I had no idea the recording is no longer in print. It’s such a gorgeous cast album.
How I wish I could’ve seen Audra McDonald and Donna Murphy in their respective Tony winning roles that season. I’m so glad that YouTube clip exists. I never imagined that’s how “Mister Snow” was staged from listening to the album. Audra McDonald sings it with such energy and ferocity and humor and precision (without ever sounding anything less than spontaneous), I figured she would be running all around the stage. But, no, leave it to the genius of Audra to make the song a showstopper by sitting down and pouring her heart into that gorgeous song. I have listened to so many versions of “Mister Snow”—it’s one of the most sublime (and efficient from a narrative/character perspective) songs in the Broadway canon IMO—but Audra’s the only one that brings me to tears. The way she sings the lyric “for I love that Mister Snow,” the saucy delivery of the line “here I am!”... perfection. Thanks to folks for sharing their memories of what it was like to witness her live. These kinds of thread are the reason I keep returning to this board.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"