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Hosted by: Dick Gordon
Show Originally Aired: 10/15/2004 CALL 1 800-423-TALK
A Century of Broadway
Patricia Morrison, Alfred Drake, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang in a scene from "Kiss Me Kate", 1948. (credit: Culver Pictures) Email to friend
For much of the 20th century, Broadway was the place for anyone who wanted to make it big. Stars like Paul Robeson, Ethel Merman and Barbra Streisand all shot to fame under those bright lights.
A hundred years after musical theater first pitched its tent in what is now Times Square, a new PBS series casts a loving eye backstage, and argues that the musical has always had as much substance as spectacle. Shows like "Oklahoma!" and "West Side Story," the series insists, hold up a mirror to the nation's psyche, reflecting both its deepest fears and desires.
