MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

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MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/9/06 at 11:08pm

What are your picks?

"what have we learned? Don't smoke... don't do drugs and don't sing 'Defying Gravity'." -CATSNYRevival

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/9/06 at 11:18pm

I know some won't agree...but I have to say WICKED and Sunset Boulevard

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/9/06 at 11:20pm

I agree with the above & have to add Les Miserables!

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/9/06 at 11:22pm

Definitely agree with Wicked.

I would also say Bring Back Birdie, The Grass Harp, Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?, Is There Life After High School?, Dude/The Highway Life, and Thou Shalt Not. LOL

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/9/06 at 11:24pm

My Top 10:

City of Angels
A Little Night Music
West Side Story
Sweeney Todd
Chicago (Revival)
Les Miserables
A Chorus Line
Nine (Original)
South Pacific
Sunday in the Park With George

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/9/06 at 11:29pm

Aida
Wicked
Mamma Mia!
Spamalot?
Taboo!
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Rent
The Woman in White

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/9/06 at 11:34pm

Hair, A Chorus Line, Urinetown, The Last 5 Years, Merrily We Roll Along, Ragtime, Elegies, Falsettos, Rent, Baby, Assassins, Spelling Bee, She Loves Me, 42nd Street, Aida, Bare, Bat Boy, Big River, Blood Brothers, Oklahoma, Show Boat, Carousel, Caroline or Change, Is There Life After High School, Wicked, Children of Eden, City of Angels, Company, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Dreamgirls, Follies, Sunday in the Park with George, West Side Story, The Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof, Hairspray, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady, Mack and Mabel, Our House, Witches of Eastwick, I Love You You're Perfect Now Change, Sweet Charity, Songs for a New World, Parade, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, Little By Little, Little Shop of Horrors, Nine, Ruthless, Grease, Gypsy, Side Show, Smile, Funny Girl, Bye Bye Birdie, Starting Here Starting Now, Full Monty, Scarlet Pimpernel, both Wild Partys, The Wiz, Tick Tick Boom, Zombie Prom, Working, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Human Comedy, Henry Sweet Henry, Cabaret, Chicago, Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Sweeney Todd, Once on this Island, South Pacific, Godspell, Pippin, Jersey Boys, Oh Brother, The Producers, Pajama Game, Taboo, Sweet Smell of Success, Annie Get Your Gun, Annie, Anything Goes, Mame, Hello Dolly, The Secret Garden, Into the Woods, Floyd Collins, The Light in the Piazza, Hello Again, 1776, Violet, Thoroughly Modern Millie, A Class Act, A New Brain, A Little Night Music, John and Jen, Personals, Avenue Q, Big River, Man of La Mancha, Damn Yankees, and Kiss Me Kate

[title of show] on Broadway. it's time. believe.

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:00am

Here is a fun (slightly tongue-in-cheek) quiz to determine if you are a TRUE Broadway enthusiast....

1. You spend more time on average going to theatre than with family/friends.

2. You have the following:
- Playbills from every show you've seen
- Playbills from shows you haven't seen
- Show posters on your walls
- Tony Awards broadcasts preserved on Video tape (or DVD)

3. You have the following cast recordings:
- ANYONE CAN WHISTLE
- BABY
- CAROLINE, OR CHANGE
- DRAT THE CAT
- EATING RAOUL
- FLAHOOLEY
- GRIND
- HOUSE OF FLOWERS
- I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE
- JANE EYRE (Bonus point if you have the Toronto cast)
- KWAMINA
- LEGS DIAMOND
- MACK AND MABEL
- NEW GIRL IN TOWN
- OH! CAPTAIN
- PAINT YOUR WAGON
- QUEEN HIGH (Vocal gems)
- RAGS
- STEEL PIER
- TAKE ME ALONG
- UP IN CENTRAL PARK
- WHOOP UP
- A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD
- ZORBA

4. You get frustrated when supposed theatre fans call original cast albums "soundtracks."

5. As a teen you smuggled packages into the house so you would not have to explain to your parents why you brought another cast album.

6. You have nightmares about having tickets to see a favourite show and not being able to find the theatre.

7. You have delayed seeing a show (or returned to see it again) so you could get the souvenir book.

8. Without looking it up you know what year the following musicals premiered on Broadway:
- BABES IN TOYLAND
- HONEYMOON LANE
- JUBILEE

9. Your favourites list includes:
- Playbill-on-Line
- Broadway.com
- And (of course) Broadway World.

10. You spend endless hours answering posts like this on BWW.

If you answered YES to 32 or more of the above, you are a TRUE Broadway enthusiast!

Cast albums are NOT "soundtracks."
Live theatre does not use a "soundtrack." If it did, it wouldn't be live theatre!

I host a weekly one-hour radio program featuring cast album selections as well as songs by cabaret, jazz and theatre artists. The program, FRONT ROW CENTRE is heard Sundays 9 to 10 am and also Saturdays from 8 to 9 am (eastern times) on www.proudfm.com

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:09am

https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=863740#1345147

The link above should help you. It is a basic list of shows by decade I created last summer and it has been revised from time to time. It does NOT include any of the currently running shows but I assume you have the cast albums of those that interest you.

#10

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:35am

*SOMEWHAT EDITED*

I have all but two of those recordings...

I'm such a geek.

I would SO not require either Wicked OR Sunset Blvd. as MUSTS (though they both fall into one of the categories below).

