Monday, March 23, 2015
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]Original Off-Broadway Casts, 1981/1990 (DRG, 2CDs) Â Although the second and third installments of William Finn's "Marvin Trilogy" were originally produced nine years apart (the first ins…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:33PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1964 (ABC-Paramount/Decca) This musical spoof of Hollywood in the 1930s is best known for its star's attempts to bail out of it. Betty Comden and Adolph Green tailore…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:13PM[SHARE]Saturday, March 14, 2015
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2001 (RCA) Â A Class Act represents an important bit of modern musical theater history, and this recording of the Manhattan Theatre Club production is an intri…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:30PM[SHARE]The lusty Lerner and Loewe musical Paint Your Wagon has a wonderful score, but it's not a show you see revived every day, which makes it a perfect choice for the City Center Encores! series.…
SOURCE: BroadwayStars at 12:05PM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Studio Cast, 1976 (MCA, 2CDs) This final collaboration (to date) of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice is also the last really good musical theater piece to come from ALW's p…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:26PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1978 (Warner Bros./no CD) The resurrection of Eubie Blake's music in the 1970s was a joyous affirmation of the fact that even if genuine talent fades for a while, oft…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:31PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1960 (DRG) Following the success of My Fair Lady, it seemed that witty and teddibly literate entertainment was what the theatergoing public craved, so lots of son…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:15PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1993 (First Night) An alternately heartbreaking, cathartic, and wonderfully humorous program of songs and monologues about AIDS victims and their loved ones, this show …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:13PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2003 (Fynsworth Alley) In his songs for the theater, William Finn is often pointedly autobiographical; he seems happiest when dissecting his own thoughts with a s…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:56PM[SHARE]Ohio Light Opera Cast, 1997 (Newport Classics, 2CDs) Victor Herbert's 1917 "romantic comic opera" is a beauty, every bar of it suffused with the master's love of his native Ireland. Although…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 01:36PM[SHARE]Original Off-Broadway Cast, 2003 (Sh-K-Boom) The stage musical version of Debbie Does Dallas was conceived by Susan L. Schwartz and adapted by Erica Schmidt from the porno flick about a high…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:58AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1969 (Columbia/Sony) Jerry Herman would seem to be the least likely composer to musicalize Jean Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, but he took on the challenge. Th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:43AM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Original Off-Broadway Cast, 1992 (Bay Cities/Original Cast Records) Paul Bartel wrote the book for this musicalization of his cult-classic film, and he found ideal collaborators in lyricist …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:15PM[SHARE]Original Cast Members, 1972 (Kilmarnock/Original Cast) Here's one of Broadway's legendary disasters, described by Otis Guernsey, Jr. in the Burns Mantle Yearbook as "an ardent questing for e…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:55AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1982 (Geffen/Decca Broadway) What were they thinking? The most exciting Broadway score of the 1980s was carved up to fit on one disc, and thereby was stripped of its …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:26PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1965 (Blue Pearl/no CD) It's a cliché among cast album collectors to hear a good score of a flop musical and ponder, "Why wasn't this a hit?" But the recording of th…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:33PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1960 (RCA) Right after Gypsy, you'd have expected composer Jule Styne to test his powers in another meaty Broadway project. Instead, he regressed to formula musical c…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 03:15PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1983 (MCA) For the stage musical version of his political-satire comic strip, Garry Trudeau fashioned his own book and lyrics, proving himself to be a surprisingly ad…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 02:56PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1972 (Polydorl/no CD) Here's an example of the sort of show that's much more effective onstage than on record. It was easy to get caught up in a live performance of t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:46PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1972 (Stax, 2LPs) This Melvin Van Peebles musical is as different from his earlier Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death as it could be. Though plotless, the earlier …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 12:27PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1961 (Kapp) This musical based on the movie The Quiet Man was a spirited but unsuccessful show. Donnybrook! did boast an excellent cast that included Susan Johnson, E…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:53AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1982 (Original Cast Records! Bay Cities) A Doll's Life is about what happened to Henrik Ibsen's Nora after she slammed the door at the end of A Doll's House. Betty Co…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:42AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1965 (Columbia/Sony) Stephen Sondheim has often bad-mouthed Do I Hear a Waltz? " perhaps because it can't compare to his trail-blazing hits, and also because Sondheim…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:24AM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast Members, 1985 (Bay Cities/Original Cast) No stars; not recommended. No matter how "informed" the writer of a review is, the critique is largely a matter of opinion. Or…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:04AM[SHARE]Sunday, March 1, 2015
Anyone who knows the work of the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár only through his beautiful, deeply moving drama Lilliom or his elegant, thoughtful comedy The Guardsman may be taken ab…
SOURCE: TalkinBroadway at 06:32PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1964 (Capitol/Angel) It's rare that we have concrete recorded proof of the exact moment when a performer became a legend, but that's the case with the original Broadw…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 11:54AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Original Broadway Cast, 1990 (Columbia/Sony) Cy Coleman's blending of 1940s musical styles " swing, blues, film noir soundtrack, and more " with David Zippel's deft and witty lyrics helped m…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 06:05PM[SHARE]Original Broadway Cast, 1975 (Columbia/Masterworks Broadway) In 1975, A Chorus Line was a phenomenon. The conception of the show began with Broadway wunderkind Michael Bennett's idea tha…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:33PM[SHARE]Original Stage Cast, 1993 (Columbia/Sony) The Alan Menken-Lynn Ahrens musical version of A Christmas Carol lit up Madison Square Garden for 10 seasons, and though the production's spectacle …
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 05:14PM[SHARE]Original London Cast, 1981 (Geffen) Before it became a joke, Cats was a true phenomenon. While Trevor Nunn's direction placed spectacle above emotion and story, the show has a better score t…
SOURCE: castalbumreviews.com at 04:48PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
