Can Lillias White please be allowed to lead a recording of Romance In Hard Times, already, please?

Simply one of the best musical theater scores ever, I can't believe there aren't riots in the street to get this thing on the stage again or on disc. She is so amazing and every performance she was allowed to scat and improvise the heavily jazz-influenced score. There should have been a cast recording, then a "live" recording to capture the immediacy of the piece.

Lillias White was recently interviewed on this here site and had this to relay:

Question: Is there any production you look on as a high point in your career?
White: I have a couple. There's a show that I did by William Finn that we did at the Public Theater a thousand years ago called Romance in Hard Times. I played the role of Hennie; I got an Obie Award for it. It was one of the greatest scores that I've ever had the privilege to sing and listen to. I keep nudging him every time I see him to please revisit that show. I really enjoyed doing that. That was also a phenomenal cast at the Public Theater at that time. And The Life. I really loved doing The Life. I loved coming to work, I loved the crew and everybody involved. It was just super to do it

What is William Finn doing right now anyways? And isn't Lillias completely amazing?
Romance In Hard Times at the Public Theater (1989)

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Thanks for that link, Pgenre. And, yeah, anyone who has seen any of its various incarnations please do share your memories. I know Lincoln Center has a video of the entire Papp production. I can't find a single image of any of the shows and I would love to see how the production looked.

And, I concur, there have been few scores as thrilling. Last night I listened to A New Brain and he stole liberally from the RiHT score.

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Updated On: 12/19/09 at 03:27 PM

Old post but wondering if the score is obtainable? Would love to know what it sounds like.