369 stories by "Rob Lester"
This time: one vocal album from someone currently lighting up one of NYC's most elegant nightclubs and another kind of Sondheim set - this time instrumental.
So, what is it about zombies that makes them want to bring crazed drama to the stage or even sing and dance, determined to eat musical and non-musical theatre alive, seeking fresh blood, mak…
Sometimes it's all about being impressed and/or amused that very few actors plays many roles in the play, switching gears (meaning accents, voices, costumes, energies, walks) in a flash, dar…
If you are a Fringe Festival Fanatic, things can get dramatic, traipsing from venue to venue, when you see what's on the theatrical menu. The annual glut of shows to which one goes in downto…
Each year in the summer marathon of theatre known as the New York International Fringe Festival of theatre pieces downtown (or Fringe Frenzy, as I have come to call it), there are shows that…
When Michael Arden is in the driver's seat, you want to fasten your seat belt and go along for the ride ...
The tale of a real-life show biz family troupe from the old days brings kids and kidding around back around for vaudeville cheer in a new cast album ... osh Young, a strong-voiced current B…
Her current Broadway role finds the captivating Nikki Renée Daniels singing the classic "Summertime" as the latest Clara ... The heart is on the sleeve, pounding and apparently resilient de…
For those multitudes who have been merrily rolling along their way through the years as Stephen-Sondheimaholics, I guess there is no such thing as too much Sondheim and there maybe can never…
British leading man Dave Willetts has quite the resumé at this point, as this recently released album makes us stop and take note of the quarter-century career retrospective (and his landma…
... the expansive score of Evita filling two CDs ... several of its songs are among those included on a double-disc multi-performer concert set surveying its composer's work ... and , a cab…
In one of the more unusual footnotes on history's pages becoming a musical, we have the real-life story of the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Then, over in California, no…
Here for your listening pleasure: two albums with female vocalists, each with 17 tracks: one old, one new. We have a 1974 red-hot live recorded document by a super nova and a recently record…
Better late than never as the score of a 1924 Gershwin/DeSylva Broadway show finally gets recorded: "Sweet Little Devil" ... in "Sweeney Todd," the only warnings needed about the latest cas…
In various productions (and a film) over the years, with the original material shrinking or growing somewhat, the turbulent 1935 folk opera that grew from DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy is bac…
If you strolled down Broadway late in 1961, among the shows playing were How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (which opened that year), the previous year's late entry, Do Re Mi, …
Reviews of "One Man, Two Givnors" Original Cast Album, Julie Reiber's "Love Travels," Gay Marshall's Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night!" and Nancy Stearns' "Weather or Not."
Reviews of "Bonnie & Clyde" original cast recording, Sue Raney's "Listen Here," Sue Halloran and Ken Hitchcock "I Can Cook Too!
It's easy to feel at home with singer Roslyn Kind, as we chat about her life and career and her April 28 concert in Brooklyn, before May dates in New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Someone Else's Story is a debut solo CD from Meredith Braun ... Barb Jungr continues her association with the tales crafted and introduced by Bob Dylan.
Once upon a time it was easier to define and identify the typical "Broadway"/musical theatre sound and style.
"Godspell" Revival Cast Recording and candidates for MAC CD of the year.
The concert series that takes an affectionate and informed look back at them, without being quite blinded by love, but rather the advantage of 20/20 hindsight, called If It Only Even Runs a …
One CD features a feisty fellow full of Fun named Robert Creighton (currently on Broadway). The other is a much, much more mellow man named Jerry Costanzo, with Can't We Be Friends?. Each Mr…
The two leading ladies leading off the column with their first solo albums are hardly newcomers to singing and theatre ... Dakaboom, upbeat up-and-comers, should have a booming caree
