Footlight Parade presents a two-week tribute to Barbara Cook, a recent recipient of the highly prestigious Kennedy Center Honors.  

Ms Cook was considered “Broadway’s favorite ingenue” during the Golden Age of the Broadway musical.   Among the many credits in Ms Cook’s illustrious Broadway career are originating iconic roles in the classic musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, Candide, The Music Man, and She Loves Me.  Following her Broadway years, she launched a highly successful career concert and recording career.

Footlight Parade is a nationally syndicated weekly public radio program hosted by Bill Rudman and produced by The Musical Theatre Project.  Footlight Parade showcases the best of Broadway and Hollywood and is heard on over 100 stations across the country.  Programs can also be heard on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX).

Listen on PRX:  PART 1, PART 2

Bill Rudman, who lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio, is an educator, a broadcaster, a producer and the founder of The Musical Theater Project. His weekly radio program Footlight Parade has aired locally for 25 years and in national syndication for 10 years. Since 2005, XM Satellite Radio has carried TMTP’s program On the Aisle on its Broadway channel.

Bill’s interviews for broadcast have included such leading figures in musical theater and cabaret as performers Mandy Patinkin, Barbara Cook, Bobby Short and Nanette Fabray; songwriters Stephen Sondheim, Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Sheldon Harnick, Hugh Martin, Burton Lane, Gretchen Cryer and Tom Jones; director-choreographer Tommy Tune; and director George Abbott (one month before his 100th birthday).

Bill has created and hosted numerous musical theater revues and concerts celebrating the song legacy of Broadway and Hollywood, and has taught musical theater history at the college level. In 1983, he and New York author Ken Bloom co-founded Harbinger Records, a label that has won critical praise for albums devoted to the American musical and the Great American Songbook. In 2000, Bill became the first recipient of the Robert P. Bergman Prize honoring his work in arts education.