Masterworks Broadway continues to make good on its promise to make available its extensive catalog of cast recordings with the release of three classic albums from the archives previously unavailable on CD - Dames at Sea - The Original London Cast Recording (April 14), Two's Company (May 4), andAges of Man (June 16). Upon release, each title will be accompanied by new album pages and photos on MasterworksBroadway.com.
A surprise hit Off-Broadway in 1968, Dames at Sea had its London debut little more than a year later. The Original London Cast Recording features an all-English cast in a lively but distinctive interpretation of the show, under original director/choreographer Neil Kenyon, with orchestral arrangements that differ from those created expressly for the Off-Broadway cast recording - perhaps closer to what was actually heard in the theater. In the role that made
Bernadette Peters famous, nineteen-year-old
Sheila White brings a fresh, pixie-ish quality to the optimistic showgirl Ruby. (White played Brigitta in The Sound of Music in London and, in 1969, had just appeared as Nancy Sykes's best friend in the Oscar-winning film Oliver!). Dames at Sea has had an enduring popularity in England, and this production was the beginning of that. The Original London Cast Recording of Dames at Sea, available for the first time on CD, will be released exclusively for purchase via MasterworksBroadway.com on April 14 in a limited quantity of Manufacture-On-Demand CDs as well as digital download. The CD will be available through Arkiv Music on May 4, plus streaming and downloads via digital service providers the same day.
Bette Davis was making a triumphant return to Broadway in the 1952 revue Two's Company ... until the show began its previews, when she promptly collapsed onstage on opening night. Davis was perhaps in over her head (song, dance and comedy were not her strong points) in this otherwise charming revue, with a score largely by
Vernon Duke (music) and
Sammy Cahn and
Ogden Nash (lyrics). Two's Company was one of the last of the sophisticated, satirical revues, a kind of show that television killed off, and its reputation has been held hostage to Davis's troubled involvement. But
Sheldon Harnick,
Horton Foote and
Peter DeVries were among those contributing material to the show, and the choreographer was no less than
Jerome Robbins.
Hiram Sherman won a Tony for his expert comedy work in this fascinating relic of Broadway's past. Two's Company will be released exclusively for purchase via MasterworksBroadway.com on May 4 in a limited quantity of Manufacture-On-Demand CDs as well as digital download. The CD will be available through Arkiv Music on June 9, plus streaming and downloads via digital service providers the same day.
A legendary actor with what might have been the most expressive, musical voice in the modern English theater - "a silver trumpet muffled in silk," in the words of Sir
Alec Guinness - Sir
John Gielgud had enduring success with his one-man Shakespearean evening Ages of Man. This tour de force, in which he toured for twenty years, would win him Tony, Emmy and Grammy awards. Gielgud selected excerpts from Shakespeare's texts that dramatized the complete arc of human experience, from life to death - an unforgettable poetic journey. This recording was made after the show's triumphant, Tony-winning Broadway debut in 1959, when Gielgud was in his artistic prime. Ages of Man, available for the first time on CD, will be released exclusively for purchase via MasterworksBroadway.com on June 16 in a limited quantity of Manufacture-On-Demand CDs as well as digital download. The CD will be available through Arkiv Music on July 13, plus streaming and downloads via digital service providers the same day.
Additionally, two Off-Broadway cast recordings receive their first official digital release on July 13:
Howard Crabtree's Whoop-Dee-Doo!, the 1993 all-male sendup of the Ziegfeld Follies and Promenade, the 1969 show with music by
Al Carmines and lyrics by
Maria Irene Fornes. Both titles will be available for streaming and downloads through all major digital service providers, and will be accompanied by new album pages and photos on MasterworksBroadway.com.
