Labor Day has become the unofficial farewell to summer—a final long weekend of beaches, barbecues and the terrible realization that September has arrived. But underneath the holiday is something considerably more important: the people who built, cleaned, taught, carried, cooked, stitched, drove, served and kept this country moving. American music has always told their stories, and musical theatre has done it particularly well. So before we say goodbye to summer, T2C turns up the volume with ten songs about work, money, ambition, exhaustion, dignity and that glorious fantasy every worker has entertained at least once: telling the boss exactly where the job can go.

1. “I Hear America Singing” — Working
This is where I would begin. Stephen Schwartz’s musical adaptation of Studs Terkel’s Working is built around the voices of ordinary American workers, and this number makes labor itself the American chorus. Different jobs, different lives, different dreams—but together they create the sound of a country.

2. “9 to 5” — Dolly Parton or in my version the musical
Nearly half a century later, that opening typewriter rhythm still means business. Parton made workplace inequality funny, furious and irresistibly catchy. It also made its way to Broadway, so Dolly gets to belong to both sides of our playlist.

3. “A Shtetl Iz Amereke” — Ragtime
For the immigrant worker, America promised possibility—but possibility came with a price. Tateh arrives believing in that promise and discovers the grinding reality of factory labor. Ragtime understands that the American Dream and the American workplace have always had a complicated relationship.

4. “She Works Hard for the Money” — Donna Summer
Summer’s anthem was inspired by a real woman she encountered working as a restroom attendant late at night. Beneath the irresistible beat is something Labor Day ought to remember: dignity belongs to the worker regardless of the job.

5. “The Factory Girls/Come Up to My Office” — Parade
This takes the playlist somewhere darker. Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s musical places us inside an industrialized Atlanta where young women work in a pencil factory, reminding us that American labor history includes exploitation, dangerous workplaces and workers with very little power.

6. “Sixteen Tons” — Tennessee Ernie Ford
“I owe my soul to the company store” may be one of the most economical descriptions of worker exploitation ever put into a song. Coal, debt and a system designed to make sure the worker can never quite get ahead.

7. “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” — Americana
And here’s our Broadway history lesson. E.Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney’s Depression-era masterpiece originated in the 1932 Broadway revue Americana. Its worker helped build the railroads, buildings and country—and then found himself discarded when the economy collapsed. More than 90 years later, it still hurts.

8. “Take This Job and Shove It” — Johnny Paycheck
After all that exploitation, somebody was eventually going to quit. There is nothing subtle about this one, which is precisely why it belongs here.

9. “Brotherhood of Man” — How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Now we get wicked. Frank Loesser’s great corporate satire turns the workplace hierarchy into musical comedy as everybody scrambles up the ladder while pretending they’re all one happy corporate family. Broadway knew about office politics long before anyone invented LinkedIn.

10. “Bang the Drum All Day” — Todd Rundgren
And after celebrating the American worker, documenting exploitation, surviving the factory, climbing the corporate ladder and contemplating resignation, there is really only one sensible way to spend Labor Day.

Don’t work.

Turn up the music.

You’ve earned the day off.

G.H. Harding

HONEY MONEY NO MORE? — News that Maria Bartiromo was fired from Fox reverberated around the world and generated a literal ton of ink.

Bryan Freedman

With high-powered pit-bull lawyer Bryan Freedman (fresh from the Blake Lively/Just Baldoni mess) on the case, who knows what will happen.

She first gained notoriety as ‘Money Honey’ and has been a star for years.

(Via Showbiz 411) Maria Bartiromo’s new Hollywood lawyer has something to say. Bryan Freedman says Maria was not fired by Fox News, that she’s still an employee, and all reports to the contrary are false.

You can see his statement below.

Freedman also says there’s no truth to the reports that Bartiromo was acting as a double agent, feeding Donald Trump and Fox News with info about each other. Believe me, I know that when Fox News breaks up with you, it isn’t pretty. It’s not their style. In the end, they will have to pay out her contract. But for now, lots of posturing on both sides.

For many years, Maria Bartiromo hosted three number one rated television shows on Fox channels. She has been, without question, one of the hardest working journalists throughout her award-winning career.

The irresponsible reports that have been published stating that Maria Bartiromo was fired or is no longer an employee of Fox are absolutely and unequivocally false. Make no mistake, we have the receipts and witnesses and they will come out whether through the courthouse or otherwise. Those reporting her firing or the incredulous facts supporting that fiction have exhibited a complete and utter reckless disregard for the truth.

Bryan Freedman, Attorney for Maria Bartiromo

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Derrek Kupish/Shutterstock (14186545bu)
Patti Labelle
2023 CMT Smashing Glass – Tributes to Tanya Tucker and Patti LaBelle, Arrivals, Nashville, Tennessee, USA – 15 Nov 2023

PATTI LABELLE — Common, Patti LaBelle and Public Enemy are the artists who will be honored at the 2026 Black Music Action Coalition Gala, presented by Live Nation, taking place on September 24, 2026, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. She of course, front LaBelle with the late Nona Hendryx, but has remained a marquee-name for sure. So well deserved!

