Listen: Get an Exclusive First Listen to 'A Sleepin' Bee' From Christine Ebersole's New Album 'After The Ball'

Christine Ebersole is releasing a special new album titled 'After The Ball' on Friday, September 30. BroadwayWorld has your exclusive first listen to the first track released from the album, 'A Sleepin' Bee'. Check it out below!

Pre-order the album at club44.lnk.to/AfterTheBall.

Featuring American classics by composers and songwriters from Jerome Kern to Joni Mitchell in original arrangements by Broadway veteran Lawrence Yurman, the new recording finds Ebersole at the start of a brave new chapter, reflecting on life, love and family now that the last of her three adopted children has flown the nest. After the Ball is produced by Ebersole herself, in collaboration with Yurman.

A born singer and storyteller, Ebersole has made her mark on major roles in multiple genres. Best known for headlining and winning a string of top honors in such Broadway blockbusters as 42nd Street, Grey Gardens, Camelot and War Paint, she has also appeared in Candide at LA Opera; in concert at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center; in feature films from Amadeus to The Wolf of Wall Street; and on television including Gypsy, "Saturday Night Live," and "Bob Hearts Abishola," the hit sitcom in which she currently stars on CBS. Her acclaimed discography already includes Sunday in New York, Strings Attached and Christine Ebersole Sings Noël Coward - hailed as "an essential recording" by BroadwayWorld - on which she also collaborated with Lawrence Yurman.

About the new album, Ebersole explains: "Life is always changing. It's always moving and coming at you in unexpected ways. When the family is growing up, you want everything to stay the same. But there's a time when the music stops, and the children must go. Everything gets really quiet, and all the balloons that were up in the air come down to the floor. Then you realize how much you want to preserve it all, especially the moments of joy and love. That's the feeling I get from singing these songs."

Nostalgia for her children's earlier days infuses Ebersole's interpretations of Billy Barnes's "I Stayed Too Long at the Fair," Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields's "The Way You Look Tonight" and the title track, Charles K. Harris's "After the Ball." Through "My Baby Just Cares for Me," the Gus Kahn-Walter Donaldson number famously recorded by Nina Simone, Ebersole recalls the improbable pleasures of the Hurricane Sandy power outage that kept her home with her elderly mother and young family. Taking her yet further back, Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach's "Yesterdays" and Jerome Moross and John La Touche's "Lazy Afternoon" evoke carefree childhood days on her grandfather's farm; Joseph Kosma and Johnny Mercer's "Autumn Leaves" conjures the annual return to school, first as a child and then as a mother; and Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer's "I'm Old Fashioned" reminds her of nature and the simple things that kept her sane. Harold Arlen and Truman Capote's "A Sleepin' Bee" recalls the magic of falling in love, and the Gershwins' "'S Wonderful" the no less meaningful experience of relying on her husband for child care, to meet the demands of her burgeoning career.

Striking an especially personal note, through Joni Mitchell's "Little Green" and Frank Loesser's "Inchworm," Ebersole thanks her children's respective birth mothers for all the joy their sacrifices have brought her. She contemplates the aging process with humor and grace in Leiber-Stoller's witty "Ready to Begin Again," before concluding her collection with Sigmund Romberg and Oscar Hammerstein II's bittersweet "When I Grow Too Old to Dream"; for Ebersole this is ultimately "a hopeful song, because the love that we share in our lives ... helps us live on forever."

As in her live run of After the Ball, Ebersole's pianist is her arranger and co-producer Lawrence Yurman, whose previous collaborations with the singer include serving as music director of Christine Ebersole Sings Noël Coward, Grey Gardens, and War Paint, in which she starred opposite Patti LuPone on Broadway. They are joined on the new recording by fellow Broadway mainstays Mairi Dorman-Phaneuf on cello, John Benthal on guitar and banjo, and, in Autumn Leaves, Larry Saltzman on guitar.

