Matt Baume

Susan Sarandon was not supposed to play Janet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, at least not if her agents had anything to say about it. Susan wanted the part, and the producers wanted her in the movie. But her agents insisted she was wrong for the part. How did she wind up in the movie anyway? That

The second of the Wicked films comes out later this month, and so for this week’s episode of The Sewers of Paris podcast we’re jumping into the archives to hear my 2017 chat with Tony winner Stephen Oremus, who was the music director for Wicked on Broadway and conducted the orchestras for the two Wi

My guest on The Sewers of Paris this week is the Reverend Joseph Peters Matthews, the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick Episcopal Church in Lynnwood Washington. Joseph’s path to the clergy took him from the small-town South to New York City, along the way developing a love for musical theater that he p

You've probably never heard of the Workshop of the Player's Art, but this grungy little 99-seat theater had a colossal impact on American culture -- and helped save Disney animation in the 90s. In this week's bonus video I want to tell you about how a bunch of scrappy theater kids managed to turn a

Hello there! For this week's bonus video, we're heading back in time to a scrappy little off-off Broadway theater where a frustrated lyricist named Howard Ashman has decided he's going to make a musical out of the weirdest material imaginable: A schlocky B-movie about a killer plant from space. It s

On this week's Sewers of Paris, I’m continuing the monthlong Pride special, bringing you excerpts from some of the very best conversations I’ve had over the last nine years. On this episode, we’re talking musicals — a roundup of conversations about songs on stage and on screen. We’ll start with a co

There’s a new trailer out for the upcoming Wicked movie, so I thought it was a good time to dive into the Sewers of Paris podcast archives to revisit my chat with Gregory Maguire, author of the Wicked novel, among many other works. Though I’m sure you’re familiar with his book and the musical adapta

My guest on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast is Lucas Hilderbrand, author of the new book The Bars Are Ours, which provides a deep look at the history of gay bars. Before he launched into this intriguing field of study, Lucas bounced around queer culture for several years, looking for the place w

On this week's Sewers of Paris podcast, we’re diving into the archives to revisit my 2020 interview with Max Miller. He’s the creator of the Tasting History YouTube channel, and author of the new book Tasting History, which comes out this week. In Max’s video series, he shares historical recipes and

My guest on this week's Sewers of Paris podcast is Andrew Rimby, host of the Ivory Tower Boiler Room podcast. Andrew’s career as an entertainer began at an early age as a stage performer, but then he took an unexpected swerve into academia, and he’s spent the last decade pursuing a PhD, exploring th

My guest this week is Bret Shuford, one half of the couple that calls themselves the Broadway Husbands. Bret met his husband Steven while they were both working on Broadway, and they started a blog about their lives together before embarking on their latest adventure — raising a kid. I’ll be talking

You might have seen that Disney is about to release a new documentary called Howard, all about the legacy of the great Howard Ashman whose music gave live to stories like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and many more. For this week’s episode, we’re diving into the Sewers of Paris archive t

This week on the Cozy Pants podcast, James and I have a bone to pick with Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber about this Love Never Dies musical -- a sequel to Phantom of the Opera that has everyone saying, "why?" We muse about a handful of other musicals, some of which are actually good. Listeners have written

A few weeks ago, I welcomed Kathy Tu to the Sewers of Paris -- she's the co-creator of the podcast Nancy from WNYC. And this week, we're chatting with Nancy's other parent, Tobin Low. He's a recovering cellist-turned-podcaster who realized he hated his career and needed to make a change for his own

We're going back into the Sewers of Paris archives this week, for an interview with ex-boybander Kevin Yee. Kevin's new comedy special recently premiered Hulu, as part of the Comedy InvAsian series. He's been a performer for almost all his life, with his career taking a wild twist in his teens when

What role does confidence play in reaching your goals -- is confidence as important as skill, or more, or less? My guest this week is Jonathan Lovitz, senior vice president at the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Before he stepped into that role, Jonathan enjoyed a successful acting career on stag

My guest this week is Ari Shapiro, host of All Things Considered. These days, he tells other people's stories on NPR, but his own story was considerably is more winding than you might expect -- behind his calm journalistic voice is a man who spent some time as an illegal immigrant, who carried mace

Have you ever found a monster beautiful? It's rare that something can be both gorgeous and grotesque, but when those two qualities overlap it can be hard to look away -- and hard to resist following it wherever it wants to take you, no matter how dangerous. This week's guest is Tyler Coates, Culture

My guest this week started his musical career at a neighborhood friend's piano, hanging out and playing showtunes. These days he's doing pretty much the same, but he's accompanying Broadway stars and winning Tonys. Stephen Oremus worked on The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q, Frozen, and 9 to 5, among many