Cast Album IRVING BERLIN & CO. Set for Release This Month

The original cast album for Chip Deffaa's musical play "Irving Berlin & Co." (published by Eldridge Plays and Musicals) will be released December 21st. The album can be pre-ordered now from CDBaby (http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/irvingberlinco); as of the 21st, it will be available from Amazon, iTunes, Google Music Store, SoundExchange, Rhapsody, etc. This is the 13th cast album of Deffaa's to be released, and the fourth dealing with Berlin. Cast-members will help celebrate the release with performances of songs at Birdland and on "The Barry Z Show."

ASCAP Award-winning playwright Deffaa, who has written 16 published plays and eight books, is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on Berlin's music. And this cast album--like others in Deffaa's series of shows celebrating Berlin--mixes standards that everyone knows (such as "I Love a Piano" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band") with rare Berlin songs that have never before been recorded. Michael Townsend Wright and Missy Dreier are the first performers ever to record Berlin's "In My Cozy Kitchenette Apartment"; Jonah Barricklo is the first to record "There's Something Nice About the South"; and Brian Vincent Grimaldi is the first singer to record "They Call It Dancing." .

"Berlin was one of the all-time greatest songwriters, and also one of the most prolific," notes Deffaa. "In working on these shows, I've gone through the archives extensively, examining some 1500 songs, seeking out quality numbers that deserve to be re-discovered." Berlin, who was famously reclusive and zealous about his privacy, prevented anyone from dramatizing his life while he was alive. Deffaa has written the first biographical plays about the celebrated songwriter. .

The cast of "Irving Berlin & Co,." mixes pro's who've often worked with Deffaa (such as Emily Bordonaro, winner of the Betty Buckley Award, and Broadway/Hollywood veteran Matthew Nardozzi, who's won the national "Young Artist Award"), along with newcomers now making their album debuts (such as Jeffrey Sewell, whose YouTube videos Deffaa checked out upon the recommendation of Broadway's Andrew Keenan-Bolger), and Will Conard (from Brown University, whom Deffaa first spotted in an Ethical Culture/Fieldston School production).

The cast includes many who were with the project from the first readings at Ripley-Grier Studios. Among the cast-members are: Keith Anderson (whom Deffaa first saw in a show at the Kennedy Center and then cast in his "Johnny Mercer Jamboree" a dozen years ago); Chloe Brooks (who starred in Deffaa's Off-Broadway show "One Night with Fanny Brice" and is a former student of Irving Berlin's granddaughter); Michael Kasper, Timothy Thompson, Missy Dreier, Jonah Barricklo. and Megan Ulan (from Deffaa's Off-Broadway show "The Irving Berlin Ragtime Revue"); Peter Charney and Casie Pepe-Winshell (from Deffaa's "The Seven Little Foys"); David Cook (from Deffaa's "Yankee Doodle Dandy"); Cody Jordan, Katherine Paulsen, and Benjamin Grier from Deffaa's "Mad About the Boy"; Jennifer Spottz; and Hawkins Gardow from Deffaa's "Theater Boys." Music direction is by Richard Danley's, who has music-directed all of Deffaa's shows for a decade. Production assistance by Brick Greenbean. Recording engineer: Slau Halatyn, BeSharp Studios. Aide-de-camp: Alexander Keeperman.

Deffaa's next production celebrating Berlin, "Irving Berlin In Person" (a one-man show), will debut at Deffaa's longtime base in New York,. the 13th Street Theater, in 2016. .