CARRIE Cast Recording Tops Amazon Musical Album Chart for 24 Hours

Ghostlight Records has announced that the release of the long-awaited cast recording of Carrie: The Musical has topped the Musical Album Charts on Amazon.com for 24-hours straight and counting, ahead of staple best sellers Wicked, Jersey Boys, and Once, among others. Released on Tuesday, September 25th during an especially robust release day that saw several other major albums hit stores, the immediate success of the Carrie: The Musical cast recording is notable especially for a show no longer running, which signals the enduring qualities of its production at MCC Theater and the celebrated score with music by Academy Award-winner Michael Gore (Fame, Terms of Endearment), lyrics by Academy Award-winner Dean Pitchford (Fame, Footloose), and a book by Lawrence D. Cohen, who also penned the film’s screenplay.

The recording, executive produced by Grammy Award winner Kurt Deutsch (iN THE HEIGHTS), features Tony Award nominee Marin Mazzie (Kiss Me Kate, Next to Normal) and breakout star Molly Ranson (Jerusalem, August: Osage County) along with the sensational cast from the 2012 revival at MCC Theater (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, William Cantler, Artistic Directors; Blake West, Executive Director).

News of this impressive chart debut for the album is the latest chapter in the story of the Carrie phenomenon, which began its unprecedented run in the pop culture lexicon in 1974 with Stephen King’s seminal novel, followed by the classic 1976 Brian DePalma film starring Sissy Spacek, which together spawned the 1988 Broadway production. Carrie: The Musical, with its daring, pulsating pop score, tells the infamous tale of a troubled teenage girl (Ranson) whose tortured social life is made more unbearable by her oppressive religious fanatic mother (Mazzie).

Carrie: The Musical – Premiere Cast Recording was produced by Joel Moss and Michael Gore, and features orchestrations by Tony Award® winner Doug Besterman (The Producers, Thoroughly Modern Millie), vocal design by AnnMarie Milazzo, and music direction and arrangements by Mary-Mitchell Campbell. In addition to Marin Mazzie and Molly Ranson, the cast recording features cast members Christy Altomare, Carmen Cusack, Jeanna de Waal, Derek Klena, Ben Thompson, Wayne Alan Wilcox, Corey Boardman, Blair Goldberg, F. Michael Haynie, Andy Mientus, Elly Noble, and Jen Sese.
Also appearing on the recording are Mary-Mitchell Campbell, conductor/keyboard; Adam Wachter, keyboard; Craig Magnano & Dillon Kondor, guitars; Brian Hamm, bass; Damien Bassman, drums/percussion; and Alisa Horn, cello.

The 2012 Off-Broadway production of Carrie was directed by Stafford Arima (Altar Boyz, The Secret Garden), with choreography by Matt Williams, set design by David Zinn, costume design by Emily Rebholz, lighting design by Tony Award winner Kevin Adams (Spring Awakening, American Idiot), sound design by Jonathan Deans, projection design by Sven Ortel, fight direction by Rick Sordelet, wig and hair design by Leah J. Loukas. Performances of Carrie began January 31, 2012, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street, NYC) and officially opened on March 1, 2012. All future performance rights to Carrie are licensed by R&H Theatricals (www.rnh.com).

Carrie: The Musical – Premiere Cast Recording Track Listing

1 In
2 Carrie
3 Open Your Heart
4 And Eve Was Weak
5 The World According To Chris
6 Evening Prayers
7 Dreamer In Disguise
8 Once You See
9 Unsuspecting Hearts
10 Do Me A Favor
11 I Remember How Those Boys Could Dance
12 A Night We'll Never Forget
13 You Shine
14 Why Not Me?
15 Stay Here Instead
16 When There's No One
17 Prom Arrival
18 Unsuspecting Hearts (Reprise)
19 Dreamer In Disguise (Reprise)
20 Prom Climax
21 Alma Mater
22 The Destruction
23 Carrie (Reprise)
24 Epilogue

Sh-K-Boom with its imprint Ghostlight Records has become the leading independent force in Original Broadway Cast Recordings – building a library of over 120 records in the last 12 years, featuring the most successful Broadway musicals and solo albums by Broadway’s biggest stars. Founded by Kurt Deutsch and wife Sherie Rene Scott, the label was created by and for the Broadway community and has reinvented the musical theatre recording landscape through their high-quality recordings, innovative marketing techniques to reach the next generation of Broadway music fans, and the creation of a new type of ‘United Artists’ environment for Broadway producers and artists to participate in the funding and co-ownership of their albums. Ghostlight recently celebrated a major milestone with their Grammy-winning release of THE BOOK OF Mormon, which became the first Broadway cast recording to break into Billboard’s Top 10 since the original 1969 release of Hair, as well as taking its place as the biggest-selling digital release of a cast recording of all time. In addition, their release of the smash hit Newsies debuted #1 on the iTunes Soundtracks chart and in the Top 15 of the overall iTunes chart, and also won the Tony Award® for Best Original Score. Also recently released on the label are the new Grammy-nominated cast recording of Anything Goes, plus the OCRs Catch Me If You Can, Sister Act and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, as well as solo albums from some of Broadway’s biggest stars: Sutton Foster, Kelli O’Hara, Alice Ripley, Linda Lavin, Christine Ebersole, Melissa Errico and Ben Vereen. In recent Broadway seasons, Ghostlight has preserved the scores of some of Broadway's most well-known musicals, including the Grammy Award-winning iN THE HEIGHTS, plus Next to Normal, Hair, Legally Blonde, Everyday Rapture, Passing Strange, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and The Drowsy Chaperone.