The Gilded Gentleman

This new Broadway season includes the revival of the classic musical GYPSY: A Musical Fable by Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents. This new revival stars Audra McDonald as the irrepressible Mama Rose,in this iconic show based on the memoirs of burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee.  To celebrate the revival and to take us back into the world of vaudeville and burlesque, listen favorite Don Spiro returns to the show to share the history of burlesque -- what it was and wasn't in the Gilded Age years --  and how it all developed into the dynamic new renaissance of the art we see today. 

David Belasco -- playwright, producer, impresario, theatre manager, and theatrical visionary -- was one of the most important names in the world of the Gilded Age stage.Beginning his life and career in San Francisco following the Gold Rush years, Belasco moved to New York to revolutionize how theatre was seen and produced in the last years of the 19th and into the 20th century. In addition to writing such hits as plays "Madame Butterfly" and "The Girl of the Golden West" which went on to become even more popular ad Puccini operas, he was responsible for launching the careers of Maude Adams (the first Peter Pan), Mary Pickford and Barbara Stanwyck. He was known for often wearing the robes and clerical collar of a Catholic priest, despite his Jewish heritage and thus began to call himself  "The Bishop of Broadway". Belasco owned and operated today's Belasco Theatre on 44th St which continues to bear his name. The theatre, built in 1907, is home to current Broadway hits and still contains the once lavish apartment now abandoned in which he lived on the theatre's top floor.   It's said that perhaps Belasco has never quite left his eponymous theatre and reports have persisted over the years of sightings and strange occurrences that indicate his possible presence even today. 

Along with their acclaimed novels and short works of fiction, Henry James and Edith Wharton both extensively explored the genre of the ghost story, enormously popular throughout much of the 19th century. In nearly all of their ghostly tales, James and Wharton explore the inner depths of the human psyche and the all-too-human emotions of fear, abandonment, passion and loss. Carl is joined by returning guest Dr. Emily Orlando, author and professor of English at Fairfield University, for an in-depth look at examples of the ghost story from both Henry James and Edith Wharton. Carl and Emily delve into James'  techniques of horror and suspense in his masterpiece "The Turn of the Screw" and how Wharton explored the ambiguities and challenges of marriage and abandonment in several of her stories including "The Lady's Maid's Bell", "Afterward", "Pomegranate Seed" and perhaps her own masterpiece -- "All Souls". Orlando was also featured in the Gilded Gentleman episode -- Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence 

Stories of the Gilded Age so often focus on the world of adults and more often on the highest layer of elite society.  Of course, there was much, much more to the story of America's social and economic growth  at the end of the 19tth century that involved those of the middle and lower classes - and also included children. Listener favorite Esther Crain, author and creator of Ephemeral New York, joins The Gilded Gentleman for a look at the world of children during the Gilded Age. As she shared in the episode "Invisible Magicians: Domestic Servants in Gilded Age New York" with writings by actual servants, Esther has uncovered documents written in children's own voices that capture their world and reality. From a 12 year old boy in Gilded Age Harlem to a teenage girl on what would become Manhattan's Upper East Side, we can finally meet children who are both seen and heard.