MARQUEE at Five
The best Broadway Blasts since the publication's 2021 launch
The Broadway Maven has announced the schedule for 2026’s Rush Week, five days of FREE classes that meet twice a day, at Noon and 7 pm ET. This once-a-year event is intended for potential Members to learn about our offerings at no cost. Check it out:
• Sunday, January 4 Something Rotten! (with David Benkof)
• Monday, January 5 West Side Story (with Gail Leondar-Wright and David Benkof)
• Tuesday, January 6 South Pacific (with Ted Chapin)
• Wednesday, January 7 “Why Musicals Matter” (with David Armstrong)
• Thursday, January 8 Lesser-Known Sondheim (with Gail Leondar-Wright)
NOTE: In celebration of the end of 2025, there will be no MARQUEE next week.
Shalom, Broadway lovers!
On this week’s marquee: A) a celebration of the fifth anniversary of MARQUEE in the form of five of the best Broadway Blasts; B) a clips reel for an upcoming Stephen Sondheim 101 class; C) a survey about the most promising classes from the upcoming Rush Week; and D) a Last Blast about Rent.
Since early in the history of MARQUEE (then called The Broadway Maven’s Weekly Blast) the Broadway Blasts have been a signature feature of the publication: short but thoughtful provocations that take a single lyric, line, image, or staging choice from a Broadway musical and examine it closely until it reveals something larger—about character, history, theme, meaning, or the form itself. For many readers, they (and especially the “Last Blast” iteration) are the first thing they check in each issue.
The publication was founded on December 30, 2020, and in this issue and that of January 1, 2026 (no MARQUEE December 25), we’ll be featuring the 10 most compelling Broadway Blasts in the publication’s history. Which are your favorites? Put your answer in the comments. (Look for #5 through #1 in the next issue.)
10. Other songs may be more famous, but the central ensemble number of Bye Bye Birdie is “The Telephone Hour,” in which teens gossip and scheme through party lines. While the show satirizes small-town America, it also dramatizes how new technology mediates adolescent intimacy. The phone turns longing into performance—connection through wires, not windows. In this sense, Bye Bye Birdie anticipates Dear Evan Hansen. Evan’s emails and viral videos serve the same function as Birdie’s telephones: channels through which teenagers perform connection, anxieties, and desire. Both shows are thus “technological musicals,” embedding devices of their eras into the very form of teenage communication. What changes is only the medium; the theme—that technology doesn’t just transmit relationships, but reshapes them—remains startlingly constant across sixty years.
9. One of the ways Hairspray shows us that Edna and Wilbur Turnblad are out of step with the rest of the characters is that their names stand out for not being alliterative. Think about it: Tracy Turnblad, Corny Collins, Link Larkin, Seaweed Stubbs, Motormouth Maybelle, Velma Von Tussle, Penny Pingleton, and Prudy Pingleton. It’s like the rest of the show has moved on to a bubblegum 1960s-era vibe while the Turnblads are stuck in the past. It’s one of the reasons their love song (“Timeless to Me”) is so different than the other music in the show.
8. In Waitress, mixing and separating are more than baking terms—they’re metaphors for how characters navigate love and identity. Jenna, a natural “mixer,” creates pies that blend chaotic elements into harmony, reflecting her ability to embrace life’s messiness and find beauty in imperfection. Around her, however, are characters who prefer separation: Joe demands his tomato “on its own plate,” symbolizing his emotional detachment; Becky’s invalid husband “sleeps in a separate room”; and Dawn and Ogie share a quirky insistence on keeping their food from touching, a reflection of their guarded individuality. Yet Jenna’s influence encourages them all to mix—Joe urges her to take risks and pursue her dreams, Dawn and Ogie overcome their quirks to build a life together, and Becky steps out of her static situation to embrace a new relationship with Cal. In Waitress, mixing life’s unpredictable elements, though messy and uncertain, becomes the essential ingredient for fulfillment.
7. At the start of A Little Night Music, Madame Armfeldt observes that the summer night smiles three times: one for the young, who know nothing; once for the fools who know too little; and once for the old, who know too much. But it’s summer in Sweden, which is at a latitude where the summer night is very brief and sometimes doesn’t exist at all. So in Night Music, the smiles are very brief, which makes sense for a show in which most everyone is rather unhappy. That makes the line about the summer night a subtle, yet poignant, nod to the fleeting joy and the lingering dissatisfaction experienced by most characters in the show.
