Radio and Audio Features and Documentaries

Gay White Way

2 Stories

Every year, hundreds, or even thousands of talented young people come to New York to study, audition and do their damnedest to make it big on the stage whose ultimate Holy Grail is Broadway. In this story, I speak to some of these starry-eyed youth as they prepare for the Big Time in Musical Theater school, rehearsal and beyond. Go for it!

It may be hard or many of us to imagine the glitter and the sometimes risque fun associated with the old nightclubs, burlesques and vaudeville houses of the 1920s and 1930s, especially in New York, where such entertainment reached a certain height of glamor. But what was that life like for those on the other side of the footlights? For this piece, I spoke with the late Dorshka Rafaelson, formerly of the Ziegfeld Follies, and Isabelle Powell, widow of Adam Clayton Powell, who graced Harlem’s Cotton Club. Both were still-beautiful, and beautifully spirited, women.

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