177 stories by "Brad Hathaway"
Act quickly " you only have a few days to view one of the greatest concert presentations of a musical that I’ve ever seen … the New York Philharmonic’s staging of Rodgers and H…
Last week I wrote about the coming revolution in access to music, including theater music, fostered by digital technology. It was a look toward the future when virtually all available record…
 A look at the top on-demand streaming music libraries “Could it be? Yes it could. / Something’s coming, something good.” So Mr. Sondheim wrote over half a century ago.T…
From time to time I like to pull a disc from the back reaches of my theater shelves. I like to spread the word of things the rush of recent releases might obscure. Staying current with new r…
A DVD that should have been titled “Gilbert and Sullivan and Ford” has been released on Video Artists International under the title “Gilbert and Sullivan’s Greatest H…
British author and record producer Adrian Wright closes a gap in the available material on musical theater with an interesting and easily read book on just what its title promises " “W…
The New Signature Theatre/Ford’s Theatre Production features new orchestrations Nearly fifty years ago, to the sound of a pit orchestra of 25, Jerry Herman’s musical Hello, Dolly…
Sadly, you no longer have the option of setting aside an evening to attend Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, even if you could get to New …
All of last season, the NBC television series Smash chronicled the creation of a new Broadway musical. Each episode gave fans of show music a tantalizing taste of what the score would be lik…
With some musicals, there aren’t enough interesting things to write about to make up a single slender volume. Show Boat, on the other hand, has been the topic of a small library of int…
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…
How 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” …
Next 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…
Theater 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…
I 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…
The 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 feat…
Let’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…
We 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…
Quick! 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 …
It 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…
by 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…
It 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…
This 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…
Every 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’…
The 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 …
