Summer’s here, which can mean lazy days at the beach, car trips, plane flights, etc. For musical theater lovers, it’s a time to load up portable devices with favorite original cast albums. Beyond the tried and true, though, there are a host of new recordings that are worth considering for vacation – or stay-at-home – listening.
Three of these recordings feature scores by writers who are taking their first steps in the world of musical theater, including Cyndi Lauper, who picked up a Tony Award for Best Score for her music and lyrics for the Tony Award winning Best Musical of the year, Kinky Boots (Masterworks Broadway). Lauper’s music for the show, about a guy who’s trying to save his family’s failing shoe manufacturing business with the help of a drag performer, zings with the effervescence that you might associate with her hits like “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” and it’s delivered by a terrific cast led by Tony winner Billy Porter, and Tony nominees Stark Sands and Annaleigh Ashford (her delivery of “The History of Wrong Guys” is as smile-inducing here as it is in the theater). One note: if you’ve seen the show, and find that the pulsating “Sex Is in the Heel” makes you want to hit the dance floor, make sure you buy this one from Barnes and Noble. They are the only ones who sell the disc that has a pair of remixes of the tune, performed by Lauper herself.
Also new to the world of musicals is Trey Anastasio (of the rock band Phish), who with Amanda Green (daughter of the late Adolph Green and Phyllis Newman), wrote the Tony-nominated score for Hands on a Hardbody (Ghostlight Records). This show, about a group of down-and-out Texans who are enduring a grueling contest in hopes of winning a coveted new truck, has an infectious country-western twang that should set your feet tapping from the first number.
You’ll find the concept recording of John Mellencamp and Stephen King’s Ghost Brothers of Darkland County (HEAR Music) has a blues and roots sound that creates the perfect atmosphere for an eerie Southern Gothic tale that spans several decades. This recording doesn’t preserve the production the show got last year at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, but instead brings the work to life as a concept recording with an A-list cast, including singers like Elvis Costello and Sheryl Crow, Roseanne Cash, and Neko Case, along with such stage and screen icons as Kris Kristofferson, Meg Ryan and Matthew McConaughey. There are a lot of options on how to buy this one – from an iBook to a deluxe set to a single CD with just the music. If you can, go for the deluxe set which includes both the spoken dialogue and songs on one disc as well as a download code for a songs-only version. The former will be perfect for anyone who wants a really chilling night of listening while the latter will be the one they return to when they’re looking to savor this unique tuner.
Beyond these pop writers who have penned songs just for their shows, you’ll find that pop sounds filling your stereo or earbuds with the original cast recording of Motown The Musical (Universal Music Enterprises). This show, charting the life and career of Berry Gordy and the seminal record label he created, boasts over two dozen Motown hits, ranging from “Stop! In the Name of Love” to “ABC” to “War.” The performers, including Tony nominee Valisia LeKae (Diana Ross), Bryan Terrell Clark (Marvin Gaye), and Saycon Sengbloh (Martha Reeves), ably capture the styles and vocals of their real-life characters, and Ethan Popp and Bryan Crook’s orchestrations deftly preserve the original sounds of the tunes, while giving them a new life for performance in the theater.
A pop/rock sensibility also courses through this year’s Tony Award-winning revival of Stephen Schwartz’s Pippin (Ghostlight), and this new production has been given a first-class new cast album. The disc beautifully captures Matthew James Thomas’ winsome performance and astonishing vocals in the title role and the sultry work of Tony winner Patina Miller, who’s the show’s Leading Player, as well as Tony winner Andrea Martin’s utterly adorable delivery of the classic “No Time at All.” This new release boasts a host of material that wasn’t captured on the musical’s first recording and a quartet of bonus sing-along tracks, which only make this recording all the more necessary for musical theater fans’ collections.
Most people probably first came to know Schwartz’s musical through productions that they worked on as students, and it’s just one of four new releases that are perfect for younger listeners. Also notable is the new cast album for the Tony-nominated revival of Annie (Shout! Broadway), where vocal powerhouse Lilla Crawford proves she’s a worthy successor to the musical’s original star, Andrea McArdle, and Australian star Anthony Warlow, who imbues Oliver Warbucks with just the right mix of gruffness and warm-hearted goodness.
