Broadway Bound: The Musicals That Never Came to Broadway

Anthony Newley spent his career trying to convince audiences he was a genius. Sometimes they agreed. Then came Chaplin.

This week, we tell the story of a musical that paired one of entertainment's biggest personalities with one of history's biggest icons. The problem? There wasn't enough room on the marquee for both of them.

It's a tale of ego, ambition, artistry, and a man who desperately wanted to prove he was more than yesterday's star.

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For decades, Ginger Rogers made difficult things look effortless. Then she tried Broadway.

This week, we examine The Pink Jungle, a musical that arrived at exactly the wrong moment for one of Hollywood's most beloved stars. Beneath the sequins and backstage drama lies a surprisingly human story about aging, relevance, and what happens when a legend can't see the forest through the trees.

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Barbara Cook is one of the greatest voices Broadway has ever produced. Which makes Halloween one of the strangest chapters in her story.

This week, we explore a musical about witches, ghosts, and suburban eccentrics—but more importantly, an artist standing at a crossroads. Because sometimes a flop isn't the end of a career. Sometimes it's intermission before Act Two.

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Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that qualify as fair use.

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Somewhere in America, a producer once looked at Watergate and said, "You know what this scandal needs? A kick line."

This week, we follow Gene Barry through not one but two Broadway-bound curiosities: Spotlight and Watergate. The real story isn't politics. It's about Broadway's eternal belief that absolutely anything can become a musical. Sometimes that belief gives us Hamilton. Sometimes it gives us this.

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Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that qualify as fair use.

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Most actors spend the rest of their lives trying to escape the role that made them famous. Robert Preston spent the rest of his career trying to find another one.

This week, we look at We Take the Town and The Prince of Grand Street, two fascinating near-misses that reveal a star stubbornly refusing to become his own tribute act. It's a story about reinvention, risk-taking, and the terrible burden of being Harold Hill forever.

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Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that qualify as fair use.

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Jerry Lewis looked at one of the craziest stage comedies ever written and thought, "Needs more Jerry Lewis." The result was Hellzapoppin' '76, a musical so ambitious, so expensive, and so gloriously overstuffed that it practically collapsed under the weight of its own enthusiasm.

This week, we explore the age-old Broadway question: when does confidence become hubris? Or, put another way, how many clowns can you fit into one flop?

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By 1974, Bette Davis had spent forty years winning fights, collecting enemies, and becoming Bette Davis. Then she decided to do a musical. What could possibly go wrong? Everything.

This week, we tell the story of Miss Moffat, the legendary out-of-town disaster that finally met its match in an equally legendary star. At its heart, this isn't a story about a flop. It's about what happens when Broadway and Bette Davis both expect to be the boss.

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CW: This episode frequently mentions the word r**e in relation to the story

Angela Lansbury survived murder mysteries, Tom Bosley's New England accent, and a murderous nephew. But could she survive a musical about a Southern woman who decides the solution to racism is......well, you just need to listen to this episode about the Styne/Merrill musical Prettybelle

This week, we examine one of the most baffling concepts ever set to music and discover how one of Broadway's most beloved stars managed to walk away from a catastrophe with her reputation not only intact—but somehow improved.

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Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that qualify as fair use.

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Bea Arthur spent her career playing women who could level a grown man with a single look. So naturally she starred in A Mother's Kisses, a musical about a stage mother so terrifying she makes Mama Rose look like Maria Von Trapp.

This week, we explore the show that seemed perfectly suited to Bea's talents and ask a simple question: can a star be too right for a role?

Along the way, we'll uncover a musical that wasn't really about Broadway at all—it was about what happens when nobody in the room is willing to blink first.

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Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that qualify as fair use.

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Season 3 is almost here!

This season on Broadway Bound: The Musicals That Never Came to Broadway, we're turning the spotlight on the stars who thought Broadway would be their next triumph... and discovered it had other plans.

Join Robert W. Schneider as he explores the stories behind Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, Bea Arthur, Jerry Lewis, Ginger Rogers, Anthony Newley, Barbara Cook, Robert Preston, Gene Barry, Randy Quaid, and the Broadway-bound musicals that never quite made it.

It's a season about ambition, celebrity, ego, reinvention, and the glorious chaos that happens when legends collide with live theater.

Season 3, I'm the Greatest Star, premieres July 2, 2026. Subscribe now so you don't miss a single flop.

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60 Songs

50 Years

9 Leads

5 Directors

4 Scripts

1 Sondheim

We close our second season with the story of Stephen Sondheim's half century quest to bring musical life to the true story of 1920s schemers Addison and Wilson Mizner.

Whether you knew it as A Sentimental Guy, Wise Guys, Gold, Get Rich Quick, Bounce, or Road Show, this episode will give you a glimpse into never before heard communication between some of Broadway's most prolific minds as they all work to bring Sondheim's dream to fruition.

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If I said to you I have a score by Guys and Dolls’ Frank Loesser, book by Kiss Me Kate’s Sam Spewack, directed by the one and only Bob Fosse, and starring television personality Phyllis Newman, you’d probably ask where could you invest because this is gonna be bigger than talking pictures!

But, it wasn’t? Why? Why did all of these wonderful people struggle with making Russian expansion funny and musical?

