JASPER IN DEADLAND World Premiere Recording Out Today
By: BWW News Desk May. 20, 2016
The show -- with music and lyrics by Ryan Scott Oliver and book by Oliver and Hunter Foster -- was hailed as "a playful, silly-smart, new musical" by The New York Times, which called the score "buoyant and wide-ranging, with rich harmonies." The recording is produced by Ryan Scott Oliver and John Clancy.
To order the album, visit www.sh-k-boom.com/jasper-in-deadland.
The cast features Matt Doyle (The Book of Mormon), Sydney Shepherd (First Date), Louis Hobson (Next to Normal), Andi Alhadeff, Kyle Carter, F. Michael Haynie (Wicked), John-Michael Lyles (The Flick), Brandi Chavonne Massey (Caroline, or Change) and Bonnie Milligan. Orchestrations are by John Clancy.
Oliver reflected, "I wanted to create an electric score which fused the pop-rock genre with the more chaotic, chromatic possibilities that lie in the afterlife; all the fun of a rock album with the 'rules' left back on earth! This piece was meant to inspire a new generation to inhabit a world of familiar characters in a contemporary setting -- not unlike the way Into the Woods inspired so many of us. I hope young audiences discover themselves in this story, and older audiences experiencing new insight to what it means to be truly alive."
JASPER IN DEADLAND tells the story of 16-year-old Jasper, who journeys into the Afterlife to rescue his recently deceased best friend, Agnes. But in this version of the hereafter -- known as "Deadland," a hybrid of mythology, religion, and superstition -- the dead forget Life... And so, too, will Jasper, if he can't get past the seven circles of Deadland, fearsome Cerberus, heavenly Beatrix, mysterious Mr. Lethe, and ultimately himself. Can Jasper bring his best friend back from the dead, or will he join the dead forever?
JASPER IN DEADLAND opened at the West End Theatre on March 16, 2014 in New York City and at the 5th Avenue Theatre on May 14, 2015 in Seattle, WA. This recording was made possible by Kenny and Marleen Alhadeff and Angela Hardy, with contributions by Kevin Montgomery and Dennis Duban, Diane Finston, and Frank and Linda Damon.
Oliver's piece, 35MM: A Musical Exhibition -- with an all-star cast featuring Alex Brightman, Bren Crawford, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Lindsay Mendez and Betsy Wolfe - is also available from Ghostlight Records. The show has been produced in over 30 productions in Japan, Australia, England, Scotland, Canada and around the world. 35MM is licensed by Samuel French.
RYAN SCOTT OLIVER is a Jonathan Larson Grant recipient, Richard Rodgers Award winner, Lortel Award nominee, ASCAP Harold Adamson Lyric Award winner, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, and the recipient of residencies at 5th Avenue Theatre, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Weston Playhouse, Cap 21, and San Diego State University for We Foxes, a commission by Broadway Across America. He also wrote the music and lyrics for Darling (Boston Metropolitan Opera Mainstage Award, Weston Playhouse and Pace New Musicals Award, workshopped at ACT, featured on NBC's The Apprentice), Mrs. Sharp (read at Playwrights Horizons, starring Jane Krakowski, dir. by Michael Greif), Out of My Head (published and licensed through Steele Spring Stage Rights, available to purchase on Amazon), as well as the youth theatre commission, The Frog Prince Continued which ran for six months in Chicago. A collection of his work, Rated RSO, played the Kennedy Center, Joe's Pub and the New York Musical Theatre Festival.
Additionally, he is the Director of New Musicals at Pace University in downtown Manhattan and the Artistic Director of the Pasadena Musical Theatre Program. His songbook, Music+Lyrics by Ryan Scott Oliver: Vol. 1, was published by Hal Leonard in 2011, and since then he has released three more digitally ...Vol.2, ...For Guys, and ...For Girls. M.F.A. Musical Theatre Writing NYU; B.A. Music Composition, UCLA. He is currently at work on the new musical Rope.
HUNTER FOSTER is a bookwriter, director, and actor for musical theatre. Hunter wrote the book to the Off-Broadway musical, Summer of '42 which opened at the Variety Arts Theatre in New York City and was nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical. Other recent book writing credits include The Circus in Winter (Goodspeed Musicals), Clyde and Bonnie: A Folktale (New York Musical Theatre Festival, Aurora Theatre), and The Hollow (Signature Theatre). He has written comedy sketches for the "Rosie Live" show on NBC starring Rosie O'Donnell, and writes annually for the Easter Bonnet and Gypsy of the Year competitions which benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Hunter's directing credits include: Grease (North Carolina Theatre), Million Dollar Quartet (Ogunquit Playhouse), My Fair Lady (Cape Playhouse), and Company, Ain't Misbehavin', National Pasttime, The Rocky Horror Show, and Summer of '42 at Bucks County Playhouse, where he is an Artistic Associate. As an actor, he has appeared on Broadway in The Bridges of Madison County, Hands on a Hardbody, Million Dollar Quartet, The Producers, Little Shop of Horrors (Tony nomination), Urinetown, Les Miserables, Footloose, Grease, King David. Hunter is a graduate of the University of Michigan (BFA in theatre, 1992).
"JASPER IN DEADLAND" TRACK LIST:
1) Goodbye Jasper
2) What is Life?
3) The Killing
4) Mark This!
5) Deadland Welcome / Tour Song / JASPER IN DEADLAND
6) JASPER IN DEADLAND (Lethe Style)
7) The Forgetting
8) Living Dead
9) Hungry for Your Heart
10) Stroke by Stroke
11) The Remembering
12) Memory: Something for Real
13) Beat and Broken Spirits
14) Awful People
15) Elysium
16) Lifesong
17) The Trade / The Swim
18) One More Day of Snow
Sh-K-Boom with its imprint Ghostlight Records has become the leading independent force in Original Broadway Cast Recordings -- building a library of over 150 records in the last 16 years, featuring some of the most successful Broadway musicals and solo albums by Broadway's brightest stars. Founded by Grammy Award winner Kurt Deutsch, Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight has won three Grammy Awards (for The Book of Mormon, In the Heights and Beautiful -- The Carole King Musical) and is a frequent nominee, most recently for the OBCR of the 2015 "Best Musical" Tony Award nominee Something Rotten! Other notable recent releases include the 2014 "Best Musical" Tony Award winner A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, the 2014 "Best Score" Tony Award winner The Bridges of Madison County, Disney's Newsies, Pippin and Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella, adding to a catalogue that includes OBCRs of Next to Normal, Hair, Legally Blonde, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Everyday Rapture, Passing Strange, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Drowsy Chaperone and many more Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. The label has also released solo albums from some of Broadway's biggest names: Patti LuPone, Sherie Rene Scott, Adam Pascal, Sutton Foster, Kelli O'Hara, Alice Ripley, Christine Ebersole, Melissa Errico and Ben Vereen. The label continues to support the new generation of musical theatre composers with their extensive relationships with Michael John LaChiusa (Giant, See What I Wanna See, Little Fish) and Michael Friedman (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Love's Labour's Lost, The Fortress of Solitude), as well as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tom Kitt, Pasek & Paul, Joe Iconis, Ryan Scott Oliver, Shaina Taub, Dave Malloy, Kerrigan & Lowdermilk and Adam Gwon. The label recently created a new joint publishing venture with Razor & Tie to represent songwriters that fuse theatrical and pop music. Sh-K-Boom Entertainment is a producer of the acclaimed film version of The Last Five Years, written and directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan. For more, visit www.sh-k-boom.com.
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