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Video: Catch a Sneak Peek of the Treasures Inside the Museum of Broadway
May 17, 2024
The Museum of Broadway is now open! This one-of-a-kind Museum is an immersive and interactive theatrical experience devoted to musicals, plays, and the people who create them. BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge stopped by to check out some of the museums many treasures and you can catch a glimpse in this video.
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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The Museum of Broadway has just opened at 145 West 45th Street
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and it is a theater-lovers paradise. And I caught up with the two founders of the museum
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Julie Bordman and Diane Nicoletti, and the Time Wall curator, Ben West, to give us a sneak peek
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So I'm here with Diane Nicoletti, one of the co-founders of the Museum of Broadway
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I mean, so what room are we in right now? We're in Ziegfeld Follies, which is the very first exhibit on the timeline
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I love these original Ziegfeld Follies costumes. How did you come about to get them
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to get them. Yes, well Disney's been a great partner on this museum and we've been working on the
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Lion King exhibit with them. And then specifically here for Ziegfeld Follies with the New Amsterdam
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Theater, they actually had these costumes. And not only the two that we have on display, but they
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have a series of others that are actually on display at the New Amsterdam Theater as well. And we
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have a series of props and artifacts as well in this room So the fact that they were able to keep these from the early 1900s and we have them on display We just feel really honored What was the dream of the two of you How did you come about and what did you want to present
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with the museum? Yeah, well we've been working on it for five years and it early on was a lot of white bordering
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and figuring out what were the things that we really wanted to communicate and get the story
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across and we worked with wonderful curators, Ben West, Michael McDonald, Lisa Zinney
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We also worked with the Broadway community and try to work with the Broadway community and trying to get them involved and they did get very involved
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but then also trying to understand what were the stories that people wanted to hear
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So we broke it into three parts. We've got the map room that tells the history
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of how the theater district came to be. Not everyone knows that it actually started
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in the financial district, just like New York's history, and migrated north into present-day time square
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So it wasn't until the early 1900s that we actually have, you know
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the present-day theater district, if you would. present daytime square. And then we get into the timeline of Broadway
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And so we've got these wonderful timeline walls curated by Ben West
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They're really beautiful and stunning and tell that history. And then we have exhibits, you know, going from room to room
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of shows that really changed the landscape of Broadway. So either, you know, push the form forward, broke new grounds
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brought in new audiences. And so we start in Zingfeld Follies, but then we have showboat, Oklahoma
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West Side Story Cabaret and so on and so forth And then the last exhibit is the making of a Broadway show which is all the behind roles of Broadway and how a show gets made
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So, Ben, tell us where we are. We are right now in 1957 through 1966, this passageway between
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West Side Story and Cabaret. We are taking visitors from the 1700s all the way through to
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the present day. In terms of the timelines, and along the way, you'll stop in
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side story, certain shows in specific years, cabaret coming up, as mentioned, a number of shows
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The Whiz, Hair. I think there is a lot of history that we haven't seen before or might not be aware of, and
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hopefully that will be something that is really interesting and exciting for visitors to discover
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dating from the 1700s all the way through to the present day, even. There's a lot of, I think, contemporary history that we don't really know
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So there is a lot here both for fans and for folks who are just getting their feet wet in terms of the musical theater and also plays
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So right now we're standing in 2001 to present. So you've walked through the whole timeline
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You see that the rooms basically connect the dots in the timeline
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So once we get after the producers, then it's a big inclusive room and we're just really celebrating Broadway and a lot of different shows
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because these costumes behind us will continue to change in and out over time But we have some really gems I think behind us right here What do you hope people take away from this There just so much to see here There is so much to see
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I mean, we built this to make sure people had a good time as they were going through, you know
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And I think that hopefully that really comes across. But by having that fun and combining the education, hopefully that's something people really
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will absorb. And especially for younger folks, that might be something that could be really inspiring for
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them to, you know, take this on as a career even. You might walk through and then you'll see, oh, that show looks really cool
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And then you can go. We have this room when you start. That's the playable room. And it's everything that's currently running on Broadway that day
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Because most people don't know that there are 41 theaters and most of them are full
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And so you could see different plays and musicals. There are so many shows
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So does it give you goosebumps? Because I've had them all morning, just so you know
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Oh, I've cried a lot over the same. the last couple days, mainly tears of joy. But it is. It's overwhelming. It's emotional
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The folks that have really been touched as they've been coming through it and the memories that
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it brings back, if you will, of your first Broadway show that you went to or for a lot of people
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that are in the industry, the shows that they worked on. And so we hope it's sort of a love letter
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to the Broadway industry and the Broadway community. And it brings sort of that next generation of
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folks into Broadway and the love of the industry as well
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