Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Original Broadway Cast, 2016 (Ghostlight) In 1939, Irving Berlin imagined a themed revue set at an inn that opens only on holidays, with songs highlighting seasonal celebrations. It didn’t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 06:08PMPremiere Recording, 2006 (Ghostlight) Librettists David Ives and Paul Blake based this Irving Berlin songfest on the 1954 film of the same title, which starred Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye as …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:29PMTuesday, July 18, 2017
Original Broadway Cast, 2015 (Ghostlight) Weddings have inspired musicals since at least as early as the 1920s (often with multiple couples overcoming ridiculous obstacles before tying th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:51AMThursday, June 29, 2017
Dark comedies don't get much darker that Scott McPherson's funny, sad, beautiful play Marvin's Room, about a caregiver who contracts a serious illness herself.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:12PMThursday, June 22, 2017
The dystopia depicted by George Orwell (real name, Eric Arthur Blair) in his chillingly prescient novel 1984 has not come true in all of its nightmarish particulars, at least not to the…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 10:01PMSaturday, June 10, 2017
Film Soundtrack, 1997 (Atlantic) Just as Disney Animation was beginning to see a decline in its musical renaissance in the mid-’90s, Fox Animation decided to try its hand with the Princess…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:06PMMonday, June 5, 2017
Sara Bareilles: What’s Inside: Songs from Waitress, 2015 (Epic) The idea of Sara Bareilles writing a musical wasn’t so far-out, even before it happened. The 21st century has seen sev…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:33AMOriginal Broadway Cast, 2017 (Atlantic ) A musical that unapologetically wears its heart on its sleeve, Dear Evan Hansen is the most high profile theater work to date from the songwriting te…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:10AMThursday, May 11, 2017
The current, wish-come-true, New York City Center Encores! presentation of The Golden Apple will have seven performances over a five-day period.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:39PMSunday, February 19, 2017
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2016 (Ghostlight) Here’s a musical comedy about the porn industry, created by the New York-based theater company The Civilians, with music and lyrics by Michael…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:52PMThursday, January 26, 2017
It's not surprising that Yours Unfaithfully, Miles Malleson's 1933 play about a couple's attempt to successfully negotiate the terrain of what we would now call an “open marriage,” was n…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:26PMWednesday, November 9, 2016
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2016 (Broadway Records) First seen at the York Theatre Company’s home at St. Peter’s Church and then in a commercial run at the Westside Theatre, this show wa…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:00AMSaturday, November 5, 2016
Original Broadway Cast, 2009 (PS Classics) The Story of My Life is an intimate, unusual, two-character musical with songs by Neil Bartram and book by Brian Hill. The strengths of the cast al…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:44PMSunday, October 30, 2016
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2013 (Ghostlight) Texas is big. Edna Ferber’s 1952 novel, Giant, is big, spanning decades and two generations of rancher families. The 1956 movie version is big…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:18PMWednesday, October 26, 2016
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2013 (Ghostlight) Many musical scores can stand perfectly well as cast recordings, separate from their staged productions. Others lose something when deprived of …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:53PMMonday, October 17, 2016
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2010 (JAY) In several of their shows, John Kander and Fred Ebb have used various types of entertainment as the contextual setting for exploring historical and soc…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:33AMWednesday, October 5, 2016
Original Broadway Cast, 2010 (Verve) Not to be outdone by Disney, the Dreamworks company decided to come to Broadway with a musical adaptation of its Oscar winning animated film Shrek, about…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:47PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 2007 (Manhattan Records) Part backstage satire and part whodunit, Curtains was a long-gestating property. At the time of its opening, the show was touted as having th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:22AMOriginal Off-Broadway Cast, 2014 (PS Classics) Musical theater fans look back with affection at the Off-Broadway shows of the early- to mid-sixties — small, unique productions whose distin…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:49AMFriday, September 30, 2016
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2011 (PS Classics) On paper, Death Takes a Holiday probably looked like a wonderful idea for a musical. Composer-lyricist Maury Yeston has done some very admirabl…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:56AMThursday, September 29, 2016
Original Broadway Cast 2005 (Ghostlight) David Yazbek’s Broadway scores are just plain fun, whether it’s the frenetic farce of Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown or the blue-colla…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:53AMFriday, September 23, 2016
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2015 (Ghostlight) In Jean Webster’s 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs, Jerusha Abbott is an orphan whose intelligence prompts orphanage trustee Jervis Pendleton to pay…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 07:26PMTuesday, September 20, 2016
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2008 (P.S. Classics) You might think The Adding Machine, Elmer Rice’s 1923 expressionist drama, an unlikely candidate for musical adaptation. It’s a bleak tal…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:44AMSunday, September 18, 2016
Film Soundtrack, 1951 (MGM/Rhino-Turner/Watertower Music) In the 1990s, Turner Entertainment restored one of MGM’s greatest musicals, An American In Paris. The restoration turned up the st…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 09:53AMMonday, August 29, 2016
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 1992 (Walt Disney) Listening to the soundtrack recording of this 1992 movie that starred a young Christian Bale (well before his days headlining much da…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:33PMThursday, August 25, 2016
The program for the Mint Theater Company's production of N.C. Hunter's A Day by the Sea tells us that the author “took his place among the leading British dramatists of the 1950s,” but i…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:34PMWednesday, August 3, 2016
Original Broadway Cast, 2006 (Masterworks Broadway) Antipathy towards screen-to-stage adaptations influenced a great many reactions to this tuner that musicalized the 1998 Adam Sandler movie…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 08:56AMTuesday, August 2, 2016
Original London Cast, 2016 (Concord Records) Duncan Sheik’s score for this musical adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ savage (in all senses of the word), satiric novel marvelously captures…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:41AMMonday, July 11, 2016
Original Broadway Cast, 2005 (Rhino) Jersey Boys tells the true story of the rise of the phenomenally successful 1960s pop singing group The Four Seasons — or, at least, true to whoever is…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:10PMOriginal Broadway Cast, 2014 (Ghostlight) Based on a novel by Roy Horniman that also inspired the film Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is pure wit…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:04AMOriginal Broadway Cast, 2006 (Verve) Even with the success of such shows as Hair and Rent, the original pop/rock musical theater score has had a spotty history on Broadway, but it saw a majo…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:44AM 
