Dave’s Gone By Interview (7/18/2020): JEFF GOODMAN

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Dave Lefkowitz chats with old friend Jeff Goodman

Topics include: coronavirus, gastric bypass, trivia game.

Segment aired July 18, 2020 as part of the annual Broadway theater special edition of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio show/podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations.  For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2020 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By #754 (7/11/2020): IS ANYBODY HAPPY?

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Here is the 754th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning July 11, 2020. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon Reads the papers; Inside Broadway; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Dillon); Eating Competition; Today/Yesterday (July 11), Wretched Pun of Destiny (icon); Potato News, Dave’s Gone Canceling (Quick Draw McGraw).

Guest: Dave’s wife Joyce

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (corona at work, Wheat Thin contest, Joey & Miki, new potato, Carl in the kitchen, new shorts)
01:08:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
01:29:00 POTATO NEWS
01:42:00 INSIDE BROADWAY
02:05:00 DAVE’S GONE CANCELING (Quick Draw McGraw)
02:13:30 TODAY/YESTERDAY (July 11)
02:44:00 Friends of the Daverhood
02:49:00 RABBI SOL READS THE PAPERS
03:10:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY (icon)
03:14:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Dillon)
03:18:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Joey Chestnut & Miki Sudo
Baba Looey and Quick Draw McGraw
Rabbi Sol Solomon
Dillon, CO

Dave’s Gone By Interview (7/4/2020): VICKI QUADE & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Chicago actress and playwright Vicki Quade, co-creator of Late Nite Catechism and author/star of Christmas Bingo.

Topics include: Late Nite Catechism, Christmas Bingo, Maripat Donovan, coronavirus, Chicago theater, audience participation. 

Segment aired July 4, 2020 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations.  For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2020 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

More about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com

Dave’s Gone By #752 (6/27/2020): CANCEL THIS!

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Here is the 752nd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday, June 27, 2020. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guest: Dave’s wife Joyce

Featuring: Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Prowers), Wretched Pun of Destiny (tornado), Dave’s Gone Canceling (Joni Mitchell), Inside Broadway, Today/Yesterday (June 27).

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (cancel culture, racist cops, Covid continues, thermometer, new toothbrush!)
01:25:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
01:50:00 INSIDE BROADWAY
02:17:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY (June 27)
02:53:00 DAVE’S GONE CANCELING (Joni Mitchell)
03:03:00 Friends of the Daverhood
03:09:30 THE WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #74 (tornado)
03:13:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Prowers)
03:16:00 DAVE GOES OUT

June 27, 2020 Playlist: “You’ve Been Canceled” (03:00:00; Dan Bull).

more than just a toothbrush
No Dumpling?
Prowers, CO
your host

Dave’s Gone By #751 (6/20/2020): IN SUMM

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Here is the 751st episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday, June 20, 2020. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Guest: Dave’s wife Joyce, Rabbi Sol Solomon

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Potato Fame!, shorter days, color-coded LIRR, Covid checklist)
01:27:00 INSIDE BROADWAY
01:46:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON READS THE PAPERS
02:07:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
02:24:30 TODAY YESTERDAY (June 20)
02:53:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #73 (false teeth)
02:58:00 DAVE’S BIG DICTIONARY (carnal)
03:15:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN (jokes)
03:18:00 Friends of the Daverhood
03:27:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Delta)
03:29:30 DAVE GOES IN

June 20, 2020 Playlist: “Yodel Blues” (02:55:00; Sam Sacks).

your host
Milan Ristic
Delta, CO
Potato Day Spokesmodel!
Rabbi Sol Solomon

Dave’s Gone By Interview (6/6/2020): DAVID SHEWARD

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Dave Lefkowitz chats with TheaterLife.com critic DAVID SHEWARD

Topics include: Tony Awards, COVID-19.  

