Jeff Lunden
Jeff Lunden is a freelance arts reporter and producer whose stories have been heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, as well as on other public radio programs.
Lunden contributed several segments to the Peabody Award-winning series , and was producer of the NPR Music series , hosted by Renee Montagne. He has produced more than a dozen documentaries on musical theater and Tin Pan Alley for NPR — most recently y.
Other documentaries have profiled George and Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen and Jule Styne. Lunden has won several awards, including the Gold Medal from the New York Festival International Radio Broadcasting Awards and a CPB Award.
Lunden is also a theater composer. He wrote the score for the musical adaptation of Arthur Kopit's Wings (book and lyrics by Arthur Perlman), which won the 1994 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. Other works include Another Midsummer Night, Once on a Summer's Day and adaptations of The Little Prince and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for Theatreworks/USA.
Lunden is currently working with Perlman on an adaptation of Swift as Desire, a novel of magic realism from Like Water for Chocolate author Laura Esquivel. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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All four of the playwright's grandparents died in the Holocaust, but Stoppard only learned he was Jewish in middle age. Now, at 85, he engages with his family history in the play Leopoldstadt. -
In 2014, a study found that only 1.4% of orchestra musicians were Black. In 2022, it's hard to know if that number is better or worse. -
It's been a year since Broadway started back up again - and there've been a lot of ups and downs. COVID still had the power to shut down shows, but performers and audiences persisted.
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Rodgers, the daughter of theatrical legend Richard Rogers, was a songwriter, children's book author and philanthropist. Her memoir, Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers, is out now. -
The concert version of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods moves to Broadway, with Sara Bareilles, Brian D'Arcy James and others.
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A concert version of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods stars Sara Bareilles, Brian d'Arcy James, Joshua Henry and others. -
The play is based on Khaled Hosseini's 2003 best-selling novel, set in Afghanistan and among Afghan migrants in the United States. -
Casting a female actor in the lead role of "Richard III" is just one twist New York's Shakespeare in the Park has given the classic this summer.
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Guirira said it was interesting to explore "toxic masculinity" as a perpetrator instead of an object - and that the role brought up a lot of questions. -
Sunday's 75th annual Tony Awards celebrated Broadway's first full season since the pandemic shutdown. A theme of the night was deep gratitude for the uncelebrated people who keep the shows running.
