New Podcast All the Drama Will Explore the Histories of the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Plays and Musicals

In the wake of this year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama announcement, theater journalist and two-time Pulitzer juror Janice Simpson has released the podcast All the Drama, a new series that provides in-depth looks at the plays and musicals that have been awarded the yearly honor.

The debut episode, which was recently released, focuses on the Jesse Lynch Williams comedy Why Marry?, which was the first play to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1918. Simpson's guest is Gayle Stahlhuth, artistic director of the East Lynne Theatre Company in Cape May, which has produced the play three times over the past decade, with plans to mount it again next year.

Subsequent episodes will focus on Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife (2004), Charles Gordone's No Place to Be Somebody (1970), Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles (1989), and Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific (1950). Wright will discuss his play, while KB Saine will discuss the Gordone drama, which was the first play by a Black author, and the first off-Broadway play, to win the Pulitzer. Chapin, the longtime and outgoing head of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, will chat about South Pacific, and Julie Salamon, Wendy Wasserstein's biographer, will talk about Heidi Chronicles. The episodes will explore what made these works stand out in their times, and how relevant they may or may not remain in ours.

Simpson is the author of the Broadway & Me blog, and serves as a nominator for the Outer Critics Circle Awards and as a voter for the Tony Awards. She has been part of the Pulitzer juries that have awarded the prizes to Katori Hall's The Hot Wing King and Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop.

All the Drama can be found on on all major podcast services, as well via BroadwayRadio. BroadwayRadio Patreon subscribers will have early access to all the episodes.