My top 20 list for the bare minimum a TRUE enthusiast must have (again, this is ABSOLUTELY MINIMUM requirements) in no real order:

1. At least one G&S show - take your pick, though most likely either Pinafore, Mikado, or Pirates of Penzance are in your collection.
2. Showboat
3. AT LEAST all five of the MAJOR R&H shows (if I need to tell you what they are, you can stop reading now)
4. At least five recordings that cover 30s/40s shows (Porter, Gershwin, Berlin, Rodgers/Hart being most likely candidates)
5. My Fair Lady + at least one more Lerner/Lowe show (take your pick)
6. Guys and Dolls + at least one more Loesser
7. Hair
8. Cabaret and Chicago (at least one version of each) + at least one more Kander and Ebb
9. Minimum of two Cy Coleman
9. Minimum of five Sondheim (music)/two Sondheim (just lyrics)
10. Minimum of five Webber
11. Minimum of one Maltby/Shire
12. Minimum three Schwartz (Pippin and Godspell being two of them)
13. Minimum two Jerry Herman
14. Minimum two Charles Strouse
15. Minimum two Harnick and Bock
16. Minimum two Jerry Adler
17. Minimum one Schmidt and Jones
18. A Chorus Line
19. Minimum two Leonard Bernstein (that doesn't fit any above category)
20. Minimum of five off-Broadway recordings of shows no one outside of the theater community and geeks have heard of (examples include Last Five Years, Violet, Batboy...)
21. Minimum of one Boublil & Schonberg
22. Minimum one recording from each the following: Jason Robert Brown, Michael John LaChiusa, Adam Guettel, William Finn

Thanks Enjolras77 for the edits...

May have left something out....I'm kind of tired...

Hi, Shirley Temple Pudding.

Updated On: 4/10/06 at 12:35 AM

#11

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:39am

SMILING, THE BOY FELL DEAD.

Tootie 'The Most Horrible' Smith
St. Louis, MO

#12

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 1:50am

I think Crazy For You should be on the list. Good mix of great Gershwin songs in it. and great story. (first show I saw)

<--- the set of A Midsummer Night's Dream that I was assistant stage manager for during the 2007 season at the STNJ outdoor stage.

-Dre- You must remember all the same that at the crux of every game is knowing when it's time to leave the table... And it's important to be artful in your exit. No turning back, you must accept the con is done... It was a ball, it was a blast. And it's a shame it couldn't last. But every chapter has to end, you must agree.
~Dirty Rotten Scoundrels~
There's a special kind of people known as show people. We live in a world full of dreams. Sometimes we're not too certain what's false and what's real. But we're seldom in doubt about what we feel.
~Curtains~
It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to, than I have ever known.
~A Tale of Two Cities ~

#13

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 8:03am

If I could pick just one, it would be the OBC with Patti Lupone in Evita.

#14

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 8:45am

42nd Street
"The Broadway Musical for people who love Broadway Musicals!"
I prefer the OBC, but the revival cast is good, too.

No one is alone.

#15

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 9:17am

Gypsy with Ethel Merman

Nuff said

"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men" - Willy Wonka

#16

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 10:51am

Oh yeah, i forgot Aida, Definitely a great recording.

#17

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:33pm

You should own a bunch of cds that most even on this board would get extremely jealous about

#18

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:46pm

definitely "Thou Shalt Not"

Don't f*ck with me fellas. This ain't my first time at the rodeo.

#19

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:49pm

Good Vibrations, In My Life and Lennon (because sooner or later Bryan will arrive and say the same thing).

Updated On: 4/10/06 at 12:49 PM

#20

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:52pm

honestly, buy what you love - if you arent gonna listen to it, then why have it?

Don't f*ck with me fellas. This ain't my first time at the rodeo.

#21

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:53pm

La Cage Aux Folles

"Y'all have a GRAND day now"

#22

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 12:55pm

"honestly, buy what you love - if you arent gonna listen to it, then why have it?"

...because i'm a collector. Does it matter that I have only listened to Dude/The Highway Life once? No. I own it because it is a rare flop recording. And honestly, I will probably never give Ankles Aweigh a second listen...just horrible!

#23

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 1:01pm

jasonf, I really like your little math formula.

I'm in pretty good shape. Well, great shape, actually, I have all the albums that qualify. (I mean, I've got well over five off-Broadway recordings, but I don't actually own Batboy... and probably never will...)

I have to be honest, I do own a lot of "must-have" albums that I basically never listen to... but if I didn't own them, I'd feel weird. Like, I probably haven't willingly listened to anything from Carousel in like, five years, but if I didn't own it, I would probably hate myself. It's weird how compulsive I am about owning things that I won't necessarily listen to a lot.

#24

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 1:04pm

I actually get cast recordings for my radio show. Some of the stuff I may not like and stuff I only play once or twice, but sometimes people request stuff, and I play it for them. I also only listen to cast recordings and movie soundtracks so i get them to just listen to too.

#25

re: MUST HAVE cast recordings for a Broadway enthusiast

Posted: 4/10/06 at 1:12pm

Guys and Dolls all the way (the revival recording with Nathan Lane, Faith Prince, etc). It's larger than life to me, and the show is a classic. As Nathan Lane said in the documentary of the making of the recording, "It's bigger than Cats. Now and forgetaboutit!"

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