Jeff Lunden
Jeff Lunden is a freelance arts reporter and producer whose stories have been heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, as well as on other public radio programs.
Lunden contributed several segments to the Peabody Award-winning series The NPR 100, and was producer of the NPR Music series Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall, hosted by Renee Montagne. He has produced more than a dozen documentaries on musical theater and Tin Pan Alley for NPR — most recently A Place for Us: Fifty Years of West Side Story.
Other documentaries have profiled George and Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen and Jule Styne. Lunden has won several awards, including the Gold Medal from the New York Festival International Radio Broadcasting Awards and a CPB Award.
Lunden is also a theater composer. He wrote the score for the musical adaptation of Arthur Kopit's Wings (book and lyrics by Arthur Perlman), which won the 1994 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. Other works include Another Midsummer Night, Once on a Summer's Day and adaptations of The Little Prince and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for Theatreworks/USA.
Lunden is currently working with Perlman on an adaptation of Swift as Desire, a novel of magic realism from Like Water for Chocolate author Laura Esquivel. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
-
Actors' Equity is allowing theaters in the Berkshires region of Massachusetts to put on performances this summer. The theaters plan two live shows with limited audiences and safety protocols in place.
-
Fiona is a 3-year-old, 1,300-pound hippo, and she's a growing girl. Her keeper, Jenna Wingate, is grateful to be able to work during the coronavirus crisis: "It feels good to be needed," she says. -
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Thursday announced a statewide ban of gatherings of more than 500 people. That includes Broadway's 41 theaters. -
The NY Philharmonic has commissioned 19 women to create new works to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment. It's called Project 19. -
Donna Zakowska has already won two Emmys for her work on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel — and two of her costumes are in the Smithsonian. Now she's up for an award from the Costume Designers Guild. -
Sue Monk Kidd's bestselling novel tells the story of a white girl taken in by a family of black beekeepers. The premise posed a welcome challenge for black Pulitzer-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. -
The play, co-written by J.K. Rowling, opened on Sunday and picks up where the last novel left off, with Harry sending his son off to Hogwarts. -
An estimated 48 million Americans suffer some degree of hearing loss. Now, a smartphone app makes it possible for the theatergoers among them to read closed captions on Broadway. -
Every year, the New York City Ballet asks top fashion designers to outfit its dancers for its Fall Gala. Good thing the capacity of its 18-person costume department is "the highest you can get." -
Harold Prince began his career on Broadway as an unpaid assistant in his 20s. Now, at 89, the producer and director has 21 Tony awards and a long list of hit musicals to his name.
