11 episodes

The Broadway-scale musical comes to the world of podcasts – spearheaded by a creative dream team that includes three-time Tony winner Doug Besterman, Tony and Pulitzer winner Mitchell Maxwell, Oscar and Golden Globe winner Dean Pitchford, Tony-nominee Patrick Page, Olivier-winner Lesli Margherita, Disney star Laura Marano, and YouTube superstar Kurt Hugo Schneider.

Featuring twenty-two original songs backed by a full band and sung by a stellar team of vocalists, Little Did I Know is the story of a group of friends – recent college graduates – who bring a broken-down summer theater back to life in 1976. The summer will be different from anything they expected, and what they experience will resonate throughout their lives. At turns funny, romantic, stirring, and poignant, this is an unforgettable coming-of-age story.

Starring Kurt Hugo Schneider, Laura Marano, Jennifer Blood, Alex Blue, Casey Breves, Alexander Chaplin, E. Clayton Cornelious, Richard Kind, Lesli Margharita, Patrick Page, and Sam Tsui.

Based on the novel by Mitchell Maxwell. Directed by Marlo Hunter. Music by Doug Besterman. Lyrics by Dean Pitchford and Marcy Heisler. Book by Lou Aronica and Johanna Besterman. Musical Director: Jeffery Saver. Orchestrations: Mike Morris. Sound Design, Edit and Mix: Dave Hart

Little Did I Know The Audio Drama Initiative

    • Fiction
    • 4.0 • 495 Ratings

The Broadway-scale musical comes to the world of podcasts – spearheaded by a creative dream team that includes three-time Tony winner Doug Besterman, Tony and Pulitzer winner Mitchell Maxwell, Oscar and Golden Globe winner Dean Pitchford, Tony-nominee Patrick Page, Olivier-winner Lesli Margherita, Disney star Laura Marano, and YouTube superstar Kurt Hugo Schneider.

Featuring twenty-two original songs backed by a full band and sung by a stellar team of vocalists, Little Did I Know is the story of a group of friends – recent college graduates – who bring a broken-down summer theater back to life in 1976. The summer will be different from anything they expected, and what they experience will resonate throughout their lives. At turns funny, romantic, stirring, and poignant, this is an unforgettable coming-of-age story.

Starring Kurt Hugo Schneider, Laura Marano, Jennifer Blood, Alex Blue, Casey Breves, Alexander Chaplin, E. Clayton Cornelious, Richard Kind, Lesli Margharita, Patrick Page, and Sam Tsui.

Based on the novel by Mitchell Maxwell. Directed by Marlo Hunter. Music by Doug Besterman. Lyrics by Dean Pitchford and Marcy Heisler. Book by Lou Aronica and Johanna Besterman. Musical Director: Jeffery Saver. Orchestrations: Mike Morris. Sound Design, Edit and Mix: Dave Hart

    Episode 00: Laura Marano Welcomes You to Our Show

    Episode 00: Laura Marano Welcomes You to Our Show

    Laura Marano, star of "Austin and Ally" and "Saving Zoe" welcomes you into the world of the first Broadway-level podcast musical. Listen to a piece of one of the twenty-two songs in the show and discover what will be coming your way starting March 31.

    • 3 min
    Episode 0: Kurt Hugo Schneider introduces the show

    Episode 0: Kurt Hugo Schneider introduces the show

    YouTube superstar Kurt Hugo Schneider welcomes you to the first Broadway-level podcast musical. Sample a couple of the twenty-two original songs in the show and get the first taste of the story you're going to be singing along with starting March 31.

    • 3 min
    Episode 2: Plan A2

    Episode 2: Plan A2

    Sam meets with Dr. Anderson Barrows, the owner of the Plymouth Barn Theatre. But things don't go exactly according to plan. Barrows's young wife Lizzie suggests mysteriously that she might be able to help but her reasons seem a bit suspect. Frustrated, Sam goes to visit Veronica, who has already heard that he "crashed and burned." Sam's not a Plan B kind of guy . . . but maybe it's time for Plan A2. Features the songs "Somebody Like You" and "Hi, Veronica."

