Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Studio Cast, 1990 (RCA) As a musical theater composer, Frank Wildhorn writes great pop songs. That's amply demonstrated by this "concept" recording of Jekyll & Hyde, which lacks any thea…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:15PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 2000 (Sony) Based on Charlotte Brontë's classic novel of sturm und drang on the English moors, the musical Jane Eyre represented the last gasp of the pop-opera cyc…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:56PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1957 (RCA) Some Broadway musicals are timeless, while others spoke only to their era and audience and then were never heard from again. Jamaica is decidedly in the la…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:37PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1968 (Columbia) This is the show to blame! The success of Jacques Brei Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris began the songwriter-revue revolution, but it would b…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:17PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1966 (Columbia/Sony) This show seemed to have so much going for it, with a central character beloved by millions through the comic books and a popular television seri…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:24PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2002 (JAY) Based on It, the 1927 film that starred Clara Bow, The It Girl is a small-scale, 1920s-style musical comedy. It was presented Off-Broadway by the York …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:46PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1982 (Original Cast Records) If this show had opened Off-Broadway instead of on Broadway in 1982, it might have run a lot longer. Is There Life After High School?…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:28PM[SHARE]Monday, June 22, 2015
Original London Cast, 1958 (Philips/Sepiano CD) This recording was not released in CD format until 2008. It will come as something of a revelation to those who only know Irma la Douce from t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:06PM[SHARE]Broadway Cast, 1973 (Columbia/Sony) Encouraged by the success of the 1971 Broadway revisal of No, No, Nannette, producer Harry Rigby and colleagues reworked and mounted Irene, a musical that…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:35PM[SHARE]A Tony Award nominee for Spring Awakening, Jonathan Groff has been away from theater for a while, making himself known and beloved in two of the most disparate roles imaginable: as the flawe…
SOURCE: BroadwayStars at 01:04AM[SHARE]Friday, June 19, 2015
Studio Cast, 1985 (Polygram) Richard Rodgers' musical imagination persisted throughout his life, despite depression, a heart attack, and cancer of the vocal cords. His final show opened just…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:00PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1979 (Original Cast Records) Long before the William Finn character known simply as Marvin experienced joy and pain in March of the Falsettos, Falsettoland, or th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:36PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1987 (RCA) One of Stephen Sondheim's most commercially successful shows, Into the Woods has one of his least distinctive scores. Perhaps he wasn't really inspired by …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:01PM[SHARE]Original Cast Members, 1948 (SHB-Show-Biz Productions/Sepia) Almost forgotten today but the second-longest-running revue of 1948, this Howard Dietz-Arthur Schwartz opus inspired by John Gunt…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:51PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1978 (Columbia/Fynsworth Alley/Masterworks Broadway) The book and lyrics are by Gretchen Cryer, who also plays the lead character, Heather. The music is by Nancy …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:16PM[SHARE]Off-Broadway Cast, 1996 (Varèse Sarabande) "Oh my God, that's me up there!" was an audience whisper heard often during the long run of this musical revue, the winning work of Joe DiPietro (…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:01PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1977 (Atlantic/DRG) "Wife-swapping" was already a dated topic in 1977, but this miniature musical sex farce was the surprise hit of the season. Audiences were taken w…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:34PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1967 (United Artists/Kritzerland) No stars; not recommended. Having had an art-house film hit with Never on Sunday, writer-director Jules Dassin and the Mrs., otherwi…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:16PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1999 (Varèse Sarabande) In an introductory note, this diversion's creator Sheridan Morley recalls that Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence acted together only t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:07PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1964 (Mercury/Decca) With Buddy Hackett starring as a Coney Island psychic who screws up his friends' love lives, it's safe to say that I Had a Ball doesn't have a th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:56PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1966 (RCA)Â Â A two-character musical based on the play The Fourposter by Jan de Hartog, about a long-married couple, I Do! I Do! holds a mirror up to the audie…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:21PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1962 (Columbia/Sony) This show has gone down in history for having launched the career of Barbra Streisand, but there's so much more here. Jerome Weidman adapted his …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:53PM[SHARE]Original Cast, 1984 (Kilmarnock Records, 2CDs) This show flopped big-time when producer Joseph Papp transferred it to Broadway after a run at his Public Theater. Although billed as "a modern…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:15PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (RCA) George S. Kaufman said that "satire is what closes on Saturday night," but that certainly did not apply to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:54PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1968 (RCA) The story of a misfit who, rather than committing suicide, decides to try his hand at selling stock, this show made audiences laugh for one season and is h…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:45PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1995 (RCA) This show was the brainchild of costume designer Howard Crabtree, whose outlandishly funny costumes were the real stars of the production"each outfit m…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:31PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1954 (Columbia/Sony) The cast album of Harold Arlen and Truman Capote's flop musical set in a West Indian bordello is stunning and unique; the steel drums and whistle…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:59AM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1994 (Boebe) How much mediocre country music can you take if it's terrifically well performed? That's the barometer of how much you'll enjoy this recording. Rober…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:39AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1947 (RCA/Sepia) The 24-minute cast album of High Button Shoes contains only eight of the score's 14 songs; that's all that could fit on both sides of four 78-rpm rec…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:57AM[SHARE]Friday, June 12, 2015
Original Scarborough Cast, 1998 (Dress Circle) Welcome to the duck yard, "Where life is nice and steady / Till we're plucked and oven-ready" and where Ida, a young mom, hatches an egg contai…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:58PM[SHARE]Film Soundtrack, 1955 (MGM/TCM) Hubert Osborne's Shore Leave, a dull sailors-in-port comedy from 1924, was incessantly reincarnated: as a silent movie, a Broadway musical that was filmed twi…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:30PM[SHARE] 
