Cast Albums Blog
REVIEW: Side Show - 2014 Broadway Revival Cast
For those of us who grew up with the 1997 original cast recording of the cult musical Side Show, the rich score by Henry Krieger and Bill Russell combined with the Tony-nominated performances of Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner left us wondering how this fascinating show about real-life Siamese twins Daisy and Violet Hilton could have failed. Now, seventeen years later, Side Show has been reborn and rethought for a new generation under the watchful direction of film director Bill Condon (Dreamgirls). While this revival played as short a run on Broadway as did its original incarnation—perhaps Siamese twins just can’t find an audience—the winning musicality of this new cast recording reinforces just why this show has so many adoring fans.
REVIEW: Anika Larsen's Sing You to Sleep
In the liner notes to her new album Sing You to Sleep, Anika Larsen tells listeners that they can “play this album on shuffle, but if you play it in order, you’ll find the songs get slower as they go along.” Larsen’s right about the speed of the songs; but the album, a pleasing mix of easy listening, pop, and musical theater standards, also gets better as it goes on, becoming more honest, emotionally naked, and truthful with each track.
REVIEW: Stars of David - World Premiere Cast Recording
On the surface, Stars of David sounds like a cynical cash-grab show: a small-cast revue based on journalist Abigail Pogrebin’s 2005 collection of interviews with prominent Jewish Americans sounds like it was designed to tour the Jewish Community Centers of this country ad infinitum. Whether it was any good or not would have almost no bearing on whether Jewish grandparents would buy tickets by the bushel. So, I was surprised and delighted when I saw the show in its off-Broadway incarnation last year to discover that the show was also entertaining and at times moving. Now, a year later, Yellow Sound Label has released a “World Premiere Recording” featuring the off-Broadway cast (Janet Metz, Alan Schmuckler, Aaron Serotsky, and Donna Vivino) plus three performers from the world-premiere production at the Philadelphia Theater Company, Alex Brightman, Joanna Glushak, and Brad Oscar.
REVIEW: Peter Pan Live! Original Soundtrack of the NBC Television Event
Broadway Records took a double gamble by releasing the soundtrack to NBC's Peter Pan Live. By releasing a true soundtrack (rather than a pre-recorded cast album, as the previous year's Sound of Music Live did), they passed up any chance to sell the album to those of us curious to get a peek at the broadcast before airdate, and they staked their success on a positive reception of the broadcast itself.
While the television production had its moments, it largely seemed dead on arrival: neither the thrilling spectacle NBC dreamed of, nor the campy disaster hate-watchers hoped for. As the broadcast limped along, I couldn't imagine wanting to revisit this experience on a soundtrack album. I'm glad to report that I was wrong.
REVIEW: Love's Labour's Lost - Original Cast Recording
When composer/lyricist Michael Friedman and director/librettist Alex Timbers's musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost debuted at New York's Shakespeare in the Park in the summer of 2013, it was met with something of a split response. Fans praised the production's no-holds-barred approach to comedy and catchy, contemporary score performed by a stellar cast including Colin Donnell, Patti Murin, Daniel Breaker, Bryce Pinkham, Rebecca Naomi Jones, and Rachel Dratch. Detractors found the humor sophomoric and the dramaturgy questionable. Ironically, the sophomoric humor and questionable dramaturgy (which allowed for more non-sequitors than your average episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus) were two of the things I liked best about the show, which I saw twice during its limited run in Central Park.