Broadway Podcast Network
130 episodes listed below
Broadway history, heard at the piano.
Anything Goes is an archival theatre interview series built around patient conversations with musical-theatre writers and composers. Episodes move through credits, recordings, and production history with room for songs, memories, and the practical details of craft.
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Anything Goes is a Broadway archive with the patience to let history play out in full. The series returns Paul Lazarus's 1980s radio programs as podcast segments, preserving the shape of long interviews rather than turning them into quick career summaries. Each episode tends to begin with a precise frame: a composer, a year, a show, and the point in the artist's career when the conversation took place. Then the music enters. Songs are not treated as decoration, because the interviews use them to ask how a theatrical idea became sound. Alan Menken's episodes move through God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Little Shop of Horrors with attention to Howard Ashman's lyrics and book, the BMI workshop connection, and the shift from a more serious approach to the darker pop vocabulary of the finished show. The Little Shop material is especially rich on style. Phil Spector, the Crystals, the Chiffons, Motown menace, staging, and the voice of Audrey II all become part of one craft conversation. Stephen Schwartz's programs carry a different tension. They catch him before Wicked, looking back at Godspell, Pippin, The Magic Show, The Baker's Wife, and Working while also wondering what might come next. The tone can be frank. Schwartz talks about success, backlash, difficult productions, film work, pop songs, and the emotional residue of making shows. Burton Lane's episodes reach further into Broadway and Hollywood memory. Finian's Rainbow, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Yip Harburg, Ira Gershwin, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, and film-studio work appear through recollection rather than list-making. The pleasure is in the specificity. A title leads to a collaborator, a collaborator leads to a room, and a room leads to the pressure of writing something that works. Lazarus's questions are researched and orderly. He gives dates and credits enough weight to matter, then leaves space for the guest's memory to complicate the official record. The show is best for listeners who enjoy theatre history as a living conversation. It rewards attention. It also carries the texture of old broadcast audio, network framing, and occasional inserted promotions around the restored material. At its best, Anything Goes sounds like opening a cabinet of annotated show albums and finding the writers still at the piano.
Made for: For musical-theatre listeners who care about composers, lyricists, show development, recordings, and the stories behind Broadway songs. It especially suits people who prefer archival depth to quick celebrity chat.
What sets it apart: The series pairs extended 1980s interviews with song excerpts, composer demonstrations, and specific production context. Its value is the primary-source feel: artists discussing work while many later reputations were still unfinished.
Take a trip backstage with Broadway’s best – exclusive interviews with the leading creators of musical theatre. Based on the popular 1980s radio series produced and hosted by award-winning director and producer, Paul Lazarus, ANYTHING GOES is a celebration of storytelling through song, past, present and future. Now available in 30-minute segments. Hundreds of episodes featuring show-stopping interviews with composers, lyricists, book writers, directors and performing legends from the Broadway stage. A treasure trove of rare and famous songs performed by the original singers as well as the writers themselves. The series showcases interviews with living composers and lyricists like Stephen...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Paul Lazarus pairs composers' working memories with their songs, turning musical theater history into a detailed record of craft.
Anything Goes lets musical theater composers account for their work in their own voices, with Paul Lazarus guiding archival interviews and placing songs beside the conversations that produced them.
Broadway history pulls up a piano bench, and you hear composers explain how songs found their shape.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A patient look at Menken's stage years, collaboration habits, and the craft behind a musical.
This archival Broadway radio conversation follows Alan Menken through his stage years, with the attention staying on the work itself. Paul Lazarus keeps the focus on God Bless You, Mr.
A patient look at Menken finding the shape of his style through craft, staging, and story.
Paul Lazarus revisits Anything Goes from 1982 to meet Alan Menken before the later film work and Oscars, when the talk is still about Broadway craft, theatrical lineage, and the making of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Little Shop of Horrors. The episode has a steady pull.
A patient Broadway archive that lets Stephen Schwartz's career speak for itself.
Paul Lazarus uses this 1980 broadcast to frame Stephen Schwartz at an early, busy stage in a career that reaches from Godspell and Pippin to The Magic Show, The Baker's Wife, and Working.
A patient pass through Broadway memory, shaped by credits, collaborators, and a few nerves.
Burton Lane's career comes through as a chain of working memories: first meeting Alan J. Lerner, the making of Royal Wedding, and the practical give-and-take of collaborating with figures like Ira Gershwin. The best part is the accumulation of small, telling details.
A Burton Lane retrospective that centers the songs, the collaborations, and his frank view of uneven Hollywood work.
Burton Lane comes across as a working composer rather than a monument: Broadway titles, film songs, and collaborations all sit close together, with "Can Happen in New York," "Chin Up, Cheerio, Carry On," and "Poor You" doing most of the heavy lifting.
