Encores! MERRILY WE GO ALONG to Release Cast Recording in June

PS Classics is now taking preorders for a new two-disc cast recording of MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, performed by the cast of New York City Center's Encores! 2012 production. The album is set for general release on June 19.

Merrily We Roll Along, composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim and bookwriter George Furth's first collaboration following their landmark Company, opened on Broadway in 1981 to some of the most savage reviews of Sondheim's career, closing after a run of only 16 performances.

But fitting for a show that runs in reverse, the end was only the beginning of the story. Sondheim moved on to success with James Lapine on Sunday in the Park With George; Furth then encouraged Lapine to take a look at the show, beginning a major overhaul of Merrily by Sondheim and Furth that lasted over 20 years. In 2011, with the work complete, original orchestrator Jonathan Tunick was brought in to score the new songs; he ended up reorchestrating the entire score, giving it a consistency and clarity he felt it deserved.

In 2012, New York City Center's Encores! series premiered this new version of Merrily We Roll Along, starring Colin Donnell as Franklin Shepard, Celia Keenan-Bolger as Mary Flynn, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Charley Kringas, Adam Grupper as Joe Josephson, Elizabeth Stanley as Beth and Betsy Wolfe as Gussie Carnegie, and featuring a 23-piece orchestra conducted by Rob Berman.

The cast also includes Zachary Unger, with Whit Baldwin, Rachel Coloff, Ben Crawford, Joshua Dela Cruz, Bernard Dotson, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Marja Harmon, Leah Horowitz, Mylinda Hull, Michael X. Martin, Sean McKnight, Kenita R. Miller, Patricia Noonan, Andrew Samonsky, Pearl Sun, Charlie Sutton, Jessica Vosk, Karl Warden and Michael Winther.

Merrily We Roll Along, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, is a musical about friendship and the compromise of youthful ideals, based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The show moves backwards in time from 1976 to 1957 and examines the lives of three people whose friendship is tested by time, events, ambition and fate. It charts the rise of a songwriting team during the years of Sondheim's own early career and includes some of his most brilliant and bruising songs, such as "Not a Day Goes By," "Old Friends," "Our Time" and "Opening Doors."

More information and preorders: http://www.psclassics.com/cd_merrilywerollalong.html