Musicals

Frank Loesser wrote the musicals Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying — in addition to over 700 other songs. On today's Fresh Air, we discuss Loesser's musical legacy.

MacFarlane is best known for creating the animated TV shows Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show. But he's also a singer whose new album features songs from the Great American Songbook.

George and Ira Gershwin wrote some of their best songs for movies -- one of which, 1937's A Damsel in Distress, has just been issued by Warner Archives. Critic Lloyd Schwartz says it may be the oddest of the Gershwin brothers' films.

Songwriter Hugh Martin co-wrote the Christmas tune that Judy Garland made famous in the 1944 classic Meet Me in St. Louis. Martin, who recently released a memoir, explains how he came up with his famous lyrics.

Martin wrote "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" for Meet Me in St. Louis, along with dozens of other songs for MGM and Broadway musicals. His career is celebrated on a new CD with essays.

Producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan take us inside the world of Smash, the new NBC musical drama about the people putting together a Broadway musical.

The British musical private-eye drama, which first aired in 1986, starred Michael Gambon as a novelist hospitalized with a horrible skin condition who tries to write a Hollywood screenplay in his mind. David Bianculli explains why the miniseries is "TV's most polished, audacious masterpiece."

Day started singing and dancing when she was a teenager, and made her first film at 24. After nearly 40 movies, she walked away from that part of her life in 1968, and started rescuing and caring for animals. Here, she speaks to Terry Gross in a lengthy interview about her career in film and music.

Richard Adler, who co-wrote the musicals The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees with his partner, Jerry Ross, died Thursday at his home in Southampton, N.Y. He was 90. Fresh Air remembers the composer and lyricist with excerpts from a 1990 interview.

This interview was originally broadcast on Aug. 9, 1990.

The beloved musical celebrates its 60th birthday with a one-night screening of a newly restored print and a new reissue on DVD and Blu-Ray.

The Oscar-nominated actress plays the forbidding wife of a cult leader in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master. She tells Fresh Air it was an opportunity to play a character type she'd never played before.

Musician Michael Feinstein chronicles his experience working as an archivist and cataloger for legendary songwriter Ira Gershwin. The book is presented through the stories of 12 of the Gershwin brothers' songs, including "Fascinating Rhythm," "The Man I Love" and "I Got Rhythm."

Fresh Air's movie critic does not think any masterpieces were made this year, but he does compare Daniel Day Lewis to Julius Caesar and have some choice thoughts on the movie version of Les Mis.

The Broadway star has a new album, I Got Love: Songs of Jerome Kern, which features songs by the great Broadway composer. The collection came out of a live show Luker performed at the Manhattan club 54 Below.

The screenwriter, producer, director and actor, whose name has become synonymous with American comedy, talks about his penchant for spoofs and his decades-long friendship with Carl Reiner. Brooks, who is among a handful of people who've won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards, is the subject of a new documentary on PBS.

In addition to playing a cable news producer on Aaron Sorkin's HBO drama, Gallagher is a Tony Award-winning Broadway performer. He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about starring in a punk rock musical and rehearsing Sorkin's Newsroom scripts.

The political satirist and comedian talks about his Broadway performance (and performance anxieties).

This interview was originally broadcast on June 14, 2011.

HBO's new TV special is part biography, part music-appreciation lesson and part performance piece. Critic David Bianculli says it's a superbly compiled work, overseen by two of the people most intimately familiar with the composer himself.