Broadway Biz with Hal Luftig Broadway Podcast Network

What a thrill to welcome Cyndi Lauper to the podcast for its first season finale!
In their illuminating conversation, Cyndi and Hal speak about her very personal process writing "Not My Father's Son” for Kinky Boots and the importance of her glass ceiling-breaking Tony win for Best Original Score. Cyndi reflects on the roles of women in her family and their influence in shaping her idea of womanhood. Finally, Cyndi shares the creative freedom she feels while writing for Broadway and the importance of recognizing each of our own authentic selves.
Cyndi Lauper is a groundbreaking Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning songwriter and performing artist with global record sales in excess of 50 million. Her iconic voice, influential punk glamour, and infectious live shows have catapulted her to stardom. Lauper won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist with her first album, She's So Unusual, and became the first woman in history to have four top-five singles from a debut album. Since then, Lauper has released ten additional studio albums, yielding timeless classics like “Time After Time” and “True Colors,” and the anthemic “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” She’s been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, seven American Video Awards, and 18 MTV Awards. In 2013, Cyndi Lauper became the first solo woman to win Best Original Score (music and lyrics) for Kinky Boots. She contributed a Tony-nominated song to the score of the Broadway musical SpongeBob SquarePants and is currently writing the score for the Broadway adaptation of the 1988 feature film Working Girl. A pillar of female success, Lauper was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015, released a New York Times best-selling memoir, and continues to collect impressive accolades across the music industry and beyond. In 2018, Lauper designed and launched a sold-out Home Decor Collection with Grandin Road and added a guest starring role on CBS’ hit TV show Magnum PI to her acting resume. She closed out 2018 by receiving the “Icon Award” from Billboard at its 13th annual Women In Music event and brought down the house with a rousing tribute to Cher at Kennedy Center Honors.
In addition, Lauper is tireless in her advocacy work. She has been an activist since day one, always fighting for the underdog - especially women, people living with HIV/AIDS, and LGBTQ people. Her commitment runs so deep that she started her own charity, the True Colors United in 2008 to bring an end to homelessness amongst LGBTQ youth, who make up to 40% of the youth homelessness population.
Over the past 10 years, the True Colors United has had an indelible impact on ending youth homelessness in America. From playing a lead role in securing $167.5 million in new annual federal funding from Congress to invest in 46 communities across the country, which Cyndi powerfully testified in support of in the U.S. Senate, to training close to 2,000 homeless youth service providers for free over the past year to inclusively work with LGBTQ youth, Cyndi and the True Colors United are fundamentally changing how the country is working to prevent and end youth homelessness for the 4.2 million youth who experience it each year.
Follow Cyndi on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @CyndiLauper and stay informed on the advocacy of True Colors United on Facebook, Twitter (@TrueColorsUnite), and Instagram (@TrueColorsUnited).
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What an honor to spend some time in conversation with legendary costume designer, Jane Greenwood! Jane and Hal spoke about how she approaches the same show twice, the ethos for design she imparts on her students, and how American theatre has changed over her nearly sixty years in the industry.
Jane Greenwood has been designing on Broadway for more than fifty years. Originally from Liverpool, England, Ms. Greenwood was educated at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London. She began her career at the Oxford Playhouse. She has designed for theater, opera, dance, film and television, including 130 productions for Broadway since The Ballad of The Sad Café in 1963.
Recent Broadway credits include Long Day’s Journey into Night, Bright Star, Act One, You Can’t Take It With You, and A View From The Bridge. Her Off-Broadway credits include Belle Epoque, A Man of No Importance, Burn This, House/Garden, Vita and Virginia andThe Lisbon Traviata. Films include Arthur, Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna and the cult classic Can’t Stop the Music.
She has designed over a dozen productions at the American Shakespeare Festival Theater in Stratford, CT, The Public Theater, and Shakespeare in the Park. Ms. Greenwood has also done extensive work at the Metropolitan Opera, Center Theatre Group, The Guthrie Theater, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, The Dallas Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
Her awards include 21 Tony nominations (winning for Little Foxes), a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, the Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award, the Maharam/Henry Hewes Design Award for Tartuffe and Sylvia, the Lucille Lortel Award for Sylvia and Old Money, and the Helen Hayes Lifetime Achievement Award. Ms. Greenwood was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2003. She has also served as a Professor of Design at Yale School of Drama since 1976.
Jane’s next design for Broadway, a revival of Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite, is due to open early 2022.
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Such an illuminating conversation with David Rockwell today. David shared with Hal the importance of community theater in his childhood, his approach to designing the factory space for Kinky Boots, and why he thinks theater is miraculous.