    • 23 min
    Episode 3: You're Willing to be Flexible

    Episode 3: You're Willing to be Flexible

    Lizzie Barrows tells Sam she can help him . . . but it comes at a price. Meanwhile, other members of the crew make their way to Plymouth to see how Sam is doing. There, they meet Veronica and discover they have a shared story. Features a reprise of "Somebody Like You" and the new song "Nowhere to Be."

    • 21 min
    Episode 1: I Have the Answer

    Episode 1: I Have the Answer

    Meet Sam August: ambitious, driven, and focused on one thing and one thing only – making it as a director on Broadway as soon as possible. With college graduation looming, Sam stops at a restaurant in Plymouth, MA, and two extraordinary things happen. One is that he meets Veronica, a woman unlike any he's ever met before. The other is that he finds an ad seeking a director and crew for the reopening of the fabled Plymouth Barn Theatre. This is the opportunity he's been seeking. Now he just needs to convince his college friends to join him on the adventure. Features the songs "Little Do They Know" and "You Never Know."

    • 26 min
    Episode 4: Just Think About the Possibilities

    Episode 4: Just Think About the Possibilities

    Sam and the crew visit the theater for the first time and find it both inspiring and terrifying. Sam visits with Veronica afterward to share his excitement. But when the crew finds out about a compromise Sam made to get the gig, they're reminded of all of the other times Sam played fast and loose with the truth. Features the songs "Cape Cod Bay" and "Damn, Sam!"

    • 21 min

Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5
495 Ratings

495 Ratings

Franki57 ,

Hi

I love love love this!!!!

needmorebooks ,

Eh. Worth a Listen.

This is a great idea! But the plot is kinda cliche and random (at the same time lol). The songs are okay, but the lyrics are rough. When the entire chorus for one song is just “Blah, Blah, Blah,” I have issues with that. It’s worth a listen if you are missing your musicals, but I would never call it “Broadway-level.” Also, is that guy the man who played the man who sings Hellfire in Hunchback of Notre Dame? I can’t think of his name at the moment.

AshOfSix ,

It’s not bad, per se...

In the trailer, Kurt Hugo Schneider introduces this program as “the first true Broadway-level podcast musical”. Unfortunately for this musical, this automatically pits “Little Did I Know” against Two-Up Productions’ 2017 podcast musical, “36 Questions”. And “36 Questions” did it better.

“36 Questions” has dialogue, but the songs both stand on their own and tell their own story, and they move you through the musical. It’s all a cohesive whole, and the parts all work together to “show” the story, and dialogue isn’t generally used as exposition. The characters speak directly to the audience, but that’s part of the conceit of the musical. Natalie/Judith is intentionally creating a record of events. We, the audience, hear the story as it unfolds.

For this, the songs are really flat. There’s a lot of exposition, and the story moves mostly behind the scenes. We get moments of a summer, but between the snippets, we know time moves because we are told time moves. The songs are also a bit of a disconnect from the story. They’re not particularly complex, but they also rather lack structure. Often, it’ll seem like there’s been a missed opportunity for a tighter lyric, like the song has been set up for the expectation of a rhyme or repeated rhythm, but the expectation is neither fulfilled nor subverted. There isn’t generally really anything creative or interesting done. This is all telling with not much actually showing. This works better in the beginning when we’re getting to know the characters, but at the end, it just feels like there wasn’t really ever enough depth.

Mostly, I leave this wondering why this is being promoted as “the first true Broadway-level podcast musical”. Was no one involved in the production aware of “36 Questions”? Did anyone actually check to see if there had be previous podcast musicals? What did they mean by “Broadway-level”, and if someone knew about “36 Questions”, what about it makes it not Broadway level or pseudoBroadway-level? Why doesn’t “36 Questions” fit?

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