SHORT TAKES — (Via Billboard.com) Cassandra Wilson, the two-time Grammy Award-winning jazz singer, songwriter and producer has died. She was 70. Dubbed America’s best singer by Time magazine in 2001, Wilson was best known for her genre-bending voice, which expanded the boundaries of traditional blues-based jazz and worked effortlessly across folk, pop, R&B, country and beyond. At the heart of all her work was her idiosyncratic contralto, a soulful sound distinctly tied to her roots … (Via Deadline) As Simon Cowell continues to recover from back surgery, another America’s Got Talent alum is returning to the judge’s table. On Wednesday’s episode of the NBC reality competition series, it was announced that Heidi Klum will fill in for Cowell next week during a special three-hour broadcast of the Season 21 quarterfinals. Klum served as a judge on America’s Got Talent from 2013 to 2018, before returning from 2020 to 2024. She exited the AGT judge’s table last year, shortly after she was invited back to host Project Runway for Freeform and Disney+ …

Mr T

On Friday’s Today Show, Al Roker caught with the infamous Mr. T from The A-Team. Who says you can’t get a doc made? Mr. T’s one is out now on Netflix … Much ink this week about Miley Cyrus changing her name to just Miley; and a new album appears with the single “Bass Persuades.” The song is typical high-energy Miley, but the video looks like a combo of the best parts of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video and Debbie Gibson’s “Electric Youth” video. Funny! …

Micky Dolenz on KTLA

Here’s Micky Dolenz at LA’s KTLA being interviewed in advance of his show at The United Theater Downtown in LA next Saturday, February 12; and his new EP Timeless, featuring the singles “Terri” and “Any Way You Want Me To.” February 12 is the official date of the Emmy-award winning TV-show The Monkees debuting on NBC. L-R-Standing-Jasmine Simpkins and Dolenz -sitting- Samantha Cortese and John Fenoglio … Anthony Pomes and his Doors-tribute band Carnival Dogs played My Father’s Place Friday night.

Eppy and Anthony Pomes aka “Inner Jim”

Here’s Inner Jim with Eppy … (via Deadline) Prime Video has opted not to proceed with a second season of the superhero series Spider-Noir starring Nicola Cage. Spider-Noir was the second series ordered and first to make it to the screen under a multi-title deal between Amazon MGM Studios and Sony Pictures Television based on IP from Sony Pictures’ Universe of Marvel Characters. Too bad as I loved it and Cage was just superb as usual … Happy Bday Sharon White

 NAMES IN THE NEWS —– Anna Chan; Joe Lynch; Gary Graff; Paul Grein; Adam White; Anthony Pomes; Pierce Brosnan; Kevin Spacey; Kimberly Cornell; Amanda Naylor; Tom & Lisa Cuddy; Gary Graff; John Hughes; Dan Mapp; Paul Pierce; Judy Kaufman; Marjorie Schwartz; Lora Evans; Ben Kenney; Angela Tarantino; Lee Jeske; Randy Alexander; Peter Shendell; Romeo Escobar; Oleg Cassini; and CHIP!

 Images on this page have been licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Before Rachel Zegler returns to Broadway as Eva Perón, she is making a considerably less formal stop in Cuba.

The Olivier and Golden Globe Award winner will host the next “dance-along” performance of the Tony and Grammy-winning Buena Vista Social Club on Tuesday, September 29 at 7 p.m., continuing what has quietly become one of Broadway’s most joyful traditions.

For one performance, the usual Broadway commandment—sit down and behave yourself—gets loosened considerably. Audience members are invited to dance from their seats whenever the music takes over, whether that means swaying, shaking a shoulder or surrendering completely to the rhythms that have made Buena Vista Social Club such an exhilarating night in the theatre.

There are rules. This is Broadway, after all. Patrons are asked to dance responsibly and return to their seats between songs so everyone can see and enjoy the performance. But within those boundaries, the evening turns the theatre into something closer to a communal celebration than a conventional Broadway musical.

Zegler follows a rather spectacular trio of previous hosts. Lin-Manuel Miranda launched the dance-along series in March, John Leguizamo took over in May, and Lupita Nyong’o hosted the most recent edition this summer. Each performance sold out, making a fourth installment almost inevitable. Zegler is an especially delicious choice.

She will return to Broadway next year in Jamie Lloyd’s acclaimed production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita, reprising the Eva Perón performance that earned her the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The production begins previews February 27, 2027, at the Winter Garden Theatre and officially opens March 25.

The London production became a phenomenon, with Zegler’s “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” spilling beyond the walls of the London Palladium as she performed the number from the theatre’s exterior balcony. That particular staging will not be recreated in New York; director Jamie Lloyd has said he is developing a new idea specifically for Broadway.

September 29th is a rather wonderful Broadway appetizer. Before the balcony, before the Winter Garden, before the diamonds and the ambition of Eva Perón, Rachel Zegler will be at Buena Vista Social Club, where the assignment is considerably simpler: Feel the music…..and dance.

