Footlight Parade

Bill Rudman, 53, is an award-winning broadcaster, the co-founder of Harbinger Records, and the executive director of Musical Theater Education Programming. For 23 years he has produced, written and hosted the weekly radio series, Footlight Parade. Since 1983 he has also produced recordings devoted to the songwriting masters of theater and film albums featuring such artists as Peggy Lee and Maxine Sullivan distributed by Angel/EMI, Atlantic Jazz, Stash and Painted Smiles, among other labels. Bill has created many musical-theater revues and concerts celebrating the song legacy of Broadway and Hollywood. He lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio.

If ever there were an art form that speaks "in American," it's the Broadway and Hollywood musical. That's because we Americans created it ? and its impact on our cultural history is incalculable. Our everyday conversations are laced with quotations from its lyrics, and its classic melodies fill the air in everything from contemporary recordings to radio and television ads.