Well…..why is Frank Loesser’s Pleasures and Palaces even worth talking about?

What if I told you it was the show that created the Fosse dancer. See what happened was…..well, you will need to listen to find out!

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I never miss an Arthur Miller musical!

Yes, you read that correctly. Arthur Miller, the voice of gritty American realism, whose plays confronted capitalism, communism, and catastrophe one day woke up and decided to be the next Jerry Herman. You see what happened was....

Well, you will need to listen to our episode about UP FROM PARADISE to find out!

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What do Leonard Bernstein, James Joyce, woolly mammoths, Bebe Neuwirth, the ice age, and Mario Cantone all have in common? They all tried to succeed by the skin of their teeth in John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joseph Stein's musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder's meta-theatrical experience titled The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, Over and Over, All About Us.....

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In 1960, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt created theater

history when their whimsical musical, The Fantasticks, the little show that

no one believed in, opened and would not close until forty years later.

Twenty-seven years later they would say “Smart New York money says we're not what's

happening at the moment. We are perceived as the past. The perspective of us

needs to be altered,” and so they plunged head first into musicalizing the play

that had inspired them to create theater in the first place, Thornton Wilder’s Our

Town. But why, almost forty years later, no one will ever get to hear it?

See what happened was…..well, guess you will need to find out for yourself when we explore how the geniuses behind The Fantasticks struggled against the tides of British imports to bring musical life to Grover’s Corners, with a cast of characters ranging from Gene Kelly to Angela

Lansbury to Peter Pan herself, Mary Martin.

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certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides the

statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and

identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that qualify as

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It might end up being one the longest partnerships in the history of the American Musical. Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the lyricists of On the Town, Wonderful Town, Bells Are Ringing, Do Re Mi, Applause, On the 20th Century, the screenplay writers of Singing in the Rain, and the duo that gave the world phrases like “New York, New York, it’s a helluva town!” “Never Never land!” “Make Someone Happy” “The Party’s Over” and so many others.

But, all of that amazing work might not have happened if they had brought their gold rush musical, Bonanza Bound, onto Broadway when they were first starting out!

Grab your sleds and huskies because there is gold in them that hills….and by hills I mean Philadelphia where we will look at 1947’s Bonanza Bound!

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Before Lin Manuel Miranda....before Jason Robert Brown....before Jonathan Larson....there was Meredith Willson, the one man band who gave the world its most American of musicals, The Music Man.

But what happens when the music man wants to change his tune? And change it while being confronted with every major life crisis imaginable?

Join Christopher Columbus, Meredith Willson, and Chita Rivera in a madcap adventure through one of the trickiest musicals to sink on its way to Broadway: 1491

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Composer Cy Coleman gave Broadway some of its most iconic melodies:

Big Spender, Real Live Girl, Hey, Look Me Over, and the list goes on and on. He

was the King of 60s smooth swing and had never once closed a show out of town….until….

Along with a wild crew including a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist,

a testy choreographer, a director unsure of the material, and a leading man who

was as eccentric offstage as he was on, Cy Coleman tried to bring a bucolic

morality musical to life but Home Again, Home Again shuttered in Canada.

But soon Coleman had an idea for his next musical! A musical

about a musical whose wild crew included a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a

testy choreographer, a director unsure of the material, and a leading man who

was as eccentric offstage as he was on, as they all careened to opening on the

great bright way.

See what happened was…well, you will just need to jump into

our episode focusing on Baker’s Dozen/Home Again/Home Again Home Again/10 Days

to Broadway/13 Days to Broadway…..yes….there are more titles.

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certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides the

statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and

identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that qualify as

fair use.

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Trigger Warning: This episode deals with pedophilia

If there was source material that no one ever thought could

be a musical, you would go to one man to write it. Not Lin Manuel Miranda. Not

Stephen Sondheim. Not even Oscar Hammerstein. You would go to lyricist Alan Jay

Lerner who, along with Frederick Loewe, created Brigadoon, Camelot, and the

juggernaut known as My Fair Lady.

But when Loewe chooses to retire, and Broadway moves to pop,

Alan Jay Lerner has two options. He can either retire himself OR try to outdo

the current crop of edgy young songwriters who are putting sex, drugs, rock and

roll onstage. Could Lerner top them all with the adding songs to the most scandalous

book ever written?

See what happened was….well, you will need to find out for yourself

when we see what happened when Alan Jay Lerner tried to get audiences excited

about turning Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, a book centered on the adoration of

nymphets, into a big old musical called Lolita, My Love!

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identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that qualify as fair use.

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In 1977, Martin Charnin, Charles Strouse, and Thomas Meehan,

looked at one another on the opening night of Annie and said five magic words

to one another “This show will run forever!”

Thirteen years later, Charnin, Strouse, and Meehan looked at

one another on the opening night of Annie 2 and said another five words to one

another “We wrote the wrong show.”

See what happened was…..well, guess you will need to find

out for yourself when we explore how the geniuses behind Annie 1

struggled to find the right elements to make Annie 2 just as brilliant as

her older sister.

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FAIR USE:

Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of

expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in

certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides the

statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and

identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting,

teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that qualify as

fair use.

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