SAY IT WITH MUSIC Cast Album Out Now

ASCAP Award-winner Chip Deffaa's "Say it with Music" cast album--with a cast of 21 led by Michael Townsend Wright and Jed Peterson, who helped develop the show at New York's 13th Street Theater--is out now! The album--featuring no less than 40 songs by Irving Berlin---may be ordered now (as either a physical CD or digital download) HERE!

The musical play "Say it with Music," based on the life of legendary composer Irving Berlin, is published and licensed by Steele Spring Stage Rights. The foremost living authority on Berlin, Deffaa has now written six different published plays about Berlin (for different-sized casts), and has produced 11 albums devoted to Berlin's music.

The "Say it with Music" cast album includes many performers who've appeared in shows that Deffaa has written and directed, such as Jon Peterson (who starred in Deffaa's "George M. Cohan Tonight!" at the Irish Repertory Theater, Off-Broadway, and is currently making the film adaptation of that play), Keith Anderson ("The Irving Berlin Ragtime Revue"), Katherine Paulsen ("Mad About the Boy"), Danielle Tolep ("The Fanny Brice Story"), Emily Bordonaro ("The Seven Little Foys"), and so on. Others in the cast, such as Caroline Rose McFee, Santa Claire Hirsch, Ryan Muska, and Will Alvarado, are members of Deffaa's recording family. Richard Danley music directs. This is the 31st album that Deffaa has produced. Deffaa himself makes a cameo on the album, singing a Berlin number that's long been in his repertoire, "Mandy."

The album features one more noteworthy cameo. The character of "Jacqueline Parker" is portrayed on the album by none other than the real-life Jacqueline Parker, whose actual encounter with Berlin near the end of his life is an important part of the play. Deffaa notes: "I'm proud of the whole cast--starting with the best modern-day vaudevillian I know, Michael Townsend Wright, as Berlin. But I got a special kick out of the fact that Jacqueline Parker, who for decades has organized memorable Christmas Eve celebrations of Berlin at his longtime residence on Beekman Place, gets to play herself on the cast recording. That's a first!"

"Say it with Music" recently had its first ZOOM production, by HST Productions of Rockville, Maryland. "And HST did a wonderfully imaginative production, with a cast of about 30 players--including, on one number, a chorus on roller skates!"

Deffaa's show originated with a reading--before the pandemic shut everything down--at Deffaa's longtime base, New York's 13th Street Theater (Joe Battista, Producing Artistic Director). Deffaa had hoped, prior to the pandemic, to do the first full production of the show at Princeton University, and the cast album is dedicated to talented performers from the Princeton theater community--Alex Deland, Mark Dodici, Violet Gautreau, Will Alvarado--who helped give Deffaa inspiration as he developed the show. "I had Princeton's best performers in mind as I was developing the show. I still hope a way may be found to do it at Princeton someday, after life returns to normal," Deffaa commented. "I'm glad Will Alvarado is on the cast album, helping to represent Princeton. It's not easy to produce an album with a big cast during a pandemic. It took longer than usual--we never had more than two performers in the studio a one time--but we got it done!"

Deffaa, who has 20 published plays to his credit, was the first playwright to create a published script telling Berlin's life story. He hopes that his stage plays celebrating Berlin can someday be the basis for a film or television biography of Berlin. Deffaa notes: "Berlin was the most successful single songwriter in history. He created the scores for 18 Broadway shows and 19 Hollywood musicals. He wrote more than 1200 songs. He grew reclusive in his later years and vetoed all proposals to dramatize his life story. But it's a terrific rags-to-riches story. And Berlin's songs remain irresistible. I've researched Belin for decades. His story belongs on stage, screen, and TV. All we need is a producer with vision."

The "Say it with Music" cast album is available now from Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, Footlight Records, etc.