Saturday, April 18, 2015
Studio Cast, 2001 (Nonesuch) Based on a play by Aristophanes, The Frogs was written by Stephen Sondheim and Burt Shevelove to be performed by the Yale Repertory Theatre in the university's s…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:55AM[SHARE]Off-Broadway Cast, 2002 (Original Cast Records) Here was a wonderful idea for a musical: Bert Lahr in an adaptation of Volpone, with the action of that Ben Jonson classic moved to gold-rush …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:46AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1999 (RCA) Bob Fosse captured the revolutionary sexual politics of the 1960s and 1970s in a voluptuous mix of dance forms based on jazz, tap, and ballet. The show tha…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 10:30AM[SHARE]Friday, April 17, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1980 (RCA) This wasn't the first Hollywood musical to be adapted to the stage, but its success established a trend that has reached well into the 21st century. Whethe…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:02PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1990 (RCA) In its New York incarnation, Steve Ross's "Heavenly Musical Hit" Forever Plaid was, if you'll pardon the expression, a divine tribute to the close-…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:31PM[SHARE]Film Soundtrack, 1984 (Columbia/Legacy) Directed by Herbert Ross, with a screenplay by Dean Pitchford, Footloose is about some small-town teenagers who attack a municipal ordinance and do ba…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:17PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 7, 2015
The Musicals Tonight! production of the delicious 1933 musical Pardon My English, with a score by George and Ira Gershwin and a book by Herbert Fields and Morrie Ryskind, opens tonight. Dire…
SOURCE: BroadwayStars at 08:44AM[SHARE]Saturday, April 4, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1971 (Capitol/Angel/Kritzerland) To many, Follies is one of the greatest of all shows, possibly the ultimate musical theater piece. Others find it cultishly "interest…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:03PM[SHARE]Columbia University Cast, 1980 (Original Cast Records) It's like dredging up riches from the Titanic: An unknown Rodgers and Hart score, their Columbia University varsity show from 1920, del…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:49PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1962 (Mercury/no CD) The cast album of this virtually forgotten musical is especially notable for two of its principal cast members: Avon Long, whose lengthy and …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:01PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1996 (Nonesuch) In telling this bleak, based-in-truth story of a Kentucky man trapped in a cave and the media circus that surrounds him and his family during the …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:45PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1980 (Original Cast Records) The musical Flowers for Algernon " or, as it was actually titled onstage, Charlie and Algernon " is based on the Daniel Keyes novel about a…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:38PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1958 (Columbia/Sony) Although Flower Drum Song doesn't have the substance of most of Rodgers and Hammerstein's other shows, it features one of the team's most enjoyab…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:20PM[SHARE]Friday, March 27, 2015
Original London Cast, 1900-15 (various labels/Opal) The blurb on the CD cover calls this "the world's first-ever original cast album!" Well, the cast of the 1899 success did enter the Gramop…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:51PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1965 (RCA) John Kander and Fred Ebb's first show together tells the story of Flora Meszaros (Liza Minnelli), who is thrilled to get a garment-district job during the …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:01PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1951 (Capitol/DRG) With a title such as this, could you possibly expect something ordinary? Flahooley was the brainchild of E. Y. Harburg, who wanted to satirize big …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:48PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1997 (First Night/Relativity) An American political satire starring a Scotsman and an Australian, The Fix was a succes d'estime in a Sam Mendes-directed production at t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:39PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1991 (First Night) Super-producer Cameron Mackintosh found this little revue of Louis Jordan songs at the Theatre Royal Stratford in London's East End and liked it so m…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:24PM[SHARE]Original Los Angeles Cast, 2002 (PS Classics) Although Michael John LaChiusa's First Lady Suite premiered Off-Broadway in 1993, the piece wasn't recorded until it was staged in Los Angeles n…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:01PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1996 (First Night) A curious musical with a curious history: It opened in New Jersey to respectable reviews, traveled to London for a sort of protracted New York tryout…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:08PM[SHARE]Studio Cast, 2004 (PS Classics) PS Classics' recording of this 1930 musical presents a fairly conventional score by Kay Swift and Paul James (a nom de plume for Swift's husband, James Warbur…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:01PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1959 (Columbia! DRG) There may be a beguiling musical to be coaxed out of Pride and Prejudice, but Abe Burrows' attempt isn't it. Like several shows of the era, this …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:53AM[SHARE]BBC Radio Concert Cast, 2003 (Capriccio, 2CDs) Capriccio and the BBC left no manuscript unturned in reconstructing Kurt Weill's biggest Broadway flop, a 1945 operetta about Benvenuto Cellini…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:21AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1959 (Capitol/Angel) In an earlier era of musical theater, it was not uncommon for an overture to start with a sound effect. Here, we have the sound of a fire-engine …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1947 (Columbia/Sony) The mélange of singing styles heard on the first recording of Finian's Rainbow is intriguing, but may strike some listeners as confusing. Ella L…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:40PM[SHARE]New York Concert Cast, 1991 (New World Records) Â Anything Goes may be rated the most fun Cole Porter score, but consider this 1929 hit, a whoop of joy from the late Jazz Age that makes r…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:15PM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1964 (RCA) One of the glories of the RCA cast album catalogue, this is a treasured memento of the original production of the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick-Joseph Stein m…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:43AM[SHARE]Monday, March 23, 2015
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1960 (MGM/Decca ) There's a reason why the original Off-Broadway production of this show ran for more than forty years. The prototype for every little Off Broadwa…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:11PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1954 (RCA) Based on Marcel Pagnol's Marseilles trilogy about love and abandonment on the French Riviera, this nearly forgotten show has a beautiful score by Harold Ro…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:41PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (United Artists/DRG) This recording begins with the strains of "Here Comes the Bride," then the first words we hear are "Will you marry me?" The story goes on to…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:20PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1995 (Polydor) No stars; not recommended. After achieving great success as a movie and a TV series, Fame landed with a thud when it hit the stage. All about students at…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:57PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
