From talkinbroadway.com
Sound Advice
Best in Show
Top Ten for 2005
(Talkinbroadway.com album critic's 10 Best Cast Albums of 2005)
With over 60 recordings of cast albums and similar material reviewed in 2005, any list of "10 Best" or "10 Favorites" will leave out many fine recordings and some great star turns. Feeling that it's not fair to have the past compete with the present, I decided not to consider the reissues we've reviewed here for this Top 10. My main criteria, besides the basic overall quality of performance and production, was: does the CD hold up with repeated playings? Does it grow on the listener and become more rