July 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 09:08AMIt is awfully hard to dig deep into the history of musical theater without having access to the essential thing that sets it apart from other theatrical events – the music. Of course, you …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:48AMRead any good CD’s lately? The two discs of this complete recording of Treemonisha, Scott Joplin’s 1911 opera, come inserted between the covers of a 112 page small-print book tha…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:12AMThe Playgoing Experiences of Each Chief Executive Paul Bogar, a professor at Hood College in Frederick Maryland, was hit by a question from one of his students. It was a question that may ha…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:10AMNext Sunday’s Tony Awards ceremony will be most interesting for collectors of “show music” when they announce the winner of the award for “Best Original Score (Music …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:39AMThis book is almost a fantasy fulfilled for me. I’ve always thought it would be wonderful to just take a few days off, go to the reading room of some huge library like the Library of C…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:21AMSongs from End of the Rainbow and other Garland classics This isn’t exactly a cast recording of a show’s score, but it may be of interest in the days before the Tony Awards are a…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:33AMAlan Menken is on something of a roller coaster ride. He has just pulled off that exceedingly rare feat of having three musicals with his scores playing on Broadway at the same time and, wha…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:41AMIn defense of Broadway composer Frank Wildhorn OK – Now you can be the judge. I think Frank Wildhorn and Don Black wrote a great score for Bonnie & Clyde. Some of the most influent…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:43AMMy friends and many of my fellow critics/reviewers tell me that Once is a great show. Obviously, the Tony Award nominators agree, having included it in no less than eleven of the categories …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:59AMThe 25 Anniversary of what is now the longest running musical in Broadway history was celebrated last October with not just a concert, but a full staging of the entire show in London’s…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:18AMBefore the Tony race starts up in earnest for this year, lets take a look at one show from last year’s race that nearly got away. The People In The Picture was a klezmer-infused music…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:03AMThe search for a full understanding of the life and works of Oscar Hammerstein II might well begin with this twelve-song disc, but it certainly won’t end here. Indeed, the disk will se…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:30AMThe surprise of the original cast album “Music from Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark” is that it is better than its show, which, as everyone even marginally aware of musical theater …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 12:22PMHad this two-disc set been listed as the music of an unknown John Smith or Bob Jones, I wouldn’t have asked for a copy to review for the readers of Theater Shelf. Ballet scores aren…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:15AMThis ain’t your father’s Godspell. Fifty-eight seconds into “Prepare Ye”, it becomes clear that this is a new Godspell, one for the early 21st century rather than th…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 04:55AMThe Best of Wolcott Gibbs from The New Yorker So, there I was sitting in my dentist’s office chuckling, chortling and laughing out loud as I read this book. It isn’t often that I…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 04:46PMAndrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to The Phantom of the Opera was expected to open in London in 2010 and then have a Broadway transfer. It did open in London, but the reception wasn’t…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 06:57AMThis is a disc that may be of more interest intellectually than aesthetically for American fans of musical theatre. It is a classic illustration of a basic truth of the musical theatre – B…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:00AMLet’s see. Should I do a recording review of this CD of 29 songs by the man who wrote the memorable songs for the sparkling movie “Meet Me In St. Louis” and Broadway’…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:14PMMost dedicated theater music fans are well aware that there was a momentous shift in the evolution of what we now think of as a “musical” in 1915 when Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton,…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 07:16AMThe pickings from the Bell Telephone Hour that Video Artists International delves into must be getting slim. It isn’t that the material on latest releases in VAI’ Music’s s…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:56AMI may be excused for presuming that, if you have a theater shelf, it already sports a copy of Steven Suskin’s book. Equal parts reliable reference book and entertainingly written opini…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:31AMFew scores establish their “voice” quite as rapidly as does the score for this poorly titled but highly intriguing one-act musical that had its Off-Broadway premiere in 2010. Fir…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 04:07PMDo you look for ravishing romantic beauty in your musicals? If so, Maury Yeston is probably on your list of favorite composers. Think of “Only With You” (Nine), “We’l…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:15AMFilichia has done it again What is a reviewer to do when a book shows up for review that has a pull quote from him praising the author to high heaven? Is it a conflict of interest to praise …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:27AMRodgers and Hammerstein’s “The King and Who”? Or perhaps the question should be “The Who and Who?” Surely The King and I is just about the most glorious score …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 10:43AMOK – its the week after Christmas. Maybe some kind soul gave you every item that you didn’t already have from our Holiday Gift Guide – plus perhaps a gift certificate or cash. …
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 11:47AMOh, my! What am I to do now? The 2011 Broadway Revival Cast recording of Follies has just come out on PS Classics and now my “desert island” list of recordings I’d want wi…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 09:13AMStephen Sondheim’s second volume of “Collected Lyrics with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany” titled “Look,…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 08:55AMThe successful holiday run that the musical version of the film “Elf” had at the Hirschfeld Theatre on Broadway for Christmas 2010 was expected by many to lead to a return for th…
SOURCE: DC Theatre Scene at 02:39AM
