From PRX

This is Studio 316.

I'm Kurt Anderson.

Go!

This is not your father's musical theater,

or at least not your grandfather's.

This is Headwaghancered. This is Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the highly idiosyncratic musical about a punk rocker transplanted from East Germany to America after a botched sex chain surgery.

It became and remains a genuine cult hit playing all over the world, including a few years ago a Tony Award-winning revival on Broadway that starred

its co-creator John Cameron Mitchell. He also directed the movie version of Hedwig and three other

films since. You've also probably seen him acting on television. He's had recurring roles on

girls and Mozart in the Jungle and lately on the Good Fight.

And now John Cameron Mitchell has created a new highly idiosyncratic musical, a 10-episode

musical podcast. It's called Anthem, Homunculus, and it's a collaboration with composer

Brian Weller, in which John's co-stars include Patty Lepone and Glenn Close.

I spoke with both co-authors about their musical, the premise of which is a guy hosting a kind of

online radio show to raise money for his cancer treatment, a guy played by John.

My name is Kean, which means head in Gaelic, and I have a brain tumor.

But I'm having a good day.

I've got a lot of energy, and I want all five, four of you, still listening, to know I will remain online and on this porch till you cough up the

hundred grand I need to cut this fucker out or till I die whichever comes first now I wrote this song for my tumor.

It's actually a conversation between my tumor and me,

because I figured if my tumor could sing, it might sing something like this.

...