Ep 9: The Silver Age of Broadway, Part 1

Most historians have labeled the entire period from the 1920s through the 1960s, “The Golden Age of Broadway”, but I find it much more useful to call the era that spans from the end of WWI to the opening of Oklahoma in 1943, “The Silver Age of Broadway.” During this vibrant time more than 300 musical comedies, operettas, and revues opened on Broadway, and overwhelmingly they were the creation of a second wave of Jewish, Irish, African-American, and Queer men and women. In this episode I focus on the the 1920s – “The Jazz Age” – and the contributions of George & Ira Gershwin; Rudolf Friml; Rodgers & Hart; Vincent Youmans & Irving Caesar; DeSylva, Brown & Henderson and more!