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BROADWAY PODCAST NETWORK RELEASES NEW SERIES “CELEBRATING LUCY SIMON”

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
BROADWAY PODCAST NETWORK
RELEASES NEW SERIES
“CELEBRATING LUCY SIMON”
FEATURING
GRAMMY AWARD WINNING COMPOSER LUCY SIMON
JUDY COLLINS
MARSHALL BRICKMAN
MARSHA NORMAN
VICTORIA CLARK
WARREN CARLYLE
AND MANY MORE! 

WITH PERFORMANCES BY
SIERRA BOGGESS
DAISY EAGAN
JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL
AND
RAMIN KARIMLOO

New York, NY (October 25, 2022) – Broadway Podcast Network Co-Founders Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales announced today the launch of the network’s new series, “Celebrating Lucy Simon.” “Celebrating Lucy Simon” is a five-part video and podcast series featuring never before heard stories from the late Lucy Simon herself and her renowned collaborators Judy Collins, Marshall Brickman, Marsha Norman, Victoria Clark, and many others, as well as performances by Sierra Boggess, Daisy Eagan, John Cameron Mitchell, Ramin Karimloo and more. The series celebrates the life and work of the Grammy Award winning composer, from the perspective of her friends, family, and collaborators and features songs such as “Wick”, “Come to my Garden” and “Lily’s Eyes.”

When asked about working on this series, Sierra Boggess said, “for me, Lucy’s music has been my soul music for as long as I can remember. Then once I got to work with her and know her, I fully understood why I had been drawn to her music for my whole life. She is ethereal, other worldly, regal, uses her entire being in her work, she cares deeply, she is grace and emotion all rolled into one. Lucy called me her goddaughter and I feel the most immense connection to her, my surrogate godmother. From now until forever my “‘Lily’ is for her.”

“Lucy’s music is as soulful as she is herself,” says Victoria Clark. “Her uncanny gifts for melody and melodic expression are unparalleled. It was a joy to work on The Secret Garden, Fanny Hackabout Jones, and On Cedar Street with her and to learn from her as an artist, person, and mother.”

“I cannot overstate the impact that Lucy has had on my life,” says Daisy Eagan. “The Secret Garden was a formative experience for me, and quite literally may have saved my life. Lucy’s music helped carry me through an extremely difficult personal time, and obviously helped to shape my professional life. Dozens of people over the years have told me that the Original Cast Recording of The Secret Garden got them through their own difficult times. The countless people that Lucy touched with her gift will hold her in their hearts forever.”

Video episodes are available to watch at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNSX5V7vI1yE2nwl8Hb7Fb965MwML-9pF

To listen, please visit https://broadwaypodcastnetwork.com/podcast/celebrating-lucy-simon, or wherever podcasts are found.

This podcast supports the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. To make a donation, please visit https://broadwaypodcastnetwork.com/podcast/celebrating-lucy-simon/.

“Celebrating Lucy Simon” is produced by Loraine Boyle, Dori Berinstein, Alan Seales, Kimberlee Garris and the Broadway Music Network, a division of Broadway Podcast Network.

ABOUT LUCY SIMON

Composer Lucy Simon was born in New York on May 5, 1940 to publishing giant Richard Simon and his wife Andrea. She was the second oldest of four children Joanna, Lucy, Carly, and Peter.  She grew up in a musical household where her parents entertained the era’s leading lights of literature and music like James Thurber, Richard Rodgers, Benny Goodman, and Oscar Hammerstein.

A school assignment to memorize and recite a poem prompted 14-year-old Lucy to write her first music. Because she was dyslexic, she could only memorize Eugene Field’s poem, “Wynken, Blynken & Nod,” by setting it to music.  In their early college years, she and her sister, Carly, began their short-lived career performing as the Simon Sisters in Provincetown, followed by opening for acts like the Tarriers in Greenwich Village folk clubs. Their recording of “Wynken, Blynken & Nod” hit number 73 on the Billboard charts in 1964.

