Happy New Year!
I thought I’d do a year in review roundup again. As I said last year, I’m not one for New Year’s as a holiday. In fact, I hate New Year’s and I wrote a song about it. But I do love taking stock of a specific period of time, and the secular new year cycle provides a nice timeline for that.
Over New Year’s I was busy finishing up my 2024 books, TV, movies, and theater lists and rankings. Here is each one:
2024 Theater
2024 Movies
2024 Books and Podcasts
2024 TV
Podcasts!
I’ll start with my own musical theater podcast, Scene to Song.
I released 14 episodes in Scene to Song season seven with awesome guests talking about a range of topics in musical theater, from Leonard Bernstein’s New York City musicals to neurodivergence and disability representation in The Light in the Piazza to how Elphaba and Galinda/Glinda from Wicked are absolutely gay. Listen to them all wherever you get podcasts.
I also continued to put out the Scene to Song monthly newsletter, as well as add bonus content to the Scene to Song Patreon.
I was also a guest on three other podcast episodes this year! I love being a guest.
- “Witches Lament” from Into the Woods on Putting it Together. I was so happy to be back on Kyle Marshall’s awesome Sondheim podcast Putting It Together, which goes through Sondheim’s work show by show, song by song. This is from the Into the Woods season, and I talked about the “Witch’s Lament” in the second act. It’s a great discussion about one of my favorite shows, and I also get to talk about Life With Mikey and Faerie Tale Theatre!
- “Once More With Feeling” on Once More With Feeling. I was a guest on Christopher Culp’s new podcast on TV musical episodes called Once More with Feeling, and I talked about the Buffy musical episode! So much to say about both the episode and the Buffy Sing-A-Longs we used to attend. And kazoos are played.
- Spellbound on The Hitchcock Gays. I am such a fan of Spencer Robelen’s The Hitchcock Gays, a podcast about queer themes and gay characters in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and so I was very excited to be a guest. I talk about Hitchcock’s 1945 film Spellbound starring Ingrid Bergman—why I love it, my history with Hitchcock films, and how this film fits into my own queer journey.
Musicals!
I made my Joe’s Pub debut with songs from my musical Days of Rage with composer and bookwriter Hyeyoung Kim. The show, Hyeyoung Kim: Water and Fire, was held on May 23rd.
More 2024 writing/performance highlights:
- This past fall I started the UCLA Professional Program in Writing for Television Online!
- I also took a Drama Television Writing class through Writing Pad.
- Wrote and performed a workshop of a cabaret show I’m developing on the theme of Jewish writers writing Jewish characters in musical theater.
Everything Else!
- Served on the board on the Thornton Wilder Society, putting out monthly member emails, running the Facebook page and updating the website, and organizing Zoom play and book readings. Interested in becoming a member and/or joining the readings? Learn more here or email thorntonwildersociety@gmail.com.
- Continued to take voice lessons with Innovative Voice Studio and performance classes with Tony-winner Randy Graff.
- Traveled to Los Angeles twice, as well as Montreal and my hometown of Philadelphia.
- Ran three races in NYC/Central Park: the 3.5-mile JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, the Fifth Avenue Mile, and the 4-mile Race to Deliver.
- Ate a lot of biscuits at Harlem Biscuit Company and sweets from Make My Cake.