973 stories by "Michael Portantiere"
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2016 (Ghostlight, 2CDs) One of the great joys of studying and reviewing musical theater cast recordings is tracking the growth and maturity of an artist. Composer…
Studio Cast, 2020 (JAY Records) Nearly 50 years after the show's opening and short-lived stint on Broadway in 1976, this long-awaited studio recording captures the highs and lows of Somethin…
Off-Broadway Cast, 2006 (Ghostlight) This recording begins with a thrilling and percussive "Prologue" that lays out the haunting story of Bernarda Alba, the recently-widowed mother of five d…
Original Broadway Cast, 2014 (Broadway Records) Big Fish arrived on Broadway in 2013 with a score by Andrew Lippa and was imaginatively directed by Susan Stroman, but it did not last more th…
Original Cast, 2017 (Masterworks Broadway) The Spongebob Squarepants album " recorded following the Chicago tryout, before most of the cast transferred to Broadway " succeeds largely through…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2024 (Sh-K-Boom) From the shimmery first notes of The Gardens of Anuncia, listeners will get the feeling they're entering a magical land. What follows is a gem of…
Original Broadway Cast, 2005 (Ghostlight) No stars; not recommended. Among the most unsatisfying of modern musicals are those poorly done adaptations of classic literature that achieve succe…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1981 (Painted Smiles) This musical about a six-week women's assertiveness training workshop came across as little more than an audition piece for Barbara Schotten…
Original Broadway Cast, 1963 (Golden Records/no CD) The puppets of Bil and Cora Baird were all over early television, as well as being featured in the Broadway musical Flahooley and the film…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1962 (Columbia/no CD) No stars, not recommended. The success of Once Upon a Mattress inspired several other fairy tale musicals, including this one " but the auth…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2002 (Original Cast Records) A musical about a math problem? It's a crazy notion, but composer-lyricist Joshua Rosenblum and librettist-lyricist Joanne Sydney Les…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1996 (Varèse Sarabande)Â This cute little show, with music and lyrics by Mary Murfitt and a book by Betsy Howie, had a decent run Off-Broadway in 1996. The so…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1960 (20th Century Fox/no CD) No stars, not recommended. Some people have a blind affection for 1950s and '60s revues, but being blind doesn't mean that you ha…
Off-Broadway Cast, 1998 (DRG) There are plenty of small delights " simple little things, one might say " to be found in this live recording of the York Theatre Company's revue, in which lyri…
Broadway Cast, 2016 (DMI Soundtracks) Not much seems worth immortalizing when it comes to the Broadway adaptation of Natalie Babbitt's beloved 1975 children's novel Tuck Everlasting, in whic…
World Premiere Recording, 2012 (Masterworks Broadway) In this stage adaptation of the film of the same title about a boy who really wants a BB gun for Christmas, songwriters Benj Pasek and J…
Original Broadway Cast, 2023 (Nonesuch) Days of Wine and Roses marks the first musical with a score by composer/lyricist Adam Guettel that has been produced since Guettel's triumph with The …
Douglas Sills will always be remembered and beloved by theatre lovers for his bravura performance as the star of the first incarnation of the Frank Wildhorn-Nan Knighton musical The Scarlet …
Television Cast, 1966 (Kritzerland) Stephen Sondheim provided a brief but compelling score for this TV musical with a teleplay by James Goldman, based on a short story by John Collier. It te…
Jonathan Tunick receives his Sardi's portrait. Photos by Michael Portantiere.
Original London Cast, 2022 (Masterworks Broadway) No stars; not recommended. These days, when you hear that a beloved movie is getting turned into a musical, it sounds less like an an…
Original Broadway Cast, 2008 (Ghostlight) Musical theater writers from Strouse and Adams to Pasek and Paul have tried to write musicals capturing the spirit of what it means to be a teenager…
Original Broadway Cast, 2023 (Sh-K-Boom) It took Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's musical Harmony 26 years to get to Broadway, over four times as long a period as the Comedian Harmonists th…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1996 (Original Cast Records) The heyday of the intimate revue may have been decades ago, but some good ones have surfaced more recently. Consider Barry Kleinbort'…
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1976 (Varese Sarabande) A stylized, three-character "silent movie opera" by composer Polly Pen and playwright Lawrence Klavan, Bed & Sofa premiered just over …
