The sweep of Benedict Nightingale’s “Great Moments in Theatre” covers not decades or centuries, but millennia. As if his pen were a time machine, he takes the reader back a…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:07AMHow did this one slip by me last year? In October, the New York Times’ Ben Brantley released a beautiful-to-look-at and rewarding-to-read volume titled “Broadway Musicals” …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:44AMNext Sunday, February 10th, is the big night for the recording industry. The Grammy’s, which are, to that industry, what the Tonys are for Broadway, Oscars for movies and Emmys for t…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:27AMTheater lovers with well stocked shelves should have a side-shelf for volumes about movies. After all, they are a form of performance art akin to theater. Those interested in musical theater…
SOURCE: feeds.feedblitz.com at 08:55AMI was right! Last month, as we put together the annual Holiday Gift Guide, I included a suggestion that a fabulous gift would be one or more of the new live recordings of the cabaret shows a…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 05:50AMThe good people at VAI – Video Artists International – continue mining the gold of old kinescopes of early television shows much to the delight of musical theater lovers. Four new discs …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:26PMLet’s start the year off with a book you probably didn’t know you needed. It is one of those books that jump off the shelf at you when you see it, but only if you read the sub-ti…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:59AMWe have Ghostlight Records to thank for capturing a moment in Broadway’s history. Their release today of the original Broadway cast recording of Leap of Faith is not only a first class…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:41AMQuick! Buy a copy of this recording which was released today and give it to the artistic director of your favorite local theater company that produces its own musical shows. Tell him or her …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:10AMIt is a classic good news / bad news situation. Just as the original Broadway cast album of Chaplin: The Musical starts its entry into the music market, the show it documents begins its depa…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:54PMby Brad Hathaway with contributions from: Ro Boddie, Bob Butler, Mark Chalfont, Ben Demers, John Hauge, Aaron Posner, Hunter Styles, Tim Treanor and Lorraine Treanor How to operate the table…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:23AMIt works both ways, of course. Last week I wrote about a disc that surprised me by being so much better than I had expected. (Ghostlight’s original cast recording of the musical Calvin…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:39AMThis unexpectedly delightful gem sat untouched on my desk for far too long, but now that I’ve gotten to know it, I want to share the word: There’s a lot to like in Ghostlight Rec…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:20AMEvery week, the box office at the Marquis Theatre in New York’s Marriott Marquis pulls in another $1 million (or more) for the current revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:09AMThe late Arthur Laurents was a truth teller. The plays he wrote portrayed his honest view of life. The productions he directed sought to find the truth in the plays they performed. His book …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:20AMCan there ever be too many recordings of Gershwin musicals? For that matter, can there be too many Gershwin musicals? There’s a new Original Broadway Cast album being released today on…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:26AMOne might have hoped that by now we’d be talking about an Original Broadway Cast album of Sylvester Lévay’s Broadway debut as a composer of major musicals. Instead all tongues t…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 03:14PMTwo books published this year serve as bookends in the story of Fred Astaire. Neither, however, is strictly speaking, a biography of this famous hoofer. Instead, they tell the stories of his…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:17AMAnother Jekyll & Hyde? Yes. There is a new production of Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s gothic musical thriller heading out on the national tour route with Broadway an intend…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:32AMThe problem with compilations of musical theater scores is that any theater fan already owns a bunch of discs that might be compiled, while anyone who doesn’t have any one of them prob…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:09PMNot in this century have we musical theater lovers been so lucky as to have all three of the scores of the season’s series of Encores! concerts at New York’s City Center recorded…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:21PMFirst Night Records really should have packaged their two new releases as one box set – if you want one of them (and you really should) then you will definitely want them both. Unfortunate…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:57AMMasterworks Broadway has filled a long-empty slot on the groaning shelves of show recording completists. They have dug into the vault of the old RCA Victor Green Label Series and given us wh…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:06PMThere is a new Demon Barber on Fleet Street and the highlights disc of his tale will be a pleasurable discovery for the fans of Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece, Sweeney Todd. However, i…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:03AMRodgers and Hammerstein between the hits From time to time I hear from my readers that they don’t buy something I said. Most of the time they are right. Last week I reviewed the book &…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:08PMIn 1958, Rodgers and Hammerstein had a hit with Flower Drum Song. Nearly fifty years later, a musical with the same title and the same score but with a very different book was a flop. The st…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:59AMEach of three new DVDs of 1955 and 1960 televised musicals has its own charms, but one stands out as the most delightful of the bunch. It is the 1955 black and white television adaptation of…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 01:19PMLet’s face it – George Gershwin’s masterpiece Porgy and Bess must occupy some of the theater shelf of any serious lover of either music or theater. In fact, so many books, CDs …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:57AMHaving begun this month’s concentration on George Gershwin during the 75th anniversary of his death with a review of a book I enthusiastically endorsed, I’m sorry to say this w…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:46AMAs we continue our look at works by and about George Gershwin on the 75th anniversary of his tragically early death, we are fortunate to have a first class world premiere recording of an obs…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:28AMJuly marks an anniversary of an event that I, along with John O’Hara, don’t wish to acknowledge. In 1937 he wrote: “They tell me George Gershwin is dead, but I don’t …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:08AM
