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WINNER! 2018 Nantucket Film Festival: Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature
 
WINNER! 2018 Tribeca Film Festival: Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director
 
When he started as a comedy writer for the LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN, Steve Young had few interests outside of his day job. But while gathering material for a segment on the show, Steve stumbled onto a few vintage record albums that would change his life forever.
 
Bizarre cast recordings – marked “internal use only” – revealed full-throated Broadway-style musical shows about some of the most recognizable corporations in America: General Electric, McDonald’s, Ford, DuPont, Xerox. Steve didn’t know much about musical theater, but these recordings delighted him in a way that nothing ever had.
 
BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY follows Steve Young on his quest to find all he can about this hidden world. While tracking down rare albums, unseen footage, composers and performers, Steve forms unlikely friendships and discovers that this discarded musical genre starring tractors and bathtubs was bigger than Broadway.
 
With David Letterman, Chita Rivera, Martin Short, Florence Henderson, Susan Stroman, Jello Biafra and more.

 

“ENDEARING. A portrait of hobby turned obsession, a chronicle of a little-known subgenre of musical theater and an elegy for a period in midcentury America when company loyalty was, well, fun.”— New York Times

“A chronicle of an obsessive quest to compile an unknown history that combines a music nerd’s love of esoterica with a detective’s love of following leads down interesting detours.”– Rolling Stone

Dava Whisenant is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker and Sundance Fellow making her directorial debut with BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY. After the film’s world premiere at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, Dava received the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director. Recently, Dava was the Co-Producer and Editor of TWO TRAINS RUNNIN’ – a Grammy®-nominated blues & civil rights documentary directed by Sam Pollard (2016 New York Film Festival). Dava was also an Editor for Focus Features’ 3D documentary UNDER THE ELECTRIC SKY (Sundance 2014), and she cut the doc feature MERLE HAGGARD: LEARNING TO LIVE WITH MYSELF for PBS’ AMERICAN MASTERS. Her diverse experience includes serving as Supervising Producer for BBC Worldwide, an editing assistant to Steven Soderbergh, and several years as an editor at THE LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN.