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 The NPR 100, and was producer of the NPR Music series Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall, hosted by Renee Montagne. He has produced more than a dozen documentaries on musical theater and Tin Pan Alley for NPR — most recently A Place for Us: Fifty Years of West Side Story.
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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Lansbury's acting career extended over an extraordinary seven decades. She says she knew early on that she'd never be "groomed to be a glamorous movie star" and thus sought out nontraditional roles. -
The celebrated composer-songwriter died on Friday. He had won several Tonys and Grammys, as well as an Oscar and Pulitzer, for musicals including West Side Story and Company.
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A live-music series founded in Europe, which connects one musician with one listener at a time, comes to Brooklyn for two weekends of concerts by Silkroad Ensemble artists.
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The Oscar-, Emmy- and Tony Award-winning actor began acting in films in the 1950s. He said he felt like he was "starting over" in acting every decade — "you never stop learning how to act," he said.
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With his trademark suspenders and Brooklyn-accented baritone, King spoke with world leaders, celebrities, authors, scientists, athletes — everyone.
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For 30 years, Shetler Studios provided affordable space in New York's theater district for rehearsals, readings, classes and auditions. The owners can't afford to continue because of the pandemic.
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Broadway has been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. Theaters are shuttered indefinitely, millions of dollars have been lost, and some members of the community have been infected by the coronavirus.
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As venues across the country have shut down in response to the coronavirus, some theaters have made archival videos of the closed productions available online, for the cost of a ticket.
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Producers and theater owners say Broadway will stay dark until at least June 7, dealing a further blow to New York's biggest tourist attraction.
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Fiona is a 3-year-old, 1,300-pound hippo, and she's a growing girl. Her keeper, Jenna Wingate, is grateful to be able to work during the coronavirus crisis: "It feels good to be needed," she says.
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McNally had suffered from lung cancer and pulmonary problems. He won his first Tony Award for Kiss of the Spider Woman. He also won Tonys for Love! Valor! Compassion!, Master Class and Ragtime.
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday announced a statewide ban of gatherings of more than 500 people. That includes Broadway's 41 theaters.