Tickets for this special Dance-Along performance, as well as all regularly scheduled performances, are available at buenavistasocialclub.com

Fall fashion officially arrived in Tribeca as QVC gathered Coco Rocha, Nicole Miller, Mally Roncal and Aimee Kestenberg at Fouquet’s New York for an intimate first look at the season ahead.

Held September 2, QVC’s Fall Fashion Kickoff brought together four women with distinctly different points of view, offering a preview of the collections and new pieces arriving on the network throughout the fall. But the evening’s biggest reveal belonged to Coco Rocha, who offered guests a first glimpse of her first-ever QVC apparel collection, set to launch later this season.

Coco Rocha Celebrates Her First-Ever QVC Apparel Collection! Photo by Lauren Cassot

For Rocha, one of fashion’s most recognizable models and certainly one of its greatest posers, moving from wearing the clothes to putting her own name and perspective behind them is an intriguing next act. Her career has always been built on transformation—she can change the entire attitude of a garment with a shoulder, a hand or one perfectly calculated glance—so seeing how that understanding of clothes translates into a collection of her own is worth watching.

Aimee Kestenberg Shows Off a Standout Style from Her Fall Collection Photo by Lauren Cassot

Designer Aimee Kestenberg was also on hand, showing off a statement jacket from her latest fall collection.

Mally Roncal holds up a denim jacket from her new fashion collection with QVC. Photo by Lauren Cassot

Beauty powerhouse Mally Roncal gave guests a closer look at a denim jacket from her new QVC fashion line. Nicole Miller, whose name has been part of the New York fashion vocabulary for decades, rounded out the fashionable foursome.

The choice of Fouquet’s New York was equally fitting. With its Paris-meets-downtown-Manhattan atmosphere, the Tribeca hotel supplied an elegant backdrop for an evening that was less sprawling fashion spectacle and more stylish preview of what women may actually want to wear once New York’s temperature finally decides that summer is over.

That may be the more interesting direction fashion is taking this fall. The distance between runway fantasy and clothes designed for real wardrobes continues to shrink. Personality matters. Wearability matters. And increasingly, the woman behind the clothes matters just as much as the label sewn inside them.

Rocha, Roncal, Kestenberg and Miller each arrive at that conversation from somewhere different—model, beauty entrepreneur and designers with their own established aesthetics—but together they offered QVC a decidedly New York way to welcome the season.

Summer may still be hanging onto the city, but inside Fouquet’s, fall had already arrived.

Twenty-five years have passed since September 11, 2001. A quarter of a century is long enough for children to become adults, skylines to change and a new generation to know that morning only through photographs, recordings and the stories of those who were there. Yet in New York, there are some absences time does not erase.

On Friday, September 11, Bryant Park and Bank of America will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the attacks with a day of remembrance, beginning with an extraordinary installation across the park’s lawn: 2,753 empty chairs, each representing a life lost at the World Trade Center. The chairs will face south.

It is a simple gesture, and that simplicity may be what makes it so powerful. Rather than attempting to recreate the horror of that morning, the installation represents what remained afterward: the empty chair at the dinner table, the missing person at the birthday party, the parent who never came home, the colleague whose desk remained vacant. Multiply that absence by 2,753 and suddenly a statistic becomes human again.

From 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., visitors will be invited to write a note of remembrance and place a carnation, provided by Bank of America, on one of the chairs. For the first 3,000 carnations placed by the public, Bank of America will donate $25 per flower, with the funds divided among the NYC Police Foundation, FDNY Foundation and Port Authority PBA Widows’ and Children’s Fund.

The remembrance continues that evening when the American Symphony Orchestra takes over the Bryant Park lawn from 7 to 8:15 p.m. for a free memorial concert as part of Bryant Park’s Picnic Performances.

The program could hardly begin with a more appropriate American voice. Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man was written not for kings, presidents or generals, but in honor of ordinary people asked to meet extraordinary times. On September 11, 2001, New York discovered just how extraordinary ordinary people could be.

The concert will also include the Adagio from Gustav Mahler’s Tenth Symphony and George Walker’s Lyric for Strings, along with additional works honoring the resilience of Americans and the courage and sacrifice of those who responded on September 11.

Founded by Leopold Stokowski in 1962, the American Symphony Orchestra has spent more than six decades bringing orchestral music to wider audiences, making its presence here particularly fitting. There will be no tickets and no velvet ropes. New Yorkers can simply bring a blanket, sit on the lawn and listen. For those unable to attend, the concert will also be livestreamed.

There is something particularly poignant about holding this remembrance in Bryant Park. This is not a cemetery or a memorial site. It is one of the most alive places in Manhattan, surrounded by offices, restaurants, tourists, commuters, children, music and the relentless movement of New York City. Life will continue all around those empty chairs. That, too, is part of September 11’s legacy.

New York did not forget its dead in order to continue living. It continued living because they could not.

Twenty-five years later, 2,753 empty chairs will face south across Bryant Park. For one day, in the middle of a city that rarely stops moving, we will be asked to notice who is missing.