#broadway cast album

[broadwaymeows]

Broadway cast recording season is almost fully upon us! ✨

Starting my morning off with a song from The Notebook that’s been stuck in my head.

I try to see all the new bway shows of the season every year but my favorite part is usually listening to all the cast recordings that release in May/June.

(Plus you never know when a mediocre show will drop a fierce album 🔥)

Anyone else desperately awaiting the Hell’s Kitchen cast recording 👀 no doubt that’ll be on repeat for me once it’s released. Best show of the season easily.

[unbreakable-heart-of-stone]

💜💜

[wolfythewitch]

Hadestown au perchance

[youaremydearestdream]

the outsiders musical rant !! sorry if this doesn’t make sense, i just had to get it out there !

i find it interesting that despite being the main character of the outsiders musical, ponyboy does a lot of harmonizing with others instead of just taking the melody

he takes the melody when he’s narrating,, especially about his problems (tulsa ‘67, his solo parts in i could talk to you all night and far away from tulsa, etc.) but when he sings with other people, he is normally heard harmonizing

he opts up in grease got a hold and great expectations, leaving everyone else behind as they sing the melody. this shows his yearning for a life outside of tulsa, and a life outside of his problems. he takes the lower harmony in i could talk to you all night with cherry, and the highest harmony in throwing in the towel. he is always consumed by the need to get away.

cherry keeps him grounded. he can relate and connect with her, but it’s not enough. meanwhile, pony is disconnected from his brothers, but with darry most of all (darry sings the lower harmony, musically the furthest away from pony) while soda is the connector between the two, which is why soda is the one who takes the melody during the chorus of throwing in the towel when all three brothers sing together— soda is literally in the middle of them, stuck between a rock (darry) and and hard place (pony)

ponyboy is almost always harmonizing with everyone, except for when he’s with johnny. johnny is who he sings of running away with. by killing bob (in self defense!!) johnny is the one who makes running away a reality, which is why it’s fitting that johnny is the one takes the harmony when he sings with ponyboy in far away from tulsa and death’s at my door. he’s the one that pony feels the most safe and comfortable to be himself around because pony knows that johnny always understands him.

it’s only until after johnny dies that pony begins harmonizing with him instead, jumping between low and high harmonies during stay gold. this shows how affected he is by johnnys death— his harmonies are as “unstable” as he is. he finally comes back to the melody when he sings the last line of the song by himself, internalizing johnny’s message: to stay gold, to be himself, and to learn that there are so many more reasons to why life is worth living.

during the finale, he lets darry and sodapop read out the narration, showing that he has successfully mended the gap between him and darry. he sticks to the melody throughout the entire song. he no longer opts up like he did in the beginning because he has realized that running away from his problems (and running away from the melody) cannot solve anything. by the end of the outsiders musical, ponyboy has finally grown into his own skin and is no longer ashamed of where he comes from.

[b0n3l3ssbaenanas]

anyone else completely loosing it over Jonathan Groff’s choice to have Frank’s voice get progressively less harsh and textured as the show progresses (or, as he becomes younger and less… harsh and textured)?

at the beginning of the show (and the END of his cannon arc) in “That Frank,” he growls frequently in his singing (“…let it never stop!”) and thoroughly textures his louder line deliveries (“PARAMOUNT!!!”), whereas by the finale, (and the END of his cannon arc) “Our Time,” he’s skillfully tapered out the texture throughout the course of the score. totally buttered my skunk, and was an elegantly effective focal point for my second listen!

[crunchie-morris]

Reasons Newsies UK needs a cast recording:

Reorchestrated overture

Brooklyn’s Here

Reorchestrated dance breaks

Brooklyn’s Here

Additional solos for Crutchie in CTB and TWWK

Brooklyn’s Here

Letter From The Refuge

Brooklyn’s Here

Newsie roll calls during dance breaks

Brooklyn’s Here

[pepsicurtis]

Darry/Ponyboy and Dally/Johnny parallels

When the Curtis Parents died, Darry did everything to keep his brothers together. He provided them a house and food over their heads. He’s stressed and that causes him to treat Pony differently than before because he wants what is best for his little brother. He’s in charge now and he feels obligated to make something out of him, something that Darry could never be.

When Johnny came to Dally after he killed Bob, Dally provided him with some money for food and a place to hideout. But when Johnny wanted to go back, there was a side of Dallas Winston that never appeared before. He begged Johnny not to go back to Tulsa because jail changes people and he didn't want Johnny to turn out like himself. According to Pony, whatever decision Dally told Johnny to do, Johnny would have did it because his word is law.

When Ponyboy ran away, Darry was miserable. In the musical, he wanted to give up, throw in the towel because this ontop of everything else was too much for a 20-year-old to handle. Thank goodness Sodapop was there to assure him that he wasn't alone and that Darry needed to keep his spirit alive and fighting. When Ponyboy met him at the hospital, it was the first time Pony had ever seen him cry.

When Johnny dies, Dallas is obviously a wreck. Ponyboy says that Dally’s face was sweaty, but what if that was an unreliable narrator talking and Dally was actually crying? (Just watch a clip of “Little Brother” and look at Joshua Boone! Musical Dally IS crying.) He didn't know how to cope with this much despair and why did the world matter if Johnny Cade wasn't in it? There was no one there to keep Dally afloat, except maybe Johnny’s words to him in the letter. Words, how little they mean when they're a little too late.