Tony nominee Laura Osnes proves she can be just as spunky as the red-headed heroine of this latter show, even while singing like a dream, as she plays the title character in Rodgers + Hammerstein’sCinderella (Ghostlight). Osnes is joined by Santino Fontana, who gives an appealing, vocally robust performance as her Prince, and Victoria Clark, who plays the beguiling Marie (better known as the Fairy Godmother). For this new version of the show, the original score, which has such standards as “In My Own Little Corner” and “Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful?,” has been augmented with some lesser known tunes by the R&H team to often delightful effect.
And, if you’d like to give the young people in your life (or yourself) a taste of a more contemporary sound, take a listen to the London cast album for Matilda (from the Royal Shakespeare Company, which has produced the hit in London and New York). Working from Roald Dahl’s novel of the same name, Tony nominee Tim Minchin has created a distinctive score that captures the book’s spirit. It’s simultaneously creepy and warm and his lyrics have just right blend of genuine heart and satiric bite.
Alongside these Broadway recordings are a quartet of notable ones of off-Broadway shows, starting with Michael John Lachiusa’s Giant (Ghostlight), which captures the multi-decade sweep of Edna Ferber’s novel with tuneful alacrity. The estimable company, led by Brian d’Arcy James and Kate Baldwin, traverses the score with aplomb, and this is one that almost seems destined to become a modern classic.
Also worth noting is Dogfight (Ghostlight) from the team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, which ably demonstrates why you’ll be hearing a lot more from the songwriting team (who also penned Broadway’s A Christmas Story) in the years to come; and Murder Ballad (Yellow Sound Label), by Juliana Nash and Julia Jordan, a show that puts a rock opera spin on a tale that might be found in the pages of a daily tabloid.
Finally, there’s a new two-disc recording of Stephen Sondheim’s haunting tale of obsessive love, Passion (PS Classics). The set is an aurally sumptuous affair and this set features a superlative trio of principals, Judy Kuhn, Rebecca Luker, and, Ryan Silverman, and their work, along with new orchestrations from Jonathan Tunick, helps to cast this show anew, making the recording a must-have for anyone who cares about musical theater.
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We comply with the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising set forth by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA). You can opt-out of targeted advertising from certain providers at www.aboutads.info/consumers.
How We Use Your Personal Information
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Information Collected By/Shared With Third Parties
Other than as provided in this Privacy Policy, we do not share your personal information with third parties.
Advertising. We partner with advertising companies who may use information from cookies and the tracking tags they place on our website to provide you with targeted advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you based on your use of our website and to track the effectiveness of ads served to you. These advertising company partners may anonymously track your Internet usage across other websites in their networks beyond our website. Any information that these advertising companies collect via cookies and tracking tags is generally not personally identifiable (unless, for example, you provide personal information to them through an ad or email message). You are welcome to browse the site in private/incognito mode, which means cookies will not be activated and previous cookies will not be tracked. If you need help with this, contact us at [email protected]. If you would like more information about the use of cookies and tracking tags and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, see the Network Advertising Initiatives consumer Web site at http://www.networkadvertising.org/consumer/.
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Third Parties Doing Work for Us. Third parties have no rights to use any data We have collected on your behalf. However, We may employ other companies or individuals to perform functions on Our behalf, such as sending postal mail, email, and text messages, conducting sweepstakes/contests, prize fulfillment and promotional activities, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments and providing customer service. These outside suppliers, agents and vendors have access to your personal information only as needed to perform their functions.
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When necessary. We may also release personal information when we believe, in good faith, that such release is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Ourselves, Our clients, Our users, or others. We may disclose personal information about you to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties, as We, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate, in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, or other activity that is illegal or may expose Us to legal liability.
