ANNIE Revival Cast Album in the Works!

Shout! Factory, and its Broadway cast imprint Shout! Broadway, has just announced that it will release and distribute the New Broadway Cast Recording for the critically- acclaimed production of the classic Broadway musical, Annie.

ANNIE, winner of seven 1977 Tony Awards including Best Musical, features a book by Thomas Meehan, music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin, with all three authors receiving Tony Awards for their work. The new Broadway production of Annie is directed by Pulitzer Prize and three-time Tony Award-winner James Lapine and choreographed by Tony Award-winner Andy Blankenbuehler. The new production opened November 8, 2012 at the Palace Theatre (1564 Broadway, between 46th and 47th Streets), where it is currently playing.

The album, featuring the original cast of the current production, began recording on March 3, 4 at the historic Kaufman Astoria Studios, and recording will continue on March 11, 2013. The album is available for pre-order at the Palace Theatre and fans who wish to order online can reserve their copy at http://anniethemusicalshop.com starting on March 6, 2013. The recording will be available for sale in early May 2013 at the Palace Theatre, at www.anniethemusical.com, in Broadway gift shops, and on iTunes. It will be available online and in stores nationwide soon thereafter at a date to be announced.

The album will be produced by legendary 12-time GRAMMY winner Thomas Z. Shepard, the first of many projects planned together for Shout! Broadway. Douglas Denoff and Dennis Grimaldi produce for Shout! Broadway, whose first release was the GRAMMY-nominated Original Broadway Cast Album for the hit Gershwin musical, Nice Work If You Can Get It.

Thomas Z. Shepard produced the original cast recordings for dozens of Broadway shows including the original productions of many Sondheim musicals, including the GRAMMY-winning recordings of Sweeney Todd, Company and Sunday in the Park with George. He also produced the original cast recordings of 1776, La Cage aux Folles and 42nd Street, among others. He is the recipient of the NARAS Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement and a Drama Desk Special Award "for preserving musical theater heritage on record."

ANNIE was one of the biggest Broadway musical hits of the 1970s, running for almost six years and playing 2,377 performances. The score for Annie includes "Maybe," "It's the Hard Knock Life," "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile," "Easy Street," "I Don't Need Anything But You" and the eternal anthem of optimism, "Tomorrow". The GRAMMY Award-winning original 1977 Broadway cast album has gone platinum, selling over one million copies to date. The current Broadway production at the Palace Theatre is a clear hit, breaking the house record at the Palace Theatre with a gross of $2.05 million for the week of Christmas, 2012.

Broadway producers Douglas Denoff and Dennis Grimaldi have forged an exclusive license agreement with Shout! Broadway, a division of Shout! Factory, to release and distribute Broadway cast albums and other projects. Denoff and Grimaldi are both seasoned Broadway producers with Tony Awards and Pulitzer Prizes and GRAMMY nominations among them.

Said Denoff, "Shout! Broadway is unique compared to the existing boutique cast album labels in that we have the benefit of Shout!'s distribution, so our albums will be available not only in the theatres, online and in all the Broadway shops and websites, but also in national retail outlets. "

He continued, "Our mission is to bring back the glory days of cast albums, both artistically, and from a business standpoint. Our budgets are sensible and our goal is to have finished albums on-sale in the theatre within three to five weeks of recording. We hope to make cast albums profitable again and encourage show producers to think of us and Shout! Broadway first."

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