BWW Blog: The Strange World of Broadway Podcasts

Have you ever noticed how many Broadway podcasts share the format of one person with musical expertise teaching one person with barely any interest in theatre? Musicals with Cheese, Broadway Baby, MusicalSplaining, all of which are amazing (and I love them dearly) and all of them have this format!

I am a huge fan of podcasts and these were ones that I was already a fan of before being stuck in my home for so long. I did notice that my favorite podcasts had almost the exact same format but with enough differences to feel fresh, and that was on purpose! It's comforting to fall back on something so familiar.

But sitting around and listening to the same podcasts as my sleep schedule gets horribly more messed up each day and Monday quickly turns into Thursday, I have been craving something different. I usually use the Broadway Podcast Network to find something new but if it isn't the above format then it's interviews with people working in the industry.

Which not only works but they are typically amazing! There's no problem with them on their own, just that I noticed it's again - more of the same format.

Is it a problem with not having a lot of ways to talk about theatre in a podcast, or is it only a problem when I'm sitting in the same room every day and desperately want just something Radically Different? Honestly it's probably 90% the second one since I didn't notice it until now but there's a high chance someone else is feeling the same way.

A hidden gem that I found was Once More, with Dragons! A Broadway inspired DND podcast about a group of fantasy explorers performers with a beautiful landscape and interesting plot of the devious work of the Understudies (unrelated to real life understudies, which are the least bit devious and typically are not involved with secret plots to control towns). Sadly it currently only has three episodes and I've listened to them all, so back to the drawing board.

But it did scratch an itch! It was completely different then the other podcasts that I typically loved but were feeling stale. I was set off on a new mission - story centered podcasts with a theatre feel (I was thinking of something like The Magnus Archives, something that I have still never given a chance but is apparently very popular right now. How did I know I wanted something like that without ever listening to it before? There were obvious flaws in the plan that I refused to see).

Then I stumbled upon: Loveville High, a 9-episode series centered on a high school prom and every episode focuses on a couple at that prom. I listened to the first episode and instantly fell in love! And it was concluded so there wasn't a feeling of eagerly waiting for the storyline to finish while have anxious thoughts about how it could be abandoned.

Con: Each episode is less than 20 minutes long, and I'm still in my pajamas with nothing to do.

As I finish writing my blog post I'm going to leave with something that I have just found but haven't listened to yet: Bleeding Love. A post-apocalyptic musical podcast. It's a musical! Not people talking about musicals but a whole musical made for the format! Both exactly what I needed and possibly a bit too timely (because it sure feels like the apocalypse sometimes) so hopefully it isn't too good to be true.

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