Public Forums
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Co-Branded Pages
We may enter into relationships with “powered by” partners, business partners, sponsors, and co-branded sites (referred to here as “co-branded pages”). These might include, for example, pages that share our name and that of another entity. There may be a specific privacy policy on any such co-branded page. Any personal information that you provide when signing up at any co-branded page may be collected by, or shared with, our third party partner. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, our third party partners’ use of your personal information. If you want to learn more about other entities’ privacy practices, please review the websites of those third parties.
Transactions With Third Party E-commerce Partners, Vendors and Advertisers
When you provide personal information to one of Our Site’s third party e-commerce partners, vendors or advertisers (i.e. Ticketmaster.com, Telecharge.com), this transaction will occur in connection with the site of the e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser, not on the Site, and, as such, the personal information you provide is collected pursuant to and controlled by the privacy policy of such e-commerce partner, vendor or advertiser. Broadway Direct is not responsible for such parties’ privacy policies and We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the applicable privacy policy of the e-commerce site with which you transact business or to contact the operator of such site for more information.
Delivery of Advertising and Other Content
In addition to ads and content that We may serve you directly, We use third-party advertising companies and marketing services companies to serve ads and other content when you visit Broadway Direct and elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both We and these companies may use information about your visits to Broadway Direct and elsewhere to serve ads and other content to you. In the course of doing so, a unique third-party cookie may be placed or recognized on your browser by such companies. In addition, We and these companies may use Web beacons to help manage Our online advertising and content. These Web beacons enable Us and the third-party companies to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits this Site and to learn which banner ads bring users to our website and to serve you ads that you may find of interest elsewhere on the internet and in other media. Both Broadway Direct and these companies may use information obtained from your visits to Broadway Direct or other websites, and information received from you offline in order to provide advertisements about goods and services and other content of interest to you across the internet and in other media. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used in this manner by Our third party advertising companies, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.asp and/or www.aboutads.info/choices. European users may opt out of receiving targeted advertising by visiting http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/. In addition, we may provide PII and Anonymous Information to marketing services companies. This may include information we received from you offline or online. These companies may combine information we provide (including PII and Anonymous Information) with personal and anonymous information they may have about you, using cookies they place or that We place on their behalf, as described in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. We require these companies to delete the PII we provide them. These companies may use the resulting non-personal information and such cookies for their own marketing purposes, and they may provide the same to their customers for their customer’s marketing purposes. Some of Our emails may contain tags that allow Us and Our advertisers and other partners to determine the types of content that may be of interest to you. Those tags may contain PII and may be shared with others to the same extent indicated in the section regarding “Cookies and Tracking Tags”. Those tags may not be deleted but you can opt out of receiving the emails.
Use of This Site by Children
The Site is not directed to individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and We request that such individuals do not provide personal information through the Site. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided Us with PII without the parent or guardian’s consent by, for example, misrepresenting his or her age, that parent or guardian should contact us at [email protected]. If Broadway Direct determines that it has collected personal information of children under the age of 13, Broadway Direct will immediately delete such information and any accounts believed to be held by children under 13. In addition, we may not collect or process information from a citizen of an EU member state under the age of sixteen (16) without such person’s parental consent. If you are a citizen of an EU member state under the age of 16, please tell your parents that you are using the Site and have your parents email Us at [email protected] so that We may delete any information We may have collected about you.
California Visitors
California Civil Code § 1798.83 permits California residents to request information about whether we have disclosed personal information to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. California residents have the right to request in writing: (a) a list of the categories of Personal Information, such as name, email address and mailing address and the type of services provided to the customer that a business has disclosed to third parties (including affiliates that are separate legal entities) during the immediately preceding calendar year for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes and (b) the names and addresses of all such third parties. To make a request, please contact Us at the following email address: [email protected].
EU Visitors
If you are located within the European Union, you should be aware that your personal information will be transferred to the United States, the laws of which may be deemed by the European Union to have inadequate data protection. If you are located in a country outside the United States and voluntarily submit personal information to Us, you thereby consent to the general use of such information as provided in this privacy policy and to the transfer of that information to, and/or storage of that information in, the United States. We transfer Personal Information from the European Economic Area and Switzerland to the USA and other countries, some of which have not been determined by the European Commission to have an adequate level of data protection. Personal Information of EU residents will be transferred in compliance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).
