Pajama Game Recording Tops Billboard Cast Album Chart

Columbia Records' recently released "Harry On Broadway, Act I", a two CD collection including The Pajama Game cast album and music from Thou Shalt Not (performed by Harry Connick, Jr. and Kelli O'Hara), has debuted at #1 on the Billboard Cast Album chart.

In addition to the cast recording of The Pajama Game, the CD set (which was released in stores on May 9th) includes 11 songs from Thou Shalt Not, which marked Connick Jr.'s debut as a Broadway composer/lyricist.

The Pajama Game, which opened at the American Airlines Theatre on February 23rd, stars Connick Jr. as Sid Sorokin, O'Hara as Babe Williams and Michael McKean as Hines, as well as Megan Lawrence as Gladys, Joyce Chittick as Mae, Peter Benson as Prez, Michael McCormick as Pop and Ganzenlicher, Richard Poe, and Roz Ryan as Mabel. The revival of the classic musical comedy, with a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and a book by George Abbott and Richard Bissell, is directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall.

The Pajama Game was recently nominated for nine Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical, Best Actor in a Musical (Connick, Jr.), Best Actress in a Musical (O'Hara) and Best Direction and Choreography of a Musical.

The show is playing a limited run through June 11th, but audiences can pay between between $250 and $2,500 to catch five added benefit performances from June 13th through 17th. Funds from those performances will benefit The Actors' Fund of America, the New Orleans Habitat Musician's Village, and the Roundabout's Education Program and Musical Theatre Fund. The show has also been announced to transfer, with a new cast, to another Broadway theatre in the fall.

The Pajama Game is set during union disputes at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory, and centers around a love story between two people representing opposing sides of the dispute. The Pajama Game originally opened at the St. James Theatre on May 13th, 1954 to run for 1,063 performances; the show won Tonys for Best Musical, for Bob Fosse's choreography and for Carol Haney as Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

For more information on The Pajama Game, visit www.roundabouttheatre.org.