David Rockwell, FAIA, is the founder and President of Rockwell Group, an interdisciplinary architecture and design firm based in New York, with satellite offices in Los Angeles and Madrid, that merges theater, performance and architecture to create extraordinary experiences and built environments across the globe. Notable projects include the Hayes Theater (New York); Union Square Cafe and Daily Provisions (New York); TED Theater (Vancouver, BC); the headquarters for Warner Music Group (Los Angeles); Nobu restaurants and hotels worldwide(including Nobu Downtown and Nobu Hotel Barcelona); The Shed (Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Lead Architect and Rockwell Group, Collaborating Architect); Equinox Hotel (New York); Moxy hotels (Times Square, Chelsea, East Village and South Beach); and set designs for more than 60 productions, including Kiss Me Kate, Tootsie, She Loves Me, Kinky Boots, and Hairspray. Honors include a Tony Award for Best Scenic Design for She Loves Me; the 2015 AIANY President’s Award; the 2008 National Design Award from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum for outstanding achievement in Interior Design; the 2009 Pratt Legends Award; and the Presidential Design Award.
To see David’s latest projects, visit RockwellGroup.com or follow them on Instagram @RockwellGroup.
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What a full, and at times bittersweet, conversation with Jenny Steingart today about her life in the arts. Jenny spoke about how her mentor, the late Margo Lion, paved the way for her in producing, what most nourishes her about the arts, and the poignant inspiration behind her founding Arts Nova.
Jenny produces theater, film, and television. Recent productions include Freestyle Love Supreme on Broadway, a limited engagement of Sir Patrick Stewart's A Christmas Carol, Tina Fey’s Mean Girls, Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish and Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 starring Josh Groban. She most recently produced the documentary We Are Freestyle Love Supreme, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and is now available on Hulu.
Jenny produced the cult film Black Dynamite and the subsequent animated television series on Adult Swim, and is the co-founding partner of the Japanese animation studio Ultra Super Pictures (Trigger, Sanzigen, Ordet and Liden Films). She is a partner in FLS Academy, a music, improvisation and rap school founded by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tommy Kail and Anthony Veneziale.
Jenny is also the co-founder of Ars Nova, New York City’s premier theater for emerging artists and new work. For 18 years, Ars Nova has launched the careers of such artists as Beau Willimon (House of Cards), Liz Meriwether (New Girl), Billy Eichner, Tommy Kail (Hamilton), Alex Timbers (Moulin Rouge!) along with Pulitzer Prize winners Annie Baker and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Visit ArsNovaNYC or follow Ars Nova on Instagram @ArsNovaNYC for the latest and greatest artists on the rise. Be sure to keep up with Jenny on Instagram @JennySteingart.
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Such a pleasure to sit down with Nick Salmon, who has had an incredible career in theatrical producing and managing. Hal and Nick discuss touring in the UK versus in the US, subscription models, mentoring the next generation of producers.
Although Nick’s interest in theatre dates back to his school days, he learned the West End business during his time as a theatrical agent. He also worked on several films including The Go Between and The Railway Children, before returning to theatre. During his career he has managed and produced for HM Tennent, Churchill Theatre Bromley and Theatre of Comedy at the Shaftsbury Theatre, as well as producing in his own right in the West End and on tour – over eighty productions in total. Whilst at Act Productions, he programmed their nine West End theatres and set up their production company, which he ran as Executive Producer until launching Playful Productions with Matthew and Nia. For over twenty years he was Chief Executive of Stage One, a registered charity supporting new UK theatre producers. He has served on several theatre boards including the Board of The Society of London Theatre, of which he was president for three years, and currently is on the League of Independent Producers board.
Check out what’s playing next on www.playfuluk.com.
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So wonderful to catch up with Dede Ayite, who made her Broadway debut in the 2018 revival of Children of a Lesser God. On the podcast today, Dede and Hal explore how to use design to construct character, how she imparts the value of transformation on her students, and the creative benefit of embracing failure.
Dede Ayite is a two time tony nominated costume designer whose Broadway credits include A Soldier’s Play, Slave Play, American Son, and Children of a Lesser God. Select Off-Broadway credits include Secret Life of Bees, Marie and Rosetta, (Atlantic); By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, (Signature); BLKS, School Girls… (MCC); Bella: An American Tall Tale (Playwrights Horizons); The Royale (Lincoln Center); Toni Stone (Roundabout). Regionally, Ayite’s work has appeared at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Steppenwolf, Arena Stage and more. She has worked in television with Netflix, Comedy Central, and FOX Shortcoms. Ayite earned her MFA at the Yale School of Drama and has received an Obie, Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes, Theatre Bay Area, and Jeff Awards, along with four Drama Desk Nominations.
To catch a glimpse of what she's dreaming up next, follow Dede on Instagram @DedeAyiteDesign.
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