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FIRST DAUGHTER SUITE Original Cast Recording Out Digitally Today
By: BWW News Desk Feb. 26, 2016
When the show opened last fall at The Public Theater, it was named a "Critics' Pick" from The New York Times.
The CD contains a 12-page booklet with color photos, a special essay by Oskar Eustis and a synopsis by Michael John LaChiusa and Kirsten Sanderson. The album is produced by Joel Moss, Kurt Deutsch and Michael John LaChiusa.
In addition to the opening track now streaming, the song "Daughters Of" is now also available. Listen to it below!
To order the album, visit sh-k-boom.com/first-daughter-suite.
This recording marks The Public's ninth album in collaboration with Ghostlight Records, including the previously released Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Hair, See What I Wanna See, Giant, A Second Chance, Venice, Love's Labour's Lost and The Fortress of Solitude. This is also the label's sixth album with Michael John LaChiusa (Giant, Queen of the Mist, See What I Wanna See, Bernarda Alba, and Little Fish).
The complete cast of FIRST DAUGHTER SUITE featured Alison Fraser (Nancy Reagan, Betty Ford); Rachel Bay Jones (Laura Bush, Rosalynn Carter); Caissie Levy (Patti Davis, Julie Nixon); Theresa McCarthy (Robin Bush, Hannah Nixon); Betsy Morgan (Tricia Nixon, Susan Ford); Isabel Santiago (Anita Castelo); Carly Tamer (Amy Carter); Mary Testa (Barbara Bush); and Barbara Walsh (Pat Nixon).
Tony nominee Michael John LaChiusa imagines the inner lives and dreams of America's best-known daughters with a funny and moving follow-up to his 1993 Public musical First Lady Suite. A historical fantasia in four parts, FIRST DAUGHTER SUITE follows Patricia Nixon and daughters Tricia and Julie, Rosalynn and Amy Carter, Betty and Susan Ford, Patti Davis and mom Nancy Reagan, and Barbara Bush and daughter-in-law Laura as they strive to live meaningful lives in the public eye, while dealing with the complex private relationships all of us face with our parents and children. Directed by Kirsten Sanderson, this wholly captivating new musical with a lush, sweeping score is a deeply felt new work about mothers, daughters and the surprising discoveries we make about one another as we grow.
FIRST DAUGHTER SUITE featured scenic design by Scott Pask, costume design by Toni-Leslie James, lighting design by Tyler Micoleau, sound design by Ken Travis, and hair and wig design by Robert-Charles Vallance. Orchestrations are by Michael Starobin and Bruce Coughlin.
MICHAEL JOHN LACHIUSA (Book, Music and Lyrics)'s credits for The Public include Giant, See What I Wanna See, The Wild Party (Tony noms., Best Score and Best Book with George C. Wolfe), The Petrified Prince, First Lady Suite. His additional credits include Queen of the Mist; Los Otros; Bernarda Alba; The Highest Yellow; Little Fish; Marie Christine (Tony noms., Best Score and Best Book); Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Tony nom., Best Book with Graciela Daniele/Jim Lewis); Hello Again; Break/Agnes/Eulogy for Mister Hamm. Operas: Send (who are you? I love you), Houston Grand Opera; Lovers and Friends (Chautauqua Variations), Lyric Opera of Chicago. Additionally, his musical Rain will premiere at the Old Globe in San Diego in the Spring of 2016. He is the Obie Award winner and recipient of the Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Musical Theater Award. Composer for The Wonder Pets, two Emmy Awards. Additionally he has written special material for Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman for the Tony Awards and Hugh Jackman on Broadway. Current faculty of NYU.
KIRSTEN SANDERSON (Director) has directed new plays by Michael John LaChiusa, Craig Lucas, Shel Silverstein, Steven Schwartz and Blake Edwards, among others. Her work has been seen at Playwright's Horizons, The Public, PS 122, Circle Rep, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Director's Company, Sundance Theatre Lab, The Blank Theatre Company, Theatreworks USA, The Women's Project, HBO Comedy Arts Festival, New York Fringe Festival, New York Music Theatre Festival, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Town Hall. Previous collaborations with LaChiusa include the original production of First Lady Suite at The Public; Eulogy for Mr. Hamm/Break/Agnes/Lucky Nurse at Playwrights Horizons; Little Fish and Sukie and Sue: Their Story at the Blank Theatre in Hollywood; as well as numerous outings in the Marathon at Ensemble Studio Theatre.
The Public Theater, under the leadership of Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham, is the only theater in New York that produces Shakespeare, the classics, musicals, contemporary and experimental pieces in equal measure. Celebrating his 10th anniversary season at The Public, Eustis has created new community-based initiatives designed to engage audiences like Public Lab, Public Studio, Public Forum, Public Works, and a remount of the Mobile Unit. The Public continues the work of its visionary founder, Joe Papp, by acting as an advocate for the theater as an essential cultural force, and leading and framing dialogue on some of the most important issues of our day. Creating theater for one of the largest and most diverse audience bases in New York City for nearly 60 years, today the Company engages audiences in a variety of venues-including its landmark downtown home at Astor Place, which houses five theaters and Joe's Pub; the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, home to free Shakespeare in the Park; and the Mobile Unit, which tours Shakespearean productions for underserved audiences throughout New York City's five boroughs. The Public's wide range of programming includes free Shakespeare in the Park, the bedrock of the Company's dedication to making theater accessible to all; Public Works, an expanding initiative that is designed to cultivate new connections and new models of engagement with artists, audiences and the community each year; and audience and artist development initiatives that range from Emerging Writers Group and to the Public Forum series. The Public is located on property owned by the City of New York and receives annual support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; and in October 2012 the landmark building downtown at Astor Place was revitalized to physically manifest the Company's core mission of sparking new dialogues and increasing accessibility for artists and audiences, by dramatically opening up the building to the street and community, and transforming the lobby into a public piazza for artists, students, and audiences. The Public is currently represented on Broadway by the Tony Award-winning Fun Home and Lin-Manuel Miranda's acclaimed American musical Hamilton. The Public has received 47 Tony Awards, 167 Obie Awards, 52 Drama Desk Awards, 48 Lortel Awards, 31 Outer Critics Circle Awards, 13 New York Drama Critics Awards, and four Pulitzer Prizes. www.publictheater.org
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 15 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. www.sh-k-boom.com
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