While younger sister Carly would find huge success in the rock world after the sister act broke up, Lucy decided to go to nursing school. She married psychiatrist David Levine in 1967. Returning to music after her two children, Jamie and Julie, were in school, she recorded two solo albums, “Lucy Simon” (1975) and “Stolen Time” (1977), for RCA.   Not willing to go on the road as the record business demanded, Lucy and her husband David produced two Grammy winning children’s albums, “In Harmony” (1981) and “In Harmony 2 (1983).”

She found her true calling composing for the Broadway stage. She acquired the rights to turn the children’s classic book, Little House On The Prairie into a musical and worked with lyricist Susan Birkenhead on it. “That book never worked,” Lucy said, “but I learned about writing for musical theatre. So when I was asked to write the music for The Secret Garden, I was ready with my whole heart.”

In 1991 she would become only the third female composer to have a show on Broadway. The Secret Garden ran for 709 performances on Broadway, won two Tony awards and has been performed all over the world.  Secret Garden’s playwright Marsha Norman, who wrote both the book and lyrics and Heidi Landesman, the producer, brought in Lucy as the composer after loving a demo melody she wrote for the lyrics of “I Heard Someone Crying”. The Center Theater Group in Los Angeles will present a new production directed by Warren Carlyle at the Ahmanson Theater from February 19,2023 through March 26, 2023.

Her next musical, Doctor Zhivago, was a passion project spurred by her reading the poems Pasternak as Zhivago wrote at the end of the epic Nobel prize winning novel.  “Those poems were my way into the music, my inspiration to tell the story in song.”  The musical, after almost 20 years of gestation, debuted in Australia before landing on Broadway in 2015.  With a book by Michael Weller and lyrics by Amy Powers and Michael Korie, the show has since had successful productions in Germany, Austria and Poland as well as Korea. A concert version starring Ramin Karimaloo will be presented at The Palladium in London on May 9, 2023.

Lucy had been working with Susan Birkenhead and Emily Mann on a musical, On Cedar Street, based on the 2015 book, Our Souls At Night with Victoria Clark directing.  Sadly, her battle with 4th stage metastatic breast cancer has forced her to bow out of the project but some of her music will live on as they go forward.

For her work over the years, Lucy has received a Tony nomination, Grammy and Drama Desk Awards and in 2018 Samuel French Award for Sustained Excellence in American Theater.  Lucy also wrote and produced the songs and soundtrack for the multi-award winning HBO movie, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom in 1993.

“I believe life and art continue into the future,” said Lucy.  “The melody always takes me home. It leads me to where I want to go.  It’s my religion as if the ancient gods were speaking to me.”

ABOUT BROADWAY PODCAST NETWORK 

With over 150 theatre and theatre-adjacent podcasts, audio dramas, parodies, radio plays, live video events, and more, the Broadway Podcast Network is deeply engaged with avid theatre goers globally. BPN storytellers represent a wide variety of voices and perspectives. With custom and original programming, podcasts, live streamed events, exclusive video content, and fan engagement, BPN deeply engages theatre-loving audiences drives attendance and loyalty on Broadway and way beyond.

Hosts and guests range from teenage theater lovers to Tony-award winning Broadway veterans, giving all theater fans and professionals something to relate to. The platform also allows for performers and creatives to explore different avenues and interests, showing fans a different side of their lives. In addition to the standard podcast format, the network also has 16 radio plays and audio dramas available. From organizations and companies such as The Broadway League, 54 Below, Center Theatre Group (CTG), and the Dramatist Guild to theatre stars and personalities such as Sir Tiim Rice, James Monroe Igelhart, Ashley Park, Michael Urie, Ariana DeBose, Patti LuPone and Alex Brightman, Broadway Podcast Network gives listeners a glimpse into all sides of the industry.

For more information, please visit https://broadwaypodcastnetwork.com/.