Segment aired June 6, 2020 as part of the annual Broadway theater special edition of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio show/podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations.  For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2020 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #163 (6/7/2020): BROADWAY 2020

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #163 (6/7/20): BROADWAY 2020

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 163rd Rabbinical Reflection airs Saturday, June 6, 2020 as part of the 16th annual Dave’s Gone By Broadway special. Watch on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-mpB45YQoI&feature=youtu.be)

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Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 6, 2020.

Year after year, I’ve been coming on this program to help celebrate the Tony Awards—the glittering prizes Broadway people give themselves to compensate for not getting movie work. The awards are meaningless; how do you compare one actor playing a frustrated gay writer in a comedy, to another actor playing a frustrated gay writer in a drama? It’s apples and oranges. Well, still two fruits, but you know what I mean.

The Tony Awards are important because they serve as an excuse to remember how lucky we are to be in New York. It’s where the most talented performers, designers, writers, orchestrators, wigmakers, and intimacy directors ply their craft.

Going to the theater is a social activity, an emotional experience, an intellectual pursuit, and a cultural lifestyle. Or at least it was, until some Chinaman cut up a bat, and now no one can go ten feet from their bedroom.

As you know, playhouses in America closed in mid-March because theater is not just about art. It’s about a thousand people squeezing through a lobby at intermission to get to four toilets built in 1908. It’s about smelling the Chanel number two on the woman behind you, hearing the crunch of potato chips from the jerk next to you, picking up gonorrhea from the last person who used your arm-rest, and catching flying spittle from actors over-emoting downstage. I wasn’t there at the time, but I’ll bet you bubonic plague started during an ancient production of Sugar Babies.

So Broadway, the Fabulous Invalid, is once again crippled. Theater owners must figure out how to make their buildings tourists traps instead of death traps. Producers are scared they’ll have to lower prices, cut capacity, and submerge all the balcony seats in Purell. And members of Actors Equity are learning how fun it is to be unemployed 100% of the time instead of 90% of the time.

But my friends, I take the long view. It is my opinion, based on absolutely nothing but my kishkes, that a year from now, everything will be back as it was. When New York gets hit with blackouts and snowstorms, Broadway stops for a day. When Kennedy was shot, Broadway went dark two days. Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, Broadway closed . . . and reopened on Thursday.

People want normalcy even in a new normal. And with the COVID curve collapsing, it’s just a matter of weeks before Mrs. Cohen turns to Mr. Cohen and says, “Ooh, Denzel is playing Mama Rose! Tickets are only $470. Let’s go!” And Mr. Cohen will say, “Are you crazy? You just got outta the hospital with pneumonia!” And Mrs. Cohen will say one word: “Denzel.” And that will be it.

And if it’s not Denzel, it’s Meryl. Or Bette. Or Audra. Or Rabbi Sol Solomon doing his magnificent show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Me.” Whatever the impetus, people will take the risk to reap the reward. After the market crash of 1929, who would invest again? People did. After 9/11, who’d get on an airplane? People did. After Tom Six directed Human Centipede 2, would anyone go to a movie again? They did. To Human Centipede 3.

Scientists predict that the autumn will bring us a spike in coronavirus cases and force all the stores and restaurants that just ramped up to re-hibernate. That could happen. We might also see a lot of marquees go blank and theater companies give up the ghost. That’s likely. But eventually people will sit together, watching a stage, laughing, crying, clapping, and burrowing into the seat cushion when they have to hide a fart.

And so I have been asked, by nobody in particular, to give a blessing, a benediction, for the future of the American theater.

Blessed art thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe. Or possibly Queen. Or Gender-questioning deity. O father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And by that I mean F. Murray Abraham, Oscar Isaac, and Jacob Adler. It’s been a rough couple o’ months. A hundred thousand dead, massive unemployment, race riots, disappointing episodes of Nailed It!. We need a beacon in these dark times. We need the most talented, charismatic people on the planet; live and in-person, creating art, and making us feel something beautiful.

