369 stories by "Rob Lester"
Here are two contemporary musicals whose scores on disc are among Broadway Records' cluster of recent releases. Neither would be mistaken for a Rodgers & Hammerstein-style musical or a whole…
Love"or a reasonable facsimile. Or maybe just another shade of the red hot. Hearing their colorful ideas and hearing them perform in a private rehearsal increased my anticipation for rich-…
This time, it's Amazing Grace, named for the stirring hymn and charting the journey of the man who wrote it. The second line of that song""How sweet the sound!""also describes the voices of …
... some whose memories go back a bit more than 50 Broadway seasons may be amazed that it's been that long since Fiddler on the Roof first came along, but it's back and there's another reviv…
. Each grabbed me right away, having surpassed my expectations based on prior familiarity with the artists and/or songs. They have lasting power, continuing to impress when I hear them again.
... here are the ones (submitted for review) that radiate with initial impact and staying power.
The Wiz and Finding Neverland:
Inspired by Baum, Barrie & Believing.
Six Sinatra tribute albums.
Two new releases concentrate on [the early] period"with gusto. Several titles appear on both albums, but with quite different stylings.
A new recorded version of a score by George and Ira Gershwin is always good news ... [Annaleigh Ashford] bubbles over with excitement, a party gal eager to have you join her party ... [Barba…
This CD release marks the 40th anniversary of the original LP of the original cast, produced by Goddard Lieberson, a kind of "encore" task for the Columbia Records giant figure.
The case of the musical Doctor Zhivago is hardly the first time that a Broadway show shuttered quickly, despite a storied road of being a celebrated novel, movie, and having a globe-trotting…
Wanna make a bet? The Fringe Festival's deliciously ridiculous musical about the selection of a new Pope, Popesical, like the actual Pope's upcoming visit, will attract big crowds. But it in…
I just caught two new musicals about red-headed female scientists and their partners. One is in town for a brief stay in its world premiere in the Fringe Festival. One was never seen before …
It's rare to find a kids' show that's this good. Here are 2 that are new, written by Jamey Hood.
She scores with both, tho' it's her first time. And, in fact, non-distractingly, she writes …
A 2014 Off-Broadway musical called Fly by Night has key moments with its people seeking solace in the stars of the nighttime sky and being plunged into darkness because of a power failure. N…
Summer means the annual summer musical theatre festival, and this summer, Summer Valley Fair is one of the highlights and a uniquely creative style and approach make it compelling. It's pla…
Fellow outsiders, come inside PTC Performance Space and hug a buffalo who's feeling low. For those of us who like musicals, the annual NYMF series of new ones for three weeks in July feels l…
In the swirling whirlwind of musical offerings busy invading Manhattan through July 27 comes that increasingly endangered species: the old-fashioned revue. A mix of songs and skits and bits …
Their roads to the Broadway season were long, but their runs were short. Here are two recently closed musicals whose action takes place in Europe, with scores written by major league songwri…
Musical theatre's Marin Mazzie does double duty in this spring's CD releases: serving in the title role of a long-gestating/morphing musical's premiere recording with Misia featuring melodie…
The missing slices from the juicy score to 1954's The Golden Apple are on disc at last. So there is reason to rejoice for lovers of adventurous musical theatre scores ...
Our mix this time contains the high-profile big Broadway hit, a low-profile 2012 show, and a fellow profiling some Sinatra standbys.
It's a treat to listen to these recordings, made from the 1950s to the 1980s, either with the hindsight of history or wondering how it must have been to perform them or hear them fresh, with…
