No Guys & Dolls Cast Album?

[LloydStamps]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 5:17am

I saw the show this past weekend, enjoyed it, and asked one of the souvenir sellers about the cast album for this revival. "The producers decided not to do one," she said.

How come?

[dramamama611]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 5:19am

1. It's very expensive
2. There are already several recordings of G&D
3. This show is not very good and not selling extremely well.

[binau]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 7:29am

I heard they were making a Cry Baby one instead.

[BroadwayBound062]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 8:25am

Aww that's sad. But there are tons of great recordings but I kinda wanted this one because it was the first live production of G & D I had seen so I wanted it presevered. Maybe they will change their minds!

[dramamama611]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 8:28am

Great....there you go Golbinau, stirring up the pot. Bwhahaha.

If they haven't decided to it record it by now, I would think the chances of that changing are pretty slim.

And not that I encourage this sort of thing, but if you ask in the right places you can probably get your hands on an alternative to a recording. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

[Hahabimbi]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 9:48am

They have Music section on GaD website with coming soon on it, so I wonder if they´ll put some songs in there or if it stays coming soon forever.

[BillFinn]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 11:40am

That's a shame. Craig Bierko and Kate Jennings Grant had the most amazing vocals.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 11:47am

Amazing vocals perhaps, but utterly boring on stage.

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 11:56am

I wouldn't even begin to approach the word "amazing" in describing either of their vocals. I think "serviceable" is a more apt description, but that's just me.

[TalkinLoud]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 12:04pm

I thought Craig Bierko and Kate Jennings Grant were wonderful, singing and acting. But that's about the extent of my compliments to the show.

No, I did like the gospel version of SDYRTB.

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 2:28pm

Between the OCR (one of the best show albums EVER) and the '92 revival, there's absolutely no need for a recording of this revival. The only time it came to life was when Mary Testa joined in Sit Down . . . and that alone, much though I love Mary, is hardly justification for a new recording.

[bryan]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 2:55pm

ah so sad ha haha

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 6/1/09 at 2:57pm

I don't think anything in this revival (save for maybe Mary Testa and the choreography) can be described as "amazing." Even the good things were simply brought down by the awfulness surrounding it. Having said that, I do think Kate Jennings Grant was wonderful, I don't think she was boring at all, if anything she managed to inject life to misdirected, misacted, and utterly bad scenes. She had so much personality, and her Sarah Brown was quite passionate. It was at the very least an interesting take on the role that worked, sadly the performance couldn't realize its full potential since the direction was so terrible and the rest of the principals weren't up to par. I think she was stronger than say Josefina Scaglione (whose performance also suffered from being in a misdirected production).
Craig Bierko was okay, not great, not wonderful, but he was fun to watch.
Having said that, Lauren Graham's Adelaide should never be recorded for posterity.

[frontrowcentre2]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 1:36pm

I don't think it is necessary to record every Broadway revival, especially when we already have a fairly definitive OCR.

Rarely do revival cast recordings challenge an authoritative OCR, and they frequently do not sell as well as the original and wind up splitting future sales. This was one reason why I was not upset when the recent revival of LA CAGE went unrecorded. Frankly I could have been happy without the revival casts of of WONDERFUL TOWN, MAN OF LA MANCHA, & SWEET CHARITY.

The LuPone GYPSY was an exception mainly because of the bonus tracks. While I enjoy portions of the Lansbury, Daly and Peters cast albums, not a one of them has the electricity of the Merman original.

I would rather the labels invest more time in recording scores that have not previously been recorded.

[BillFinn]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 2:30pm

The new orchestrations were wonderful though. It's a shame they won't get to make a recording of it.

While I think Kate Jennings Grant's voice ROCKED and I'm depressed her "If I Were a Bell" won't be recorded, I had a problem with her Sarah Brown. Yes, she had an amazing personality and she was passionate, but she was all of those things since the very start. I didn't see a journey from a conservative, uptight Evangelical to that passionate woman. After she made out with Craig in their first scene together, her proposition to stay in Havana seemed like it was coming. Craig Bierko was all things glorious though. His Sky couldn't have been more perfect.

If you want to talk about boring, bring up the choreography. It seemed too flashy and random. It belonged in "A Chorus Line." It didn't paint me a picture or tell a story the way it was supposed too.

[RockabyeHamlet]

Posted: 6/2/09 at 2:52pm

I am not losing any sleep over this one.

As much as I like the original, the revival recording is my favorite.

[LloydStamps]

Posted: 6/3/09 at 5:02am

"I don't think it is necessary to record every Broadway revival, especially when we already have a fairly definitive OCR."

Except that many OCRs from the pre-CD era aren't complete. Songs were dropped to fit onto those 45-minute vinyl records (or in the case of "The Music Man," everything was sped up). Dance music almost never made vinyl OCRs.

But I also like having a recording of the version *I* saw. Now, I realize that's not possible when I see a replacement cast, but that's not the case here.

I enjoy both recordings I have of "Man of La Mancha."

As for this show's performances... I wasn't that impressed with Tituss Burgess in the first act; maybe it was an off performance. His "Sit Down" was fine. I was curious how Lauren Graham would do, and I thought she did well. I thought Craig Bierko was excellent as Sky.

One quibble with the staging: Why put the orchestra onstage in an elaborate set -- and then keep it covered up for nearly the entire show? In other shows I've seen with the orchestra onstage, such as "Wonderful Town," "Chicago," and 1986's "Anything Goes," that wasn't the case.

[BillFinn]

Posted: 6/3/09 at 11:34am

Wasn't that big projector covering them? The band would have just been in the way when they used the projector during scene changes and the stage was looking kind of cramped as it is.