Soundtrack (2000) (Michael John Lachiusa )

Product Summary Label: Uni/decca UPC: 00601215900323 Release Date: 5/23/2000 Buy.com Sku: 60410688 Item#: MY99P9 Format:  CD Song Listing Disc 1 Song Title Sample 1. Queenie Was A Blonde ~ Original Cast Recording 2. Marie Is Tricky ~ Original Cast Recording 3. Wild Party ~ Original Cast Recording 4. Dry ~ Original Cast Recording 5. Welcome To My Party ~ Original Cast Recording 6. Like Sally ~ Original Cast Recording 7. Breezin' Through Another Day ~ Original Cast Recording 8. Uptown ~ Original Cast Recording 9. Eddie & Mae ~ Original Cast Recording 10. Gold & Goldberg ~ Original Cast Recording 11. Moving Uptown ~ Original Cast Recording 12. Best Friend ~ Original Cast Recording 13. Little Mum, A ~ Original Cast Recording 14. Tabu / Taking Care Of The Ladies ~ Original Cast Recording 15. Wouldn't It Be Nice? ~ Original Cast Recording 16. Lowdown-Down ~ Original Cast Recording 17. Gin / Wild ~ Original Cast Recording 18. Black Is A Moocher ~ Original Cast Recording 19. People Like Us ~ Original Cast Recording 20. After Midnight Dies ~ Original Cast Recording 21. Golden Boy ~ Original Cast Recording 22. Movin' Uptown Blues, The ~ Original Cast Recording 23. Lights Of Broadway, The ~ Original Cast Recording 24. More ~ Original Cast Recording 25. Love Ain't Nothin' / Welcome To Her Party ~ Original Cast Recording 26. How Many Women In The World? ~ Original Cast Recording 27. When It Ends ~ Original Cast Recording 28. This Is What It Is ~ Original Cast Recording 29. Finale ~ Original Cast Recording   Album Notes and Credits Notes & Personnel Info In 2000 there were two Broadway productions based on Joseph Moncure March's poem "The Wild Party." This version was written by Michael John LaChiusa and produced at The Virginia Theatre. Principal cast includes: Toni Collette (Queenie); Mandy Patinkin (Burrs); Earth Kitt (Dolores). Recorded at Sony Music Studios, New York, New York on April 16, 17 & 24, 2000. Includes liner notes by Wiley Hausam. THE WILD PARTY was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. New Yorker writer Joseph Moncure March's novella-length poem, The Wild Party, a verse depiction of roaring '20s decadence, was published in 1928 and fell out of copyright in 1994. Soon after, it began to attract the attention of theater people, and, amazingly enough, two competing New York theater companies ended up mounting entirely different musical versions of it within two months of each other in the second half of the 1999-2000 season: The Manhattan Theatre Club opened its production at its Off-Broadway house, while the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival mounted its production on Broadway. This is the cast album from the latter production, given a much bigger staging than its counterpart, with bigger stars (Eartha Kitt and Mandy Patinkin) and a far broader approach. Composer/lyricist/co-librettist Michael John LaChiusa and director/co-librettist George C. Wolfe are more ambitious than the Manhattan Theatre Club's Andrew Lippa, viewing their version of The Wild Party as evoking everything from the Lost Generation to the Harlem Renaissance. Many famous names are dropped in the lyrics, and the production is highly stylized, to the point that it's virtually a show-within-a-show. Patinkin, playing the male lead, Burrs, interprets the part as an Al Jolson-style minstrel/vaudeville performer who performs in blackface, and that is only the beginning of the racial and ethnic aspects of this version, which also leans heavily on uptown/downtown distinctions. In LaChiusa and Wolfe's reading, The Wild Party is a confluence of social, political, and artistic issues as well as just a wild party with its sex, drinking, drugs, and violence. Accordingly, LaChiusa's music draws heavily on 1920s hot jazz and the music of George Gershwin without descending to pop conventions. (It is ironic is that the Broadway version of The Wild Party is less tuneful than its Off-Broadway rival.) The combination of an astringent score and the deliberately overplayed performances makes this Wild Party a work more to admire coolly than to become involved with emotionally. The characters, who do not embody the ideas the show is trying to convey as well as they seem intended to, come off as an unsympathetic crew whose fates are hard to care about. And while individual moments in the music are impressive (as are individual performances, especially those of Kitt and female lead Toni Collette), the score on the whole is unmemorable, as seriously intended as it may be. And it may be that March's poem just isn't substantial enough to support all the intellectual weight LaChiusa and Wolfe want to hang on it. (The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe's The Wild Party opened at the Virginia Theatre on Broadway on April 13, 2000, and closed on June 11 after 68 performances.) ~ William Ruhlmann The original cast recording of The Wild Party features performances by Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award-nominee Eartha Kitt, Tony Award-winner Mandy Patinkin, and Academy Award-nominee Toni Collette. Based on Joseph Moncure March's 1928 poem about jazz-age debauchery, the show features music by Michael Joh LaChiusa, who blends elements of the era's jazz, vaudeville, and blues into tragi-comedic songs. A heartfelt document of one of 2000's most promising musicals. ~ Heather Phares Producer: Phil Ramone Engineer: Wlliot Scheiner   Technical Info Release Date : 05/23/2000 Original Release Date : 2000 Catalog ID : 159 003 Label : Decca (USA) Number of Discs : 1 Studio/Live : Studio Mono/Stereo : Stereo SPAR Code : n/a UPC : 00601215900323   Professional Reviews Entertainment Weekly (7/28/00, p.183) - "...Rewarding...LaChiusa's profound and varied score employs showmanly minstrel and vaudeville styles to devastating Brechtian effect..." - Rating: B    Product Image