and how were they unique compared to other plays of their time?

[3:04] Mo Brady: Thankfully, we didn't have to look too far to add the voice of one of the most beloved and esteemed experts on the Broadway experience to our research.

[3:10] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: I am Jennifer Ashley Tepper. I live in Midtown West on 57th Street, to be exact. I am like a professional Broadway fan. Sometimes I like to describe myself as, but I work as a theater historian and as the programming director of Feinstein's 54 Below. So I'm involved in the Broadway theater community in different ways.

[3:29] Mo Brady: Jen was the perfect person to bring on board for this season because her devotion to Broadway's dazzling details and the long arc of history fit right in with our season objective.

[3:38] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: The musical has changed very much since 1931 in that musicals say things that are a lot more important and meaningful to American life. Musicals are not as silly and throwaway. That's part of the reason why musicals are revived. Prior to 1931, they just existed in and of themselves. Musicals have become more diverse in terms of the stories they're telling, the races of the people on stage, the aspects of American life that are being portrayed. Before 1931, you kind of had operetta or you had musical dramas, and they most of the time didn't portray American life. There was this romanticism about going to the theater and seeing France or seeing, you know, something that was exotic or fun or felt like you were on vacation. And a little bit after 1931, people wanted something more deep from their theater experience. So theater evolved and audiences evolved too.

[4:36] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: These nine very different musicals have had nine very different expected requirements of their ensembles, from the 1931 winner of The I Sing, which included an ensemble of showgirls separate from the female singing ensemble, to last season's Hamilton, where the chorus was dubbed an ensemble of principles by choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler. As Broadway has changed over the last 80 plus years, the required skills and talents of performers have changed as well.

[5:02] Jennifer Ashley Tepper: One thing I think that really is the intersection of the Ensemblist and the Pulitzer Prize winning musical is that you can see throughout time that the ensemble members become more and more a part of the creation of the shows. Really throughout, you know, South Pacific had ensemble members who helped create their individual characters, but reaching an apex with A Chorus Line and then continuing from there, the ensemble members not only figured out who they were as individuals, but a lot of times they were actually in the rooms while the shows were being written. So in that way, the ensemble journey changed as the 20th century went on.

[5:49] Mo Brady: Our plan is to release these re-edited versions from our season on the history of the ensemble once a week for the next five weeks, so stay tuned for our episode on South Pacific in your podcast feeds next week. Thank you to Jennifer Ashley Tepper for allowing us to re-share her stories this week. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can be helping the Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and the second is by becoming a Patreon member. You can do that at patreon.com slash the Ensemblist. Please subscribe to the Ensemblist on Apple Podcasts or follow us on Spotify, or you can listen to all of our episodes at bpn.fm. And be sure to follow us on Instagram because things are changing all the time. Thanks for listening, guys. Until next time.