As the wolf dwells with the lamb and the leopard lies down with the sheep—hey, consenting animals—let the unions dwell with the producers and the landlords be fruitful and multiplex. May God say, “Let there be theater!” Well, maybe not Frank Wildhorn musicals. And Glass Menagerie revivals. And three-hour plays about British politics. And rock musicals about teenagers with problems. BUT LET THERE BE OTHER THEATER! And may we dwell in the houselights of the Lord forever. Amen.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches. The show will go on.

(c)2020 TotalTheater

Dave’s Gone By Interview (6/6/2020): ZACHARY STEWART

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Dave Lefkowitz chats with TheaterMania theater critic, Zachary Stewart

Topics include: Tony Awards, COVID-19.  

Segment aired June 6, 2020 as part of the annual Broadway theater special edition of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio show/podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations.  For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2020 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By #749 (6/6/2020): THE 16th ANNUAL TOTALTHEATER BROADWAY SPECIAL

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Here is the 749th episode–our annual celebration of Broadway–of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired Saturday, June 6, 2020. More info: davesgoneby.com.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guests: actor Lewis J. Stadlen, theater critics Leslie (Hoban) Blake, Joe Dziemianowicz, Charles Gross, Eva Heinemann, Brian Scott Lipton, Ed Rubin, Simon Saltzman, David Sheward, Zachary Stewart. Dave’s wife Joyce.

Featuring: Dave chats with two-time Tony-nominated actor Lewis J. Stadlen (The Producers, Minnie’s Boys, The Nance); theater critics weigh in on the Broadway season and their favorite all-time shows; Rabbi Sol Solomon offers his Rabbinical Reflection on post-pandemic Broadway; a 2019-20 Broadway Timeline; Trivia Quiz.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN
00:04:00 GUEST: Zachary Stewart
00:13:30 BROADWAY TIMELINE, pt. 1
00:28:00 TRIVIA QUIZ, pt. 1
00:35:00 BROADWAY TIMELINE, pt. 2
00:45:00 GUEST: Eva Heinemann
00:56:30 GUEST: Joe Dziemianowicz
01:09:00 BROADWAY TIMELINE, pt. 3
01:15:00 GUEST: David Sheward
01:29:00 GUEST: Lewis J. Stadlen
02:10:30 GUEST: Brian Scott Lipton
02:20:00 GUEST: Ed Rubin
02:35:00 BROADWAY TIMELINE, pt. 4
02:48:30 GUEST: Leslie (Hoban) Blake
03:02:00 GUEST: Simon Saltzman
03:18:00 BROADWAY TIMELINE, pt. 5
03:29:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #163 (Broadway 2020)
03:38:30 BROADWAY PASSINGS
03:42:30 BROADWAY TIMELINE, pt. 6
03:46:30 GUEST: Charles Gross
03:56:30 BROADWAY TIMELINE, pt. 7
04:05:30 TRIVIA QUIZ, pt. 2
04:14:30 DAVE GOES OUT

June 6, 2020 Playlist: “Road to Nowhere” (04:19:00; David Byrne’s American Utopia).

Leslie (Hoban) Blake
Joe Dziemianowicz
Charles Gross
Eva Heinemann
Brian Scott Lipton
Ed Rubin
David Sheward
Lewis J. Stadlen
Zachary Stewart
Rabbi Sol Solomon
Dave doing last year’s Tony show

Dave’s Gone By Interview (6/6/2020): LEWIS J. STADLEN

click above to watch in-studio footage of Dave Lefkowitz’s Zoom interview with actor Lewis J. Stadlen.
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Dave Lefkowitz interviews two-time Tony-winning actor LEWIS J. STADLEN

Topics include: Hello, Dolly!; Nathan Lane, Mel Brooks, The Producers, Arthur Miller, The Verdict, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Mickey Rooney, Sidney Lumet, The Sunshine Boys. 

Segment aired June 6, 2020 as part of the annual Broadway theater special edition of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio show/podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations.  For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2020 TotalTheater Productions.                                                   

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com