Thursday, October 1, 2015
Original Cast, 1941 (Pearl/AEI) Marc Blitzstein's follow-up to The Cradle Will Rock failed to coalesce and ran for only three performances " yet it earned a cast recording, with Blitzstein a…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:39PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1983 (Confidential Recording Company/no CD) This is a camp-fest, to say the least: a book musical with the feel of a revue, set in the demimonde of sophisticated …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:26PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1982 (Columbia/Sony) The most original musical of its decade is both a dazzling exercise in style and a heartfelt tale of a middle-aged man's fear of maturity. Arthur…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:39PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 1998 (Varèse Sarabande) Composer Claibe Richardson, best known for his remarkable score for The Grass Harp, worked unsuccessfully on a musical version of Sweeney Todd for sever…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:24PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1991 (JAY) As conceived by librettist Arthur Laurents, the ambitious Nick and Nora wanted to be a gripping murder mystery, an X-ray of Hollywood hypocrisies, a femini…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:04PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1929 (Columbia/Pearl) With wonderful music by Sigmund Romberg and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, this frippery about New Orleans, the French Revolution, and love leveling…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:09PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1957 (RCA) Although rarely revived today, New Girl in Town ran for a respectable 431 performances on Broadway, and this adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie s…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:02PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1968 (Warner Bros./DRG) If you want to know what killed the traditional Broadway revue, this cast album provides two answers: economics and a bankruptcy of imaginatio…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:55AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1956 (RCA/Arkiv) While it didn't create as big a sensation as New Faces of 1952, this revue boasted another impressive roster of performers. Front and center is T…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:35AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1952 (RCA/Jasmine) Broadway once thrived on clever little revues in which clever young people satirized whatever was topical along the Great White Way and in the news…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:17AM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1998 (RCA) Those who find much of William Finn's work too abrasive should check out this moving and original musical about serious illness. In collaboration with …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:10AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1959 (ColumbialDRG) This investigation of beatnik culture ran for only 23 performances, and you'll know why when you hear the cast album. With a jazz quartet instead …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:59AM[SHARE]Original Los Angeles Cast, 1998 (Cafe Pacific) Obviously, the cast album can't capture the raison d'être of this popular revue. Yet it does help make conceiver-director Robert Schrock's c…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:46AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Studio Cast, 1999 (Nonesuch) Composer-lyricist Adam Guettel's song cycle Saturn Returns had a brief run at The Public Theater but never got an original cast album. Myths and Hymns comes pret…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:51PM[SHARE]Original Cast, 1986 (Polydor/Varèse Sarabande/Verve) Composer-lyricist-Iibrettist Rupert Holmes folded a tribute to the English music hall into his adaptation of Charles Dickens' unfinished…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:34PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1983 (Atlantic) This "new" musical was written around old George and Ira Gershwin songs. During its troubled pre-Broadway tryout, book writer Peter Stone and the uncr…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:23PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2003 (PS Classics) With a book and lyrics by Richard Nelson, who also directed the show, My Life With Albertine has a powerful and distinctive score; composer Ric…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:12PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1992 (RCA) No two Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens scores sound remotely alike. Here, the flavor is bright, clever, and wonderfully varied. In adapting the popular film M…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:00PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1956 (Columbia/Sony) My Fair Lady is still regarded by many as the supreme achievement of the American musical theater, and the original performances of Rex Harrison …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:19PM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1957 (Capitol) This is one of the greatest of all cast albums. Meredith Willson, in his first Broadway effort, wrote the colorful, varied music and lyrics. The score …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:30PM[SHARE]Radio Broadcast, 1952 (AEI) If Music in the Air sounds like the title of a hokey operetta, that's intentional; the 1932 show, with music by Jerome Kern, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein,…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:19PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2004 (JAY) This is Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart's attempt to parody hit musicals by taking one melodramatic story (a landlord trying to secure rent money from …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:06PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1980 (Original Cast Records/no CD) No stars; not recommended. After only 14 performances, Musical Chairs vanished from sight, but the show yielded a cast album. The e…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:59PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 2002 (Sony) In the old days, composers hoped that theatergoers would go out humming what they'd just heard. With shows like Movin' Out, however, the idea is that the …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:36PM[SHARE]Monday, September 21, 2015
In theatrical comedy, drama, and even tragedy, an entire play can revolve around or turn upon the smallest of plot points.
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 07:05PM[SHARE]Friday, September 18, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1956 (Columbia/Sony, 2CDs) When Frank Loesser's adaptation of Sidney Howard's They Knew What They Wanted opened on Broadway, the composer-lyricist quickly corrected t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:08PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1956 (Decca/MCA) From the moment the overture fires up, strings sawing away and trumpets blaring, you know that this is a mid-'50s schlock musical comedy. Produced (b…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:29PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1962 (Columbia/Sony) Irving Berlin's final show should have been a natural. It's a look at a JFK-like First Family, with mild social satire and plenty of flag-waving.…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:19PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1954 (RCA/Stage Door) Is it a musical, or a straight play with incidental songs? Mrs. Patterson was a hybrid oddity of the 1954-55 Broadway season. Having seen Eartha…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:06PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 2002 (DRG) A planned 2001 production of Jerry Herman's Miss Spectacular in Las Vegas never materialized, but this concept recording is a doozy, featuring the kind of cast that a…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:05PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1989 (Geffen, 2CDs) No stars; not recommended. As was the case with The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables, its equally cheap predecessors, Miss Saigon was brough…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:31PM[SHARE] 
