Alan Alda’s Entrance Music
“You’re the one who chose Alan Alda’s entrance music, aren’t you?” So said many people to me after I’d hosted The 69th Annual Theatre World Awards on June 3. Whenever a presenter or awardee sauntered onto the Music Box stage, our expert pianist/musical director Jason DeBord would play a song that was associated with the […]
Add Kinky Boots to the Roster of Tony-Winners
So the percentage just went from 56.92% to 57.58%. I’m talking about the number of Tony-winning Best Musicals that can be found on recordings and downloads on Masterworks Broadway. With Kinky Boots winning Best Musical (over the slightly favored Matilda), thirty-eight of the sixty-six victors can be found on this website. “Sixty-six?” you ask. “But […]
ClownAround is Around At Last
Well, here’s a reissue of a show album that many fanatically dedicated cast album collectors never owned. ClownAround was originally recorded in 1972 by RCA Victor. But was it ever released? Some said yes, some said no. Who was right? The question surrounding the recording spurred my buddy Richard Thompson to conduct a personal odyssey […]
These Boots Are Made for Listening
In October 1983, when Cyndi Lauper’s pop career started taking off in earnest, the current Broadway musicals had music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Cats), Jerry Herman (La Cage aux Folles), Maury Yeston (Nine) and George Gershwin (My One and Only). No one would have ever predicted that Lauper — whose then-hit “She Bop” concerned masturbation […]
Me on Me and Juliet
We’re about to mark the 60th anniversary of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most obscure musical. True, Me and Juliet endured the longest of their three least-successful shows. The musical that opened on May 28, 1953 lasted 358 performances; that bested the team’s 1947 effort Allegro (315 showings) and their 1955 entry Pipe Dream (which could only […]
