AmericanTheaterWeb Original News & Reviews

Ghostlight Records

This labels has delivered a truly extraordinary range of music during the past year. Under the founder Kurt Deutsch's stewardship, Ghostlight has released three original Broadway cast recordings: Passing Strange, In the Heights, and 13. Not only have these shows been preserved on disc, they've also made exceptional use of digital downloads to expand the reach of show music to new generations. Passing Strange and 13 were both released digitally before they hit brick and mortar stores, and for "Heights," just Grammy-nominated, the company produced a quartet of singles that are appropriate for airplay on pop channels.

In terms of gift-giving, any of these discs would be great for the musical theater enthusiast, and because of their pop roots, each disc has a special appeal for people who may not necessarily think they'd like an original cast recording this season. Stew's Passing Strange, with its driving rock beat and indie sensibility, would be a great disc to share with someone who spends most of his or her time surfing through contemporary rock. The Tony Award-winning Latin score from Lin-Manuel Miranda for "Heights" makes it a grand gift for the person who gravitates toward the stylings of Celia Cruz or Mark Anthony. And Jason Robert Brown's smart songs for the tween-set in "13" make this a grand gift idea for the HSM fanatic that you know.

It's worth noting that these discs come generously packed booklets, that feature full-color photos, lyrics and terrific liner notes, marvelously continuing the tradition of having original cast recordings serve as the record (no pun intended) of the production for theater fans.

In addition to these cast recordings, Ghostlight also preserved two off-Broadway shows and two L.A. productions during the past year. In the former category, one show truly stands out – Make Me a Song, the delightful revue of composer-lyricist William Finn's work.In "Song," tunes from most of Finn's major shows are represented – the "Falsettos" trilogy, "New Brain" and "Elegies" are represented alongside other shows like the almost forgotten Romance in Hard Times and an unproduced musical version of Kaufman and Ferber's The Royal Family. The spirited and emotional vocals from the show's four-person ensemble somehow make Finn's already infectious tunes even more so, and this two-disc set is a grand way to celebrate Finn's achievements, and as a gift, is a great way of introducing him to people who might not be aware of the breadth of his work. The company's second off-Broadway cast recording is of Mark Baron and Jeffrey Jackson's musical Frankenstein. It's has been released under the auspices of the newly created "Friends of Ghostlight" label, and really is good for the person who wants a copy of every cast recording that comes out during the year

From the other coast come two highly different releases. The first is of the Blank Theatre Company's production of Michael John LaChiusa's Little Fish, a show about a young woman's travails in life after quitting smoking that debuted in New York at Second Stage Theatre a few seasons back. Like the company's release of First Lady Suite, "Fish" is notable for two reasons – and will be welcome as a gift for them as well. It not only preserves the work of one of the country's most exciting musical theater composers, but it also has been sumptuously produced so that the intricacies of LaChiusa's writing are evident. For a recent production of Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney's Reefer Madness, Ghostlight has gone all out with a two-disc set that features not only the cast recording, but also the movie soundtrack. This might seem a bit much for a tongue-in-cheek musical theater piece, but there's so much cleverness involved, it all seems grandly worthwhile in an off-kilter sort of way.

Tomorrow, more on discs from both Ghostlight and PS Classics.

---- Andy Propst