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Anthem: Homunculus is a musical podcast series written by John Cameron Mitchell and Bryan Weller starring Mitchell, Glenn Close, Cynthia Erivo, Patti LuPone, Denis O'Hare, Laurie Anderson, Nakhane, Christopher Hanke, Marion Cotillard, Ben Foster and Bridget Everett. The show was produced by Topic Studios and initially released exclusively on Luminary and presently distributed by Acast.
The podcast debuted on April 23, 2019. [1] and was created by John Cameron Mitchell (director, scriptwriter, co-songwriter) and Bryan Weller (co-songwriter and music producer). [2] The first draft was developed at William S. Burroughs's former house in Lawrence, Kansas where Mitchell and Weller were invited to work by Burrough's longtime partner James Grauerholz. [3] [4] Anthem: Homunculus is a ten-episode fictional musical audio series totalling over six hours. [5] [6] The premise and structure stemmed from an unfinished sequel to Hedwig and the Angry Inch ("Hedwig and the Divine Homunculus") that Mitchell abandoned and reworked into a "speculative autobiography" in which he wonders what might have become of him if he had never left his small town of Junction City, Kansas. The plot involves a Mitchell-like protagonist, Ceann MacKay, who attempts to crowdfund his brain tumor health care through an audio telethon. Seizures periodically send him to an afterlife where he wrestles with characters from his past. Glenn Close plays his mother Maeve who, in this liminal space, demands forgiveness by way of a heavy metal song while nailing herself to a cross. Patti Lupone plays Sister Max, his junky jazz-singing nun aunt who is his most supportive family member. Ceann's lover Jairo is played by South African musician/actor Nakhane whom Mitchell cast through DM on Instagram. The part of Joan the Baptist, a singing evangelist for the Virgin Mary, was written for Cynthia Erivo whom he had seen on Broadway in The Color Purple . [7] [8] Mitchell and Weller initially pitched the idea for television but were rejected so they reconceived it as an audio piece. [9] [10] The show features 31 songs written by Weller and Mitchell that span multiple genres. [11] The soundtrack for the podcast was released on May 20, 2019, by Ghostlight Records. [12] The podcast had a live marathon listening party at the IFC Center on November 24, 2019. Later listening parties took place in Austin, San Francisco and Portland, OR. [13] [14] [15]
The Guardian included the show on their list of the best podcasts of 2019 saying that the show "is a heartrending and hilarious combination of music, theatre and drama". [16] Rolling Stone called it "a hallucinatory masterpiece", Slate deemed it "a game changer", and The Atlantic called it one of the best podcasts of 2019, featuring "superbly rendered dialogue". [17] The podcast was an honoree in the scripted fiction category during the 2020 Webby Awards. [18]
Patti Ann LuPone is an American actress and singer best known for her work in musical theater. After starting her professional career with The Acting Company in 1972 she soon gained acclaim for her leading performances on the Broadway and West End stage. She has won three Tony Awards, two Olivier Awards, and two Grammy Awards, and was a 2006 inductee to the American Theater Hall of Fame.
Ana Kristina Gasteyer is an American actress, comedian and singer. She is most notable for her tenure as a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1996 to 2002. She has since starred in such sitcoms as ABC's Suburgatory, TBS's People of Earth, NBC's American Auto, and the film Mean Girls.
Shoshana E. Bean is an American singer, songwriter, and stage actress. She has released three records and has appeared on many theater cast recordings and film soundtracks. In 2022, Bean received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Susan Young in Mr. Saturday Night.
John Doyle is a Scottish stage director of musicals and plays, as well as operas. He served as artistic director at several regional theatres in the United Kingdom, where he staged more than 200 professional productions during his career spanning over 40 years.
The Color Purple is a musical with music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, and a book by Marsha Norman, based on the 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker and its 1985 film adaptation. The musical follows the journey of Celie, an African American woman in the American South from the early to mid-20th century.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Trask and a book by John Cameron Mitchell. The musical follows Hedwig Robinson, a genderqueer East German singer of a fictional rock and roll band. The story draws on Mitchell's life as the child of a U.S. Army major general who once commanded the U.S. sector of occupied West Berlin. The character of Hedwig was inspired by a German divorced U.S. Army wife who was Mitchell's family babysitter and moonlighted as a prostitute at her trailer park home in Junction City, Kansas. The music is steeped in the androgynous 1970s glam rock style of David Bowie, as well as the work of John Lennon and early punk performers Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a 2001 American musical comedy-drama film written for the screen and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Based on Mitchell's and Stephen Trask's 1998 stage musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, it accompanies Hedwig Robinson, a gay East German rock singer. Hedwig subsequently develops a relationship with a younger man, Tommy, becoming his mentor and musical collaborator, only to have Tommy steal her music and become a rock star. The film follows Hedwig and her backing band, the Angry Inch, as they shadow Tommy's tour, while exploring Hedwig's past and her forced sex reassignment surgery. Mitchell reprises his role as Hedwig from the original production.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a 1998 musical about a fictional rock and roll band of the same name fronted by an East German gay man living as a woman, with a book by John Cameron Mitchell, and music and lyrics by Stephen Trask. The musical has gathered a devoted cult following, and was adapted into the 2001 American musical film of the same name directed by Mitchell.
John Cameron Mitchell is an American actor, playwright, screenwriter, singer, songwriter, producer and director. He is known as the writer, director and star of the 2001 film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which is based on the stage musical of the same name. He also portrayed the role of Joe Exotic in the Peacock limited series Joe vs. Carole in 2022.
Cynthia Erivo is an English actress and singer. She gained recognition for starring in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple from 2015 to 2017, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Erivo ventured into films in 2018, playing roles in the heist film Widows and the thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. For her portrayal of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet (2019), Erivo received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she also wrote and performed the song "Stand Up" on its soundtrack, which garnered her a nomination in the Best Original Song category.
The Daily is a daily news podcast produced by the American newspaper The New York Times, hosted by Michael Barbaro and Sabrina Tavernise. Its weekday episodes are based on the Times reporting of the day, with interviews of journalists from The New York Times. Episodes typically last 20 to 30 minutes.
RuPaul: What's the Tee? is a comedy podcast first released on April 9, 2014 hosted by American entertainers RuPaul and Michelle Visage. The hosts discuss a wide range of subjects and usually have at least one celebrity guest appear per episode. They often discuss behind-the-scenes topics from RuPaul's Drag Race, where RuPaul and Visage are also hosts. The podcast won a Webby Award in 2018.
Wicked is an upcoming musical fantasy film directed by Jon M. Chu from a screenplay by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz. It is the first of a two-part film adaptation of Holzman and Schwartz's stage musical Wicked, which is based on the 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire and characters from the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and its 1939 film adaptation. The film stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, with Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh in supporting roles. Set in the Land of Oz, the film revolves around Elphaba, a green-skinned woman, and explores the path that leads her to become the Wicked Witch of the West.
Nakhane Mahlakahlaka is a South African singer, songwriter, actor, and novelist. They are formerly known under the stage name Nakhane Touré. Having grown up among a Christian community in Port Elizabeth, at 15 they moved to Johannesburg, leaving the church in 2013 and publicly celebrating their queerness with their debut album Brave Confusion. They found both controversy and critical acclaim with their starring role in John Trengove's 2017 feature film Inxeba, and relocated to London to record and release 2018's heavily autobiographical album You Will Not Die. Their work has been championed by Elton John, who interviewed Nakhane on his Beats 1 radio show, and Madonna, who cited them as one of her two favourite artists and said their music influenced her 2019 album Madame X.
"Stand Up", officially titled "Stand Up (from Harriet)", is a song performed by English singer Cynthia Erivo and co-written by Erivo with Joshuah Brian Campbell. It was released on 25 October 2019, as the lead single from the soundtrack to the biographical film Harriet, which also stars Erivo.
Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock is an American children's musical fantasy comedy puppet television series about interconnected societies of creatures, as a reboot of the original 1983 series Fraggle Rock by Jim Henson. The first season was released on Apple TV+ on January 21, 2022.
The Jump with Shirley Manson is a music podcast hosted by Garbage's singer Shirley Manson and co-produced by Mailchimp Presents and Little Everywhere, with executive producers Dann Gallucci, Jane Marie and Hrishikesh Hirway. Each episode of The Jump features a guest musician talking about a defining song that represented a breakthrough in the artist's own career and “the moments in an artist’s career where they decide to take a leap into something new.”
Carrier is a podcast produced by QCode and starring Cynthia Erivo. The show is being adapted into a movie.
Little Did I Know is a musical theater podcast produced by Broadway Records and starring Lesli Margherita and Patrick Page.