Jeff Lunden Jeff Lunden
Jeff Lunden
Stories By

Jeff Lunden

Jeff Lunden

Freelance Contributor

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.

Story Archive

Wednesday

1985 sci-fi comedy 'Back to the Future' and its famous DeLorean are now on Broadway

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Friday

Tim Hatley's sketch shows the musical's DeLorean on stage. Tim Hatley/Back to the Future: The Musical hide caption

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Tim Hatley/Back to the Future: The Musical

How 'Back to the Future: The Musical' created a DeLorean that flies

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Saturday

You can immerse yourself — literally — in this Broadway show

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Tuesday

Arielle Jacobs and Jose Llana as Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos in Here Lives Love. Billy Bustamante, Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman hide caption

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Billy Bustamante, Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

You can immerse yourself — literally — in this Broadway show

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Friday

Broadway lyricist Sheldon Harnick at the Tony Awards in May 2016. Matthew Eisman/Getty Images hide caption

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Matthew Eisman/Getty Images

Broadway lyricist Sheldon Harnick, who wrote 'Fiddler on the Roof,' dies at 99

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Thursday

British actor Glenda Jackson in April, 1974. Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images hide caption

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Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

British star Glenda Jackson has died at age 87

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Monday

For the first time, 2 nonbinary actors were nominated for Tonys. They both won

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Sunday

"This was a tough shot to get," Marc J. Franklin says of this photo he took for Some Like It Hot. Marc J. Franklin hide caption

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Marc J. Franklin

We ask 3 Broadway photographers: How do you turn a live show into a still image?

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Saturday

Annaleigh Ashford, left, and Josh Groban star in Broadway's current revival of Sweeney Todd. Ashford says it's rare for musicals to have this large of an orchestra. Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman/Sweeney Todd hide caption

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Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman/Sweeney Todd

After years of ever-shrinking orchestras, some Broadway musicals are going big

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Thursday

Alex Newell has been nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Emilio Madrid/Shucked hide caption

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Emilio Madrid/Shucked

Tony Awards have gendered actor categories — where do nonbinary people fit?

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Sunday

A rarely revived Lorraine Hansberry play comes to Broadway

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Saturday

John Riddle as Raoul, Laird Mackintosh as the Phantom and Emilie Kouatchou as Christine, take a bow at the end of the final performance of the Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theater in New York City on April 16, 2023. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

'Phantom of the Opera' takes a final Broadway bow after 13,981 performances

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'Phantom of the Opera' takes a final Broadway bow after 13,981 performances

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Wednesday

Annaleigh Ashford and Josh Groban in the 2023 Broadway production of Sweeney Todd. Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman hide caption

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Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

As 'Sweeney Todd' returns to Broadway, 4 Sweeneys dish about the difficult role

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Thursday

Actor Topol, who appeared in 'Fiddler on the Roof' hundreds of times, has died

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Saturday

Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan star in a rarely revived Lorraine Hansberry play. Catalina Kulczar/Brooklyn Academy of Music hide caption

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Catalina Kulczar/Brooklyn Academy of Music

A rarely revived Lorraine Hansberry play is here — and it's messy but powerful

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Wednesday

Encore: Look out, Nets rivals! Octogenarian Mr. Whammy is coming for you

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Saturday

Bruce Reznick, known as "Mr. Whammy" at a Nets game earlier this month. Brooklyn Nets hide caption

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Brooklyn Nets

Look out, Nets rivals! Octogenarian Mr. Whammy is coming for you

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Sunday

Trade, created by Emma O'Halloran and Mark O'Halloran, will be featured at the PROTOTYPE festival this year. Maria Baranova/Unison Media hide caption

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Maria Baranova/Unison Media

Who says opera needs a grand stage? This festival is all about intimate productions

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Monday

Tuesday

Kelli O'Hara as Laura Brown, Renée Fleming as Clarissa Vaughan, and Joyce DiDonato as Virginia Woolf in Kevin Puts's "The Hours." Evan Zimmerman/Met Opera hide caption

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Evan Zimmerman/Met Opera

Three superstar divas power opera 'The Hours' - coming to movie theaters everywhere.

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Friday

Encore: At The Museum of Broadway, people learn what it takes to make a show

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Saturday

The Wiz is just one of the shows celebrated in the new Museum of Broadway. Monique Carboni/Museum of Broadway hide caption

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Monique Carboni/Museum of Broadway

The Museum of Broadway reveals the show behind the show

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Monday