They are two older brothers just doing everything in their power to protect their little brother.

[slozhnos]

what is a role that you want to see a musical theatre actor play? (can include a role they never performed on stage/can be a role they were on a concept album for)

[this-is-macy]

It's just that there are no skips (0) on The Great Gatsby cast recording!

I'll be honest, even some of my very favorite musicals have songs that make me go "meh" when they come on, but with The Great Gatsby?? No such thing. The past is an absolute rose and you better hold tight because we ride, we ride, we ride, we riiiiiiide!

[tofangirlonly]

Have been listening exclusively to For Her for 24 hours now.

[cinemichh]

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2023 Broadway Cast Recording) release day mood

Josh Groban saying “the history of the world my sweet” in A Little Priest is…heavenly

The song transitions are done perfectly?!?

It was SO worth the wait it’s mastered beautifully and I am sooooo happy we get to have these recordings forever

Pretty Women (Pt. 2) is seriously going to be my lullaby forever thank you

Annaleigh is amazing her voice is soooo smooth when harmonizing

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

Please see tags of original post for further notes

[wolfythewitch]

In my brain somewhere the hadestown au is cyclical in a way where everyone, once, a lifetime ago or now, has in some way been Orpheus and Eurydice. Jon and Martin were Orpheus and Eurydice before tim and Sasha were, and the story was still the same. Jon turned to look and came up to the surface alone. Their Hades and Persephone were Peter and Elias. Maybe even before that, maybe Peter and Elias were Orpheus and Eurydice once. One of them must have turned. Someone will be Orpheus and Eurydice after, and maybe Tim and Sasha will be their Hades and Persephone. Orpheus will always look back. Eurydice will always forgive him

[iambecomeahamburger]

i am in romantic love with the sweeney todd (2023) cast album i think

[tending-the-hearth]

outsiders bway stop destroying my heart challenge

[miss-tribulationperiwinkle]

Why I Hate Suffs.

Spoiler alert, but in the movie “10 Things I Hate About You”, Kat Stratford reads a poem in front of her class in which she mentions all the reasons why she hates a guy and at the end she says “But mostly, I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.” And, well, that’s exactly why I hate Suffs.

I really tried hating Suffs. I live on the opposite side of the continent from the Music Box Theater. On the side where we consider ourselves “Americans” just by living on this land, even if we don’t live in the wealthiest country and where Christmas is spent wearing shorts and eating by the pool. Because of that, seeing Suffs this year was not an option for me. I love musical theater with every part of my being, but I’ve learnt that I have to ignore certain shows if I don’t want to spend months being sad because I can’t see them.

The problem was that I knew I was going to like Suffs, even if just a little. So my plan was to hate it instead. I believed every lie I read on the Internet about it that would help me with it. I ignored the cast album even when Spotify thought I should try listening to it. I didn’t even check the reviews when they came out because what would I do if they were good? 

Everything was going perfectly, I convinced myself that Suffs was the worst show on Broadway, the kind that deserves bad reviews and empty seats. But then, I watched the Tony awards and I saw Shaina Taub win her second Tony of the night and curiosity got to me. The following day, I listened to the Cast Album for the first time. 

Now, because I don’t live near Broadway, most of the knowledge I’ve gotten about shows comes from listening to cast albums. I’m one of those people who believe that music and lyrics are one of the most important parts of a musical. If they aren’t good, I don’t care if you put the Empire State Building on stage, I will not like the show. If you don’t make me feel something through words and sound, you won’t get my attention. 

The first song I listened to was “Let Mother Vote” and it got my attention. Then everything else came and I just knew I was screwed. There was no way I was going to hate that musical after listening to the full album. It was smart, it had different styles, and it spoke to me in a unique way. Now, I wish everyone was willing to listen to it speak to them.

Suffs doesn’t tell my story, it doesn’t even tell the story of my ancestors. But even so, it fills my body with an array of emotions and my eyes with tears every time I listen to it. It would have been great if it had been a boring, educational show about politics. I would have been able to hate it. But the thing is that it’s so much more than that. 

It’s a show that made me realize that women are not powerless like some people make us think we are. It’s convenient for them that we buy that lie, but it’s simply not true and Suffs proves it by showing the achievements of women who were deemed insane just because they wanted to be heard and seen. Women who not only believed in themselves, but also in collective power. They believed in having each other’s backs when the world turned theirs to them. Suffs showed me that we don’t have to be the same person, or think alike, to be able to fight for what is right. It showed me that even when we think we are alone, a woman next to us will hold up the sign and march with us. Women are powerful, especially when we are united. Especially when we decide to show the world that we are. 

I wish I’d been able to hate Suffs. If I had, I wouldn’t have cried on Friday learning the news that the show will be closing in January. I wouldn’t be so mad at people who believed lies and built their opinions on nothing and won’t give it a chance when it’s such a relevant show -even if that was my original plan. I wish I could yell in their faces and ask them to pay attention, because if there’s a musical that needs to be seen and heard by everyone, it’s this one. 

I recently saw a video of their cast album presentation and I cried seeing women from different generations there. That’s what Suffs is to me, a musical that’s not about being a certain age or from a certain historical time or from a specific country, it’s about being a woman. We know what that’s about, we know it’s not easy, but we are powerful, we are not alone and we have to keep marching for the ones that came before and the ones that will come, we can do it. I just love Suffs.