Wayne Haun, co-founder of Club44 Records, adds: "I've been the fan who traveled to New York and Chicago to stand in line for tickets to see the great Christine Ebersole. She has had me on the edge of my seat and in the palm of her hand during every performance. She does the same when I listen to this new recording. Her interpretation of lyric and melody is second to none! Getting to know Christine over the past months has been a career highlight. Her energy and joyful radiance light up the room, even while on Zoom."

Christine Ebersole has captivated audiences throughout her performing career. Recognized with a string of honors that includes two Tony Awards, she has appeared in twenty Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, as well as gracing television series and specials, films, concerts, recordings and opera. It was for her "dual role of a lifetime" as Edith Beale and Little Edie Beale in Grey Gardens that Ebersole won her second Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, as well as virtually every available Off-Broadway honor. Other memorable New York roles include her Tony-winning turn as Dorothy Brock in the hit revival of 42nd Street, her Tony-nominated portrayal of Elizabeth Arden opposite Patti LuPone in War Paint, her Tony- and Outer Critics Circle-nominated appearance in Dinner at Eight, her Obie-winning and Drama Desk-nominated appearance in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, her performance as Guinevere alongside Richard Harris and Richard Burton in Camelot, and her leading roles in Oklahoma!, On the Twentieth Century, Steel Magnolias, The Best Man, and the revival of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit. In 2018 she made her operatic debut under James Conlon's leadership as the Old Lady in Francesca Zambello's production of Candide at LA Opera.

Recently starring as Lucille Dolittle, a role based on Lucille Ball, in Paul Thomas Anderson's Oscar-nominated Licorice Pizza, Ebersole has appeared in numerous feature films. Previous film credits include The Wolf of Wall Street, Amadeus, Black Sheep, Dead Again, Folks!, Ghost Dad, My Girl 2, Richie Rich, Tootsie, True Crime, and The Big Wedding, which features her account of her original song "Gently Down the Stream." Since launching her TV career alongside Eddie Murphy as a regular cast member of "Saturday Night Live," Ebersole has also accrued a long list of television credits. Currently starring in Chuck Lorre's hit CBS sitcom "Bob Hearts Abishola," she recently portrayed Estelle Schneider in the award-winning Netflix series "The Kominsky Method," and has appeared on "American Horror Story," "Blue Bloods," "Madam Secretary," "Murphy Brown," "Pose," "Search Party," "The Colbert Report," "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," "Will & Grace" and Gypsy, in which she played Tessie Tura to Bette Midler's Mama Rose.

Ebersole has performed at some of the nation's foremost concert halls, including New York's Carnegie Hall, L.A.'s Disney Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Her concert highlights include appearances in San Francisco Symphony's tribute to Leonard Bernstein, concert versions of The Grapes of Wrath at Carnegie Hall and of A Little Night Music with the Boston Pops, and Gershwin at 100: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall and The Rodgers & Hart Story: Thou Swell, Thou Witty, both of which were filmed for broadcast on PBS TV. A celebrated recording artist, her discography includes Christine Ebersole: Live at the Cinegrill, In Your Dreams, Sunday in New York, Christine Ebersole Sings Noël Coward, and Strings Attached. www.christineebersole.com

Track List

1. After the Ball (Charles K. Harris)/ The Way You Look Tonight (Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields)

2. I'm Old Fashioned (Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer)

3. Yesterdays (Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach) / Lazy Afternoon (Jerome Moross and John La Touche)

4. 'S Wonderful (George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin)

5. My Baby Just Cares for Me (Gus Kahn and Walter Donaldson, arrangement inspired by Nina Simone's recording)

6. Little Green (Joni Mitchell) / Wait Till You See Her (Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart) / Inchworm (Frank Loesser)

7. Autumn Leaves (Joseph Kosma and Johnny Mercer, arrangement inspired by Eva Cassidy's recording)

8. I Stayed Too Long at the Fair (Billy Barnes) / Ready to Begin Again (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller)

9. A Sleepin' Bee" (Harold Arlen and Truman Capote)

10. When I Grow Too Old to Dream (Sigmund Romberg / Oscar Hammerstein II)