Among the engaging podcast offerings this summer are the latest installments of casual interviews with artists from the New York stage, a documentary series on the history of a favorite LGBTQ+ retreat, and an eight-part musical-comedy radio play set in NYC in the 1990s.
At This Performance with Jennifer Lyn – New York native Jennifer Lyn has been a theater-lover since she first went to see Cats as a child with her grandmother. A huge fan of Disney, Britney Spears, Joey McIntyre of New Kids on the Block, and The Boy Band Project, with six cats named after Broadway characters, she loved visiting Disney World in Orlando, where her grandparents had a condo, and was a Disney company employee at the age of nineteen in NYC, and was later working as a Broadway usher, when the pandemic shut down theaters and she decided to start her own podcast interview series.
She also loves understudies, as referenced in the title she chose for her audio show. Presenting laid-back friendly conversations with artists of the stage (and screen), past guests of the highly personable host have included such notables as Jeremy Jordan, James Monroe Iglehart, Katie Boeck, and members of The Boy Band Project, with The BBP’s Sam Harvey serving as co-host once a year on the anniversary of the podcast’s initial episode.
Finding Fire Island – Created by writer, executive producer, and native New Yorker Jess Rothschild and presented by Broadway Podcast Network, with archival material courtesy of Arts Project of Cherry Grove and Cherry Grove Archives Collection, the new docu-podcast series, which launched across all popular podcast platforms on July 6, brings to life how a sleepy 19th-century beach town became a modern-day queer mecca, stunning fantasy world, and cultural touchstone for artists and the New York City theater community.
Featuring performers Joel Kim Booster, Margaret Cho, Matt Rogers, and DJ Lina Bradford, writers Paul Rudnick, Brian Moylan, and Zach Stafford, theater director Ben Rimalower, filmmaker Parker Sargent, advocate Tomik Dash, and Cherry Grove legends Bob “Rose” Levine and Thom “Panzi” Hansen, the audio series goes behind the curtain of the mystique, legends, and lore of the LGBT communities of Cherry Grove and The Pines, from folks who experienced their evolution from the 1950s to today.
Grace Under Pressure – From PasticheNYC comes the world premiere of an eight-part musical-comedy radio-play series that follows the story of a woman alone in New York in the 1990s, who continuously slides down the socio-economic ladder, losing job after job while experiencing episodes of corporate hanky-panky, art-world exploitation, pyramid schemes, the sweatshop fashion industry, and the AIDS crisis, until she finds her fulfilling life’s work and true love.
Written and directed by Emily King, the work began as an Off-Off Broadway project in 1992, with the part of Grace McMoon created for her cousin Alice King, leading a cast of first-class New York voice actors before she passed last fall, after the series was completed. Each episode is complemented by the singer-songwriter acting as a kind of Greek (diner!) chorus, with a musical interlude from a trove of original ‘90s piano-bar ballads. Edited by Emily Duncan, the series includes NYC field recordings and sound design by Milo Barney, with Atticus Mulkey serving as recording engineer. New episodes debut each Thursday through July 27, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
