Brad Oscar, Alli Mauzey & More to Star in Immersive Musical WHISPER DARKLY Concept Cast Album

The new immersive electro-swing musical Whisper Darkly – the first musical written in the retro-inspired genre – will release a concept cast album on Friday, February 23. To mark the anniversary of the start of Prohibition, a special preview dance mix from the album will be released on Wednesday, January 17. Whisper Darkly features music and lyrics by Andrew Gerle (Meet John Doe, Glory, Mississippi) and book by DJ Salisbury (Moonshine and Mistletoe, The Man Who Would Be King). The album is produced by Andrew Gerle and PiSk (Roberto Costa).

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Whisper Darkly’s electro-swing score highlights the hugely popular international genre that combines the joy and sophistication of ’20s and ’30s jazz and Vaudeville with the infectious sounds of 21st Century EDM beats. This concept album has brought together actors and musicians from the top echelons of Broadway, jazz and electro-swing to create a show that is part 1920s, part 2020s, and entirely new.

In Whisper Darkly, it’s once again 1928 and the audience are patrons of Manhattan’s notorious speakeasy, the Hush Club. The proprietress, Topeka McShane, leads her cast of chorines, comics, and dancers with an iron fist, while teaching her niece, Evie, the ropes of big city life. When international African-American singing sensation Wysandria Cole Davis shows up in the audience, it kicks off a tumultuous evening that leaves the club and its denizens forever changed.

To help create the album’s fifteen tracks, the creators enlisted the help of pioneering electro-swing arranger and producer PiSk (Roberto Costa) of the popular Italian electro-swing band The Swingrowers, and Bogotá-based Latin Grammy Award nominee Santiago Deluchi. The cast stars Aléna Watters (The Cher Show), Kayla Davion (Tina), Keri René Fuller (Six: The Musical), Tony Award nominees Brad Oscar (The Producers) and Howard McGillin (The Phantom of the Opera), Alli Mauzey (Kimberly Akimbo), Claybourne Elder (Company), and the West End’s Alistair Brammer (Miss Saigon). Also featured are Victoria Huston-Elem, Riley Noland, Graham Stevens, Hansel Tan, Khalifa White, D’Kaylah Whitley, and Luke Hawkins.

The album’s jazz band includes Grammy Award-nominated violinist Sara Caswell; one of Modern Drummer’s top up-and-coming drummers in the world, Josh Roberts; trumpeter Alphonso Horne (Shuffle Along, Count Basie Orchestra); and Italian accordion virtuoso Roberto Gervasi.

Andrew Gerle is a multi-faceted theater creator, musician, author, and educator. Other works for the theater include Meet John Doe (with Eddie Sugarman), Glory, Mississippi, and Prospera (with Broadway legend Tom Jones). His songs have been performed internationally, including concerts at The Public Theater, Lincoln Center “American Songbook” series, VH1’s “Save the Music,” the Kennedy Center ASCAP Songwriters series, Joe’s Pub, and Birdland. He is the recipient of the Jonathan Larson Award, the Ed Kleban Award for Outstanding Libretto, and a record four Richard Rodgers Awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for The Tutor (with Maryrose Wood). 

Andrew has served as conductor, accompanist, pianist and musical director for some of Broadway’s biggest names, including Betty Buckley, John Raitt, Leslie Uggams, Rebecca Luker, Shirley Jones, and Brian Stokes Mitchell. In 2017, he conducted the hit Off-Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, and has been heard in the pits of numerous Broadway shows. He has toured Asia and the Middle East with commercial productions and programs for the U.S. State Department, and his symphonic pops orchestrations have been performed by the Boston Pops, the Baltimore Symphony, and many other orchestras around the country. One of the most respected theater educators in the country, Andrew served on the faculty of Yale University for ten years, where he taught songwriting and musical theater performance. He then became a founding faculty member of the Musical Theatre department at the Manhattan School of Music, where he currently teaches. www.andrewgerle.com

DJ Salisbury has directed and choreographed for major U.S. theaters from Paper Mill Playhouse to Orlando Shakespeare to Musical Theatre West (LA Scenie Award for Best Director of a Musical). Internationally, he’s helmed two shows in Colombia and was writer/director-choreographer for one. He has also directed numerous readings, concerts, and workshops which include the revision of The Mystery of Edwin Drood in collaboration with Rupert Holmes, composer Alan Menken’s Lincoln Center solo concert, and the Off-Broadway rock musical CHIX 6. His TV choreography credits: ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars Road Trip,” and “The Rachael Ray Show.” As a writer, his credits include book and lyrics for The Man Who Would Be King (composer Neil Berg); book and lyrics for Merlin’s Magicademy (produced at Six Flags parks throughout North America); book for Poodleful (composer Ken Clifton); book, music and lyrics for Moonshine and Mistletoe (arrangements by Larry Moore); and head writer/lyricist for the Emmy-winning Oklahoma Centennial TV special starring Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, Vince Gill, and Shirley Jones.

DJ wrote music and lyrics for the opening songs of three Tournament of Roses Parades. For Dallas-based producer Corporate Magic, he’s written scripts and lyrics for a variety of major organizations among which are Berkshire Hathaway, Prudential Real Estate, Sherwin Williams, and the Girl Scouts of America. His play Exhibit: Perfect European Man won Best Production, Best Actor, and Best Direction awards in NYC’s Fresh Fruit Festival. www.djsalisbury.com

TBIC Music Group, founded by Jason Turchin of The Broadway Investor’s Club, is a new record label focused on producing Broadway, Off-Broadway, and developmental albums, as well as giving new and established artists a platform to release music worldwide. With a commitment to supporting both established and up-and-coming artists and musical productions across various genres, TBIC Music Group will focus on producing high-quality recordings and provide a platform for today's developing market through its use of cutting-edge technology to enhance the recording and distribution process. Among his many projects, Jason is co-producing The Wiz, The Outsiders, Suffs, and The Notebook, executive producing the studio album of Marvin Hamlisch and Rupert Holmes’ The Nutty Professor the Musical, and recently co-produced Stranger Sings! The Parody Musical, and Anthony Rapp’s Without You. Other projects include Hadestown and Merrily We Roll Along. More information on current and upcoming projects can be found at www.investingbroadway.com and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/investingbroadway.