With new podcast “And The Award Goes To…,” Ilana Levine talks To Tony winners
Noah Golden
Since 2016, performer Ilana Levine has been interviewing actors, writers, directors and professional creatives on her podcast “Little Known Facts,” which she previously described to OnStage Blog as “the most inclusive, personal conversations that [are] meant to share artists in an uncensored, unpackaged way.” 200-plus “LNF” episodes later, Levine has a new podcast project. “And The Award Goes To…” tracks the career of Tony-winning guests using their acceptance speeches as an entryway. “Many of them have not listened to their speech since they made it,” Levine explained in an email, “It's a thrill to listen to it together and ask them to take me through all that led up to that night.”
The idea came to Levine when the 2020 Tony Awards were canceled due to COVID-19. “I thought [a new podcast] would be a wonderful way to celebrate the artists who have created work that has been so meaningful during this unprecedented time,” she says. Levine herself is no stranger to the Tonys. She played Lucy in the 1999 revival of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown,” which was nominated for Best Revival. The musical lost to “Annie Get Your Gun,” but did take home statues for actors Roger Bart and Kristin Chenoweth. Levine has also been seen in three other Broadway shows and has a long list of Off-Broadway, regional and onscreen credits. She currently lives in New York with her husband, actor Dominic Fumusa, and their two children.
What has drawn many listeners to “Little Known Facts” is that the conversations seem so personal and unscripted, with none of the manicured, polished sheen you often get in interviews. Part of this is due to Levine’s natural gifts of putting guests at ease and because she herself is both a professional actress and a bona fide musical theater fangirl. That intimacy is especially true when she invites her own friends on the podcast. “BD Wong played my brother in ‘Charlie Brown’ and is like a brother to me in real life,” she told me when I asked about upcoming guests, “so it was incredible to learn about his time in ‘M. Butterfly.’” Another upcoming episode features Cynthia Nixon, whom Levine met in 1988 on the set of a television miniseries and became “one of [her] most loyal and wonderful friends” as well as one of her bridesmaids.
Three episodes of “And The Awards Goes To…,” featuring Patti LuPone, James Monroe Iglehart and Karen Olivo, are currently live on the Broadway Podcast Network. She currently has seven more episodes ready to go for the show’s inaugural season. Upcoming guests include Norbert Leo Butz, Laura Benanti and Nikki M. James (“the loveliest, most honest person”). For a few guests, just figuring out which Tony win to focus on was a challenge. For Judith Light, Levine says it was “no surprise that she would choose her humanitarian award because that is so much of who she is.”
According to Levine, each “extraordinary talent” featured on the podcast has “added something to my life and my listeners’ lives with their honesty and their generosity in sharing so much of themselves with us. There have been so many moments where guests have revealed things for the first time and I feel so grateful they have chosen my podcast to share some very deep truths about their lives, their tremendous success [as well as the] very difficult aspects of the job that we are not always privy to.”
Especially now with the uncertain future of live theater and the many conversations surrounding race and representation on stage, Levine told me that her foremost goal with both podcasts are to have “in-depth and eye-opening conversations with people fighting for equality within our community and beyond.”
“And The Awards Goes To…” is available on the Broadway Podcast Network. For more information, follow Ilana Levine on Twitter (@ilanalevine) or Instagram (@LittleKnownFactsPodcast).