6. There’s a strange lyric near the end of Into the Woods—one that quietly menaces our old notions of good and evil: “Into the woods to mind the Wolf, to heed the Witch, to honor the Giant.” These are the show’s fairy tale antagonists: predators, monsters, villains. But in the final moments, Sondheim and Lapine ask us not to fear them, but to mind, heed, and honor them. Why? Because Into the Woods isn’t about defeating darkness—it’s about learning from it. The Wolf teaches danger, the Witch offers truth, the Giant delivers consequence. They’re not obstacles; they’re realities. And in a show about growing up, Sondheim leaves us with a mature directive: don’t just chase happy endings. Face what scares you. Listen to what’s hard. And honor the forces that shape you—even when they come in shadow.
VIDEO INTRODUCTION: I’ll be teaching “Stephen Sondheim 101” at the Limmud Festival in Birmingham, England, on Sunday, December 28. Here are the clips I plan to use, which span Sondheim’s career and provide suggestions for novices who want to explore The Master’s body of work. What are the most prominent songs from each major Sondheim show? What are three good “Gateway Sondheim” musicals? What are the Three Pillars of Sondheim? This video explains.
SURVEY: Rush Week is on its way! Every January, The Broadway Maven offers 10 FREE classes over the course of a week, meeting at Noon and 7 pm Sunday through Thursday. It’s intended to help non-Members learn about The Broadway Maven and its offerings, so they can decide whether Membership is right for them. Invite your friends!
SAVE THE DATE: On Tuesday, January 27 at 7 pm ET, The Broadway Maven will be convening an extraordinary all-star panel to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Pacific Overtures. Participants will include Weidman himself, the show’s orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, Broadway and Hollywood superstar BD Wong, and reigning Tony-winning Best Supporting Actor Francis Jue. They will join Broadway Maven faculty Gail Leondar-Wright and Edward Barnes to discuss the landmark musical about the opening of Japan to the West. This 90-minute event is without a doubt the most ambitious and promising class The Broadway Maven has ever offered. Members only. Don’t miss it!
ANNOUNCEMENT: The Broadway Maven will be hosting its first in-person event on Sunday, February 1, 2026 with a jam-packed day in Manhattan. Included: a behind-the-scenes tour of the Helen Hayes Theatre (first 12 registrants only), a visit to the Museum of Broadway, lunch with off-Broadway composer-lyricist and Broadway Maven faculty member Mateo Chavez Lewis, a ticket to Mateo’s show The Opening, and a visit to the Drama Book Shop. $199. NOTE: THERE ARE STILL THREE SLOTS IN THE HAYES TOUR, SO SIGN UP TODAY!
Note: A full calendar of upcoming classes is always available at TheBroadwayMaven.com.
• Thursday, December 18 through Saturday, January 3 WINTER BREAK
• Sunday, January 4 RUSH WEEK (Something Rotten! with David Benkof) Noon and 7 pm ET. (FREE, Register HERE)
• Monday, January 5 RUSH WEEK (West Side Story with Gail Leondar-Wright and David Benkof) Noon and 7 pm ET. (FREE, Register HERE)
• Tuesday, January 6 RUSH WEEK (South Pacific with Ted Chapin) Noon and 7 pm ET. (FREE, Register HERE)
• Wednesday, January 7 RUSH WEEK (“Why Musicals Matter” with UW Prof. David Armstrong) Noon and 7 pm ET. (FREE, Register HERE)
• Thursday, January 8 RUSH WEEK (Lesser-Known Sondheim with Gail Leondar-Wright) Noon and 7 pm ET. (FREE, Register HERE)
• Sunday, January 11 Jewish Broadway with David Benkof, 2 pm ET. (MEMBERS ONLY)
• Monday, January 12 Little Shop of Horrors with David Benkof, Noon and 7 pm ET. (MEMBERS ONLY)
SAVE THE DATE: Perhaps the greatest living lyricist of her generation, Lynn Ahrens (Ragtime, Anastasia, Once on this Island) will be joining The Broadway Maven on Tuesday March 3 at Noon ET for a discussion of her body of work. Members Only. Not to be missed!
LAST BLAST: Nothing looms over Rent more than time. Like the perpetually overdue expense mentioned in the title, life is an unpaid bill that could evict them at any moment. The young bohemians are haunted by mortality’s deadline amid the shadow of AIDS, forcing a frantic countdown of days and minutes (all 525,600 of them, as tallied in “Seasons of Love”). They know another year isn’t guaranteed, so they count existence urgently, rejecting mundane metrics like cups of coffee and even “laughter and strife,” for something deeper. Scrappy and bound by community, they measure in love instead—their fierce connections, shared struggles, and fleeting joys turning borrowed time into a defiant emotional ledger.
The Broadway Maven is a vibrant educational community that helps its members think more deeply about musical theater. We offer 5-15 classes a month for just $25. We also foster enthusiasm for Broadway through the FREE weekly Substack newsletter MARQUEE and host an expansive YouTube channel. It’s your home for Broadway appreciation. Contact The Broadway Maven at DavidBenkof@gmail.com.