Jason Robert Brown

When I did Elsie Fest last year, I couldn’t help noticing Todrick Hall, the only performer on the bill who had an actual entourage. I only knew Todrick from his wild and fantastic YouTube videos, but onstage he was a powerhouse performer who held an audience with extraordinary confidence and a surprisingly genuine presence. (We had actually met briefly once before, after one of my LA concerts with Shoshana.) When his set finished, I bumped into him backstage and he snapped a selfie with me and said, “We have got to work together. It’s gotta happen,” and then he struttedRead More »

I think I first became aware of Grace McLean through Justin Goldner, her bassist as well as a regular member of the Caucasian Rhythm Kings (and one of the original guitarists for The Bridges of Madison County). Grace is also part of Shaina Taub’s unbelievable circle of incredible musical collaborators, so I’d seen her do some work in that context. But it was when I saw her in The Great Comet that I knew I wanted to invite her to join us at SubCulture and share some of her music and awesome musicianship with us for our landmark 30th concertRead More »

On the morning of September 11, 2001, my then-girlfriend (with whom I’m still in touch) and I woke up to the sound of my mother on my answering machine, yelling something like “they’re blowing up Manhattan,” and by the time I raced to the phone to find out what she was talking about, she had hung up in a panic. When I tried to call her back, I couldn’t get a dial tone. We turned on the TV and that’s when we saw what was happening eighty blocks south of us – we tuned in twenty seconds before the secondRead More »

Some days I can get through what I have to do without spiraling into despondency over this awful president and what he’s doing to our country, to our standing in the world, to our belief in ourselves; some days it’s a lot harder. Monday was a rough one, and I’m very grateful that I had three immensely gifted and warm-hearted collaborators to share the stage with me and help create something beautiful in the face of this madness. You could tell the kind of mood I was in because I started with “Where Will You Stand When The Flood Comes?”,Read More »

The Third Annual Post-Tony Extravaganza lived up to its name in gloriously extravagant style. Fresh from starring in Amélie on Broadway, the supernova Phillipa Soo came to join us, bringing her crystal-clear voice to a dazzling variety of songs, including (for delicious fun) a song made famous by her fiancé when he starred in The Bridges Of Madison County. I’d never gotten to work with Pippa before, and it was amazing to hear her transform and inhabit my songs so thoroughly. (And her pitch is unbelievable!) But it takes more than one radiantly beautiful Broadway star to make an extravaganza.Read More »