A patient theater-history portrait that lets Burton Lane's working life come into focus.
Burton Lane comes through here as a working composer, shaped less by legend than by steady collaboration and the habits of a real studio life.
A steady look at how Nine was shaped by what stayed and what did not.
The review keeps its attention on Maury Yeston and on Nine as a score shaped by practical limits: what stayed, what went, and how a strong song can still miss the stage.
A patient look at how Yeston thinks about songs as stagecraft.
Paul Lazarus frames this 1982 broadcast as a portrait of Maury Yeston beyond Nine: Broadway composer-lyricist, pop songwriter, orchestral writer, author, and teacher.
Kaitlin Prest blends personal reenactment and Gaza war testimony across serialized documentary seasons.
Broadway talk with twin-speed sparkle.
Paul Lazarus introduces a 1982 broadcast from the Broadway Podcast Network’s revival of Anything Goes, and notes that this is the second of three programs with Alan Menken.
This episode resurfaces a 1982 radio interview with composer Alan Menken, recorded before he won eight Academy Awards for films like The Little Mermaid and Aladdin.
This is the third and final installment of a three-part 1980 radio series on composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, originally produced by Paul Lazarus and now rebroadcast by the Broadway Podcast Network.
This episode features part two of a three-part series exploring the career of composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, including a story about writing lyrics for Ben Vereen's Pippin recording.
Paul Lazarus opens with Stephen Schwartz.
Burton Lane begins with an elevator.
This episode is the third part of a four-part series exploring the career of legendary Broadway composer Burton Lane, originally broadcast in 1981.
Part two stays on Burton Lane.
Burton Lane gets a careful archive listen.
A discussion about how modern sound systems and microphones have changed the experience of Broadway musicals, with examples from classic shows like On Your Toes and Babes in Arms.
This episode is the first of a two-part series exploring the career of Broadway orchestrator Hans Spialek, who worked with famous composers like Gershwin, Rogers, and Porter on shows from the 1920s to 1940s.
This episode concludes a three-part series on Broadway composer-lyricist Maury Yeston, featuring an interview where he discusses his songwriting process and the creation of his work, including the musical Nine.
In this 1982 radio interview, Broadway composer-lyricist Maury Yeston discusses the creation of Nine, his musical adaptation of Fellini's 8½, with host Paul Lazarus.
In this 1982 archival radio interview, host Paul Lazarus speaks with Tony Award-winning composer-lyricist Maury Yeston about his career and the creation of Nine, the Broadway musical based on Fellini's Eight and a Half.
Paul Lazarus interviews legendary Broadway writer Yip Harburg about his show Flahooly and its failure during the McCarthy era.
Part two of a three-part interview with legendary Broadway lyricist E.Y.
Paul Lazarus interviews legendary Broadway lyricist E.Y.
Paul Lazarus interviews composer-lyricist Craig Carnelia about writing emotional songs for women in musical theater.
Craig Carnelia is back in the archive.
This episode is the first of a three-part series on composer-lyricist Craig Carnelia, featuring an interview and songs from his musicals like 'Is There Life After High School' and 'Working'.
Charles Strouse discusses Lee Adams.
Paul Lazarus interviews composer Charles Strauss about his career and shows like Bye Bye Birdie and Annie.
Paul Lazarus interviews legendary composer Cy Coleman about his collaborations and career in Broadway musical theater.
Paul Lazarus interviews legendary composer Cy Coleman about his career and collaboration with Dorothy Fields.
Paul Lazarus interviews legendary Broadway composer Cy Coleman about his career and collaborations.
Host Paul Lazarus interviews Broadway legends Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt about their careers and the creation of iconic musicals.
A tribute to legendary composer Arthur Schwartz, featuring interviews and songs from his career, part of a series on Broadway musical theater.
A tribute to legendary Broadway composer Arthur Schwartz, featuring his songs and legacy, part of a radio series revival.
A tribute to legendary Broadway composer Arthur Schwartz, featuring interviews and songs from his career.
Paul Lazarus hosts a tribute to The Fantastics, featuring an unoriginal cast album with past performers.
Paul Lazarus introduces a two-part program featuring recordings of performers from various productions of The Fantastics, including creators Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt.
A tribute to Broadway legend Laman Engle, featuring his composition 'The Shoebird' and discussion of his career.
A tribute episode honoring musical theater legend Laman Engle, featuring interviews and memories from colleagues.
A tribute to Broadway legend Laman Engle, featuring interviews and analysis of his contributions to musical theater.
Paul Lazarus hosts a retrospective on Tony Award-winning musicals from 1964-1984, featuring interviews and analysis.