All stories by Michael Portantiere on BroadwayStars

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Little Women by Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 2005 (Ghostlight) No stars; not recommended. Among the most unsatisfying of modern musicals are those poorly done adaptations of classic literature that achieve succe…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:02PM
Saturday, December 30, 2023

I Can’t Keep Running in Place by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1981 (Painted Smiles) This musical about a six-week women’s assertiveness training workshop came across as little more than an audition piece for Barbara Schott…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:41PM

Man in the Moon by Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 1963 (Golden Records/no CD) The puppets of Bil and Cora Baird were all over early television, as well as being featured in the Broadway musical Flahooley and the film…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:30PM

Half-Past Wednesday/Rumpelstiltskin by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1962 (Columbia/no CD) No stars, not recommended. The success of Once Upon a Mattress inspired several other fairy tale musicals, including this one — but the au…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:58AM

Fermat’s Last Tango by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2002 (Original Cast Records) A musical about a math problem? It’s a crazy notion, but composer-lyricist Joshua Rosenblum and librettist-lyricist Joanne Sydney L…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:44AM

Cowgirls by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1996 (Varèse Sarabande)  This cute little show, with music and lyrics by Mary Murfitt and a book by Betsy Howie, had a decent run Off-Broadway in 1996. The song…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:26AM

Greenwich Village U.S.A. by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1960 (20th Century Fox/no CD) No stars, not recommended. Some people have a blind affection for 1950s and ’60s revues, but being blind doesn’t mean that you …

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:18AM
Tuesday, December 26, 2023

The Show Goes On: A Portfolio of Theater Songs by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt by Michael Portantiere

Off-Broadway Cast, 1998 (DRG) There are plenty of small delights — simple little things, one might say — to be found in this live recording of the York Theatre Company’s revue, in whic…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:38PM

Tuck Everlasting by Michael Portantiere

Broadway Cast, 2016 (DMI Soundtracks) Not much seems worth immortalizing when it comes to the Broadway adaptation of Natalie Babbitt’s beloved 1975 children’s novel Tuck Everlasting, in …

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:14PM
Monday, December 25, 2023

A Christmas Story by Michael Portantiere

World Premiere Recording, 2012 (Masterworks Broadway) In this stage adaptation of the film of the same title about a boy who really wants a BB gun for Christmas, songwriters Benj Pasek and J…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:45AM
Saturday, December 16, 2023

Days of Wine and Roses by Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 2023 (Nonesuch) Days of Wine and Roses marks the first musical with a score by composer/lyricist Adam Guettel that has been produced since Guettel’s triumph with Th…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:46PM
Thursday, November 2, 2023

Talkin' Broadway - Interview with Douglas Sills: "The Frogs"- 11/2/23 by Michael Portantiere

Douglas Sills will always be remembered and beloved by theatre lovers for his bravura performance as the star of the first incarnation of the Frank Wildhorn-Nan Knighton musical The Scarlet …

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:03AM
Sunday, October 29, 2023

Evening Primrose by Michael Portantiere

Television Cast, 1966 (Kritzerland) Stephen Sondheim provided a brief but compelling score for this TV musical with a teleplay by James Goldman, based on a short story by John Collier. It te…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:12PM
Friday, October 27, 2023

All That Chat - NEW PHOTOS: JONTHAN TUNICK RECEIVES HIS SARDI'S PORTRAIT by Michael Portantiere

Jonathan Tunick receives his Sardi's portrait. Photos by Michael Portantiere.

SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 11:51AM
Monday, October 23, 2023

Back to the Future by Michael Portantiere

Original London Cast, 2022 (Masterworks Broadway) No stars; not recommended. These days, when you hear that a beloved movie is getting turned into a musical,  it sounds less like an announ…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:02PM
Saturday, October 21, 2023

13 by Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 2008 (Ghostlight) Musical theater writers from Strouse and Adams to Pasek and Paul have tried to write musicals capturing the spirit of what it means to be a teenager…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 06:23PM
Sunday, October 8, 2023

Harmony by Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 2023 (Sh-K-Boom) It took Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman’s musical Harmony 26 years to get to Broadway, over four times as long a period as the Comedian Harmonists …

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:16PM
Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Big City Rhythm by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1996 (Original Cast Records) The heyday of the intimate revue may have been decades ago, but some good ones have surfaced more recently. Consider Barry Kleinbort�…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:00PM

Bed & Sofa by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1976 (Varese Sarabande) A stylized, three-character “silent movie opera” by composer Polly Pen and playwright Lawrence Klavan, Bed & Sofa premiered just o…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:35AM

The Beautiful Game by Michael Portantiere

Original London Cast, 2000 (Telstar) Those who would type Andrew Lloyd Webber as a purveyor of lightweight poperettas may not know what to make of this tragic love story set against a backgr…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:12AM

Ballad for Bimshire by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1963 (London/no CD) This Off-Broadway oddity probably got produced because of the reputation of its composer, Irving Burgie — also known as Lord Burgess. Having…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:55AM

Bubbling Brown Sugar by Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 1976 (Amherst) No stars, not recommended. This is arguably the least necessary Broadway album ever. Yes, the show was a hit (766 performances), and it served as the …

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:43AM
Saturday, September 23, 2023

The Madwoman of Central Park West by Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 1990 (DRG) This show was a good time, but the cast recording — only 37 minutes in length — is of little help in bringing back the experience for those who saw it,…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:18PM

Make a Wish by Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 1951 (RCA/Sepia) A spiffy overture, a swell opening chorus (“The Tour Must Go On”), then out comes our heroine with an even better character-establishing number, …

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:44AM
Thursday, September 21, 2023

Avenue X by Michael Portantiere

World Premiere Recording, 1997 (RCA) Avenue X shows how some folks in the racially divided America of the early 1960s tried to achieve peace and harmony through rock and roll. The theme is s…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:20PM

At the Drop of a Hat by Michael Portantiere

Original Cast (London and Broadway), 1959 (Angel) Producer Alexander Cohen had the good sense to bring a host of newcomers to Broadway from England, among them Michael Flanders and Donald Sw…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:33PM
Thursday, September 7, 2023

At Home Abroad by Michael Portantiere

Studio Recordings by the Original Broadway Cast, 1935 (Smithsonian/no CD) Always welcome on Broadway during the Depression was a star-packed musical revue. At Home Abroad, billed as “A Mus…

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:31PM
Friday, August 25, 2023

The Athenian Touch by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1964 (Broadway East/AEI) 0 stars, not recommended. One day, sometime in the 1980s, several boxes of the long-out-of-print LP of The Athenian Touch turned up in a …

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:48AM

Arms and the Girl by Michael Portantiere

Original Broadway Cast, 1948 (Decca) The Theatre Guild was riding the success of the still-running Oklahoma! when Armina Marshall Langner suggested that The Pursuit of Happiness, a play she …

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:07AM
Thursday, August 24, 2023

How to Steal an Election by Michael Portantiere

Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1968 (RCA/no CD) A young black man (Clifton Davis) and a young white woman (Carole Demas), both veterans of the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention in …

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:37PM

archy and mehitabel by Michael Portantiere

Concept Album, 1954 (Columbia/Masterworks Broadway) Based on the 1920s newspaper columns of Don Marquis, archy and mehitabel stars a cockroach. Ostensibly, the columns were the work of said …

SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:53PM

All that Chat

2023-2024 BROADWAY SEASON
May 30, 2023: Grey House - Lyceum Theatre
Jun 26, 2023: Just For Us - Hudson Theatre
Jul 24, 2023: The Cottage - Hayes Theater
Nov 16, 2023: Spamalot - St. James Theatre
Dec 18, 2023: Appropriate - Hayes Theater
Mar 07, 2024: Doubt - Todd Haimes Theatre
Apr 14, 2024: Lempicka - Longacre Theatre
Apr 17, 2024: The Wiz - Marquis Theatre
Apr 18, 2024: Suffs - Music Box Theatre
Apr 25, 2024: Mother Play - Hayes Theater
Jun 10, 2024: The Drama Desk Awards