Rights of EU Data Subjects
If you are a resident of the European Union, under the GDPR, European Union residents, as data subjects, have the following rights:
Right to access – This right allows individuals to obtain confirmation as to whether or not personal information concerning him or her is being processed and provide access to such personal information. It also allows individuals to request details of the processing of his or her personal information, including, without limitation, categories of recipients to whom the personal information have been or will be disclosed and purposes of processing.
Right to rectify – This right allows individuals to rectify any inaccurate personal information about him or her.
Right to restrict processing – This right allows individuals to block or suppress processing of personal data under certain circumstances.
Right to be forgotten – This right is also known as the “right to erasure”. It is an individual’s right to have personal data erased or to prevent processing in specific circumstances.
Right of data portability – This right allows individuals to move, copy or transfer personal data from one place to another in a secure manner without interrupting the integrity and usability of the information.
Right to object to processing – This right allows individuals to object to certain types of processing, including direct marketing, profiling and providing for purposes of scientific or historical research and statistics.
An EU resident has the right to access his or her personal data that We hold and to ask that their personal data be corrected or erased and to port their data. An EU resident may also have the right to object to, or request that We restrict certain processing or to withdraw consent previously provided. If you would like to exercise your rights under the GDPR, please contact us at [email protected]. If you are an EU resident and have a concern about our processing of your personal data that we are not able to resolve, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority where you reside. For contact details of your relevant local Data Protection Authority, please see http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/article29/item-detail.cfm?item_id=612080
Security of Your Personal Information
Broadway Direct employs reasonable security measures consistent with standard industry practice, for personal information collected through this Site, including physical, electronic and operational measures to maintain security and prevent unauthorized access. While Broadway Direct takes all appropriate steps to safeguard personal information under Our control, unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or method of storing data can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As such, We cannot guarantee that personal information supplied by users will not be accessed on Our servers, or intercepted while being transmitted to Us over the Internet. We assume no liability for any damages you may suffer as a result of interception, alteration or misuse of information during such transfers.
Retention
We will retain your information for as long as your account or inquiry is active and for a reasonable time thereafter in accordance with Our standard procedures or as necessary to comply with Our legal obligations, to resolve disputes, and to enforce Our agreements. Even if We delete some or all of your Personal Information, We may continue to retain and use aggregate or anonymous data previously collected and/or anonymize or aggregate your Personal Information. Please note that We will not be liable for disclosures of your data due to errors or unauthorized acts of third parties.
Choice/Opt Out
This Site provides users the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from Us, at any time, by email at [email protected], or by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email communication. The Site gives users the following options for removing their information from our database, to not receive future communications or to no longer receive our service, at any time.
Users can send mail to the following postal address: Broadway Direct 1501 Broadway 14th floor New York, NY 10036
Users can call the following telephone number: (800) 223-6715.
Users can opt-out of receiving future newsletter emails from Us by selecting the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our email. However, We are not responsible for removing your information from the lists of any third party who has previously been provided with your information or is collecting your information through their cookies. You have the right to withdraw your consent for Our processing for your personal information by contacting us at [email protected].
Correct/Update
This website gives users the following options for changing and modifying information previously provided, at any time.
Users can send mail to the following postal address: Broadway Direct 1501 Broadway 14th floor New York, NY 10036
Users can call the following telephone number: (800) 223-6715
Successors
In the event that We are, or any component of our operations is, merged with, or is acquired by, another entity, then any such successor or acquiring entity may become the successor to Our obligations with respect to the personal information that you have provided to Us, which would be necessary for the entity to effectively continue our business. By using this website, you consent to any transfer and use of such personal information by an entity assuming control of Our operations as a result of a merger, purchase of assets, or liquidation in bankruptcy or insolvency.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this website, or your dealings with this website, you can send an email to [email protected]. Our data protection officer can also be contacted at [email protected].