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Jeff Lunden

Jeff Lunden is a freelance arts reporter and producer whose stories have been heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, as well as on other public radio programs.

Lunden contributed several segments to the Peabody Award-winning series The NPR 100, and was producer of the NPR Music series Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall, hosted by Renee Montagne. He has produced more than a dozen documentaries on musical theater and Tin Pan Alley for NPR — most recently A Place for Us: Fifty Years of West Side Story.

Other documentaries have profiled George and Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen and Jule Styne. Lunden has won several awards, including the Gold Medal from the New York Festival International Radio Broadcasting Awards and a CPB Award.

Lunden is also a theater composer. He wrote the score for the musical adaptation of Arthur Kopit's Wings (book and lyrics by Arthur Perlman), which won the 1994 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. Other works include Another Midsummer Night, Once on a Summer's Day and adaptations of The Little Prince and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for Theatreworks/USA.

Lunden is currently working with Perlman on an adaptation of Swift as Desire, a novel of magic realism from Like Water for Chocolate author Laura Esquivel. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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History
2:40 am
Fri February 1, 2013

Grand Central, A Cathedral For Commuters, Celebrates 100

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Friday marks the day that 100 years ago, Grand Central Terminal opened its doors for business for the very first time. The largest railroad terminal in the world, the magnificent Beaux-Arts building is in the heart of New York City on 42nd St. And while it no longer serves long-distance trains, it's still a vibrant part of the city's eco-system.

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Theater
5:55 am
Sun January 27, 2013

25 Years Strong, 'Phantom Of The Opera' Kills And Kills Again

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Credit Joan Marcus
Hugh Panaro is The Phantom and Sierra Boggess is Christine in the 25th anniversary cast of The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway.
Credit Joan Marcus
The current cast of The Phantom of the Opera celebrated an unprecedented Broadway milestone Jan. 26, when the show hit its 25th anniversary.
Credit Courtesy of The Phantom Company
Opening night curtain call, Jan. 26, 1988, features Steve Barton (Raoul), Harold Prince, Michael Crawford (The Phantom), Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sarah Brightman (Christine).
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Originally published on Sun January 27, 2013 12:31 pm

The longest-running Broadway musical ever, Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, celebrated Saturday another milestone: its 25th anniversary.

When it all started Jan. 26, 1988, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, a gallon of gas cost about 90 cents and a ticket to The Phantom of the Opera was a whopping $50. It was the hottest ticket in town.

Times have changed, prices have changed, but that disfigured, tortured genius who haunts the Paris Opera House, creating havoc and causing the chandelier to fall, has endured.

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Music News
1:03 am
Sat January 26, 2013

The Composer Who Tested Fighter Planes And Partied With Sinatra

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Credit Courtesy of Burns Media Productions
Jimmy Van Heusen with Frank Sinatra in the 1950s. Van Heusen wrote dozens of songs for the crooner and became Sinatra's close friend and confidant.
Credit Courtesy of Burns Media Productions
Van Heusen in his second life as a World War II-era test pilot.
Credit Courtesy of Burns Media Productions
Van Heusen at work in the 1960s.
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Originally published on Sat January 26, 2013 4:36 pm

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Theater
2:45 am
Thu January 17, 2013

A Cooler Roof For A New 'Cat'

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Credit Joan Marcus /
In Rob Ashford's new production of the classic play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Scarlett Johansson plays an earthier version of restless sex kitten Maggie.
Credit Joan Marcus /
Ciaran Hinds (left) is Big Daddy to Benjamin Walker's Brick in the latest revival of Tennessee Williams' play.
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Originally published on Thu January 17, 2013 10:11 am

There are certain classic American plays that are revived on Broadway every decade or so, to let a new generation of actors and audiences discover them. Tennessee Williams' 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, running through March 30, is one of those iconic plays.

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Theater
2:47 am
Tue January 8, 2013

A Vet's Haunted Homecoming In 'Water By The Spoonful'

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Credit Richard Termine /
Liza Colon-Zayas plays a troubled character named Odessa Ortiz, who finds her better self online. She's pictured above with Bill Heck, as Fountainhead.
Credit Richard Termine /
Quiara Alegria Hudes' Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Water by the Spoonful, opens off-Broadway on Tuesday. Above, Bill Heck as Fountainhead and Frankie R. Faison as Chutes & Ladders in the play, directed by Davis McCallum.
Credit Richard Termine /
Armando Riesco's character Elliot was inspired by Hudes' cousin, also named Elliot. Riesco has played Elliot throughout the trilogy. He's pictured above in Water by the Spoonful with Zabryna Guevara, who plays Yazmin Ortiz.
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Originally published on Tue January 8, 2013 5:06 am

The cliche about writers is they should write what they know, and that old saw has certainly worked for Quiara Alegria Hudes. The 35-year-old playwright has mined her Puerto Rican family's stories into a series of plays, a musical and even a children's book. Now, her Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Water by the Spoonful, is being brought to life in the first New York production of the play, opening off-Broadway on Tuesday evening.

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Theater
2:27 am
Fri December 21, 2012

Broadway's Profit-Turning, Crowd-Pleasing Christmas Story

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Credit Joan Marcus / The Hartman Group
Jordan Gelber plays Buddy the Elf in Elf on Broadway. The limited-run production may not turn a profit immediately, but producers have a multipronged strategy for making money.
Credit Carol Rosegg / The Hartman Group
In A Christmas Story, Johnny Rabe plays Ralphie Parker, a boy who wants only one thing for Christmas: an official Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle.
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Originally published on Fri December 21, 2012 7:37 pm

The Christmas season is when retailers make the bulk of their profits, Hollywood blockbusters rake it in, and Broadway theaters are filled to capacity. In recent seasons, Broadway has even staged special limited-run holiday musicals — among them, adaptations of A Christmas Story and Elf — to take advantage of the hordes of tourists in New York looking for entertainment. But with production costs so high, how can these shows make their money back? The answer, it turns out, is complicated.

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Deceptive Cadence
2:29 am
Thu December 6, 2012

Anonymous 4 Marks A Milestone Year, Together And Alone

Credit Chris Carroll / Brooklyn Academy of Music
To mark the group's 25th anniversary, Anonymous 4 commissioned the new piece love fail from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang.
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Originally published on Thu December 6, 2012 8:05 am

As of this year, the vocal group Anonymous 4 has been introducing modern audiences to medieval music for a quarter century. When the all-female quartet asked David Lang to help mark the occasion by writing them some music, he didn't need any convincing. The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer was already a big fan.

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Deceptive Cadence
3:03 am
Fri November 30, 2012

The Peony Pavilion: A Vivid Dream In A Garden

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Credit Zhang Yi
A garden serves as the stage in the opera.
Credit Zhang Yi
Characters Du Liniang (left) with her love, Liu Mengmei, in a 2010 production of Peony Pavillion.
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Originally published on Fri November 30, 2012 8:43 pm

The Peony Pavilion is one of China's most famous operas, but uncut performances of this romantic 16th century work can take more than 22 hours. Chinese composer Tan Dun, who's best known for his Academy Award-winning score for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has adapted the work into a compact 75 minutes.

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Deceptive Cadence
11:00 pm
Fri November 9, 2012

John Williams' Inevitable Themes

Credit Stu Rosner
Flanked by composer Leonard Slatkin and soprano Jessye Norman, John Williams takes a bow during his 80th-birthday celebration at Tanglewood in August.
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Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 9:52 am

For more than 50 years, John Williams' music has taken us to galaxies far, far away through adventures here on earth, made us feel giddy joy and occasionally scared us to death.

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Arts & Life
5:35 am
Sun November 4, 2012

Sandy Pulls Curtain Over N.Y. Art Scene

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Originally published on Sun November 4, 2012 11:08 am

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Among the areas hit hard by Superstorm Sandy were Manhattan neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Chelsea, home to many of the city's art galleries, jazz clubs, dance venues and off-Broadway theaters. Jeff Lunden spoke with some of those making plans to get back to work now that power has returned.

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