Cast Albums Blog
REVIEW: Anything Can Happen In the Theater - The Musical World of Maury Yeston
One of the delights of listening to the new cast album of Anything Can Happen in the Theater: The Musical World of Maury Yeston is realizing what a musical chameleon Maury Yeston is. Unlike say the songs of Stephen Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, or William Finn, Yeston’s music and lyrics are happily sui generis, always perfectly suited and crafted to the project at hand yet not always immediately identifiable as a “Yeston tune.” Tracks on the album (which capture this musical revue which premiered at the Triad Theater in New York in fall 2019 and then at the York Theatre Company) tend to alternate between upbeat catchy group numbers and sensuous ballads culled from both known Yeston properties like Nine and Grand Hotel (Yeston’s Tony Award-winning musical Titanic isn’t represented here), but also lesser-known projects such as In the Beginning, Death Takes a Holiday, and The Queen of Basin Street. Rounding out the revue are a number of stand-alone songs that don’t come from any specific project but which happily more than hold their own.