Broadway by the Year has become one of the most beloved musical traditions in the New York theatre scene, for 16 years now, lovers of musical theatre gather to listen to selections from Broadway musicals famous and obscure, performed by some of the best in the business. Each individual program is curated by the extraordinary Scott Siegel, who also serves as master of ceremonies and provides fascinating facts about the context of shows many of us never even knew existed. As the series returns with The Musicals of the 30s on February 22, Mr. Siegel gave us a little preview about what to expect and shared insight into how the selection process is conducted.

Another year, another season of Broadway by the Year. How do you keep from wanting to include your favorite songs year after year?

It's easy; I have a lot of favorites. Happily, so does the audience. Doing the series this season by "the decade" allows a great deal more flexibility and widens my choices. By the same token, working with a smaller cast this season, focusing on having bigger stars take on a larger portion of the show's material, almost by definition creates a lot of musical diversity because all of the stars will want their own songs to be as diverse and contrasting as possible. It should make for exciting nights of music!

What is the most challenging aspect of doing the research?

Deciding on how to attack the information. There are lots of ways to approach the material and find different threads to take the audience from the beginning to the end of the concert. What finally helps me find the right approach is the creation of the running order of the songs. I almost always figure that out first; that's what usually tells me how to tell the story.

Let's say you find a song you want to include that has been done by many artists in many styles. How do you decide which style you'll include in the show? Is it always the original stage version even if you're more partial to another version?

Generally speaking, the more famous the song, the less likely we'll mess with it. The audience has an expectation of how that song should sound; but each artist also puts his her own personality into a performance so they are never carbon copies of the original -- but always in the spirit of the original. If a song is less well-known, we'll take more liberties with it to make it work the best way we know how.

What's your favorite discovery/reevaluation from any of the programs this year?

Ah, that's too soon to say. I can answer that question probably only on the night of the show!

Are there any themes we should be looking for in the 2016 shows? Will you focus on political themed shows for instance?

There will be mini-themes within each show, I'm sure. But the theme of each concert,in its entirety, will be the preservation and appreciation of great show music, which is a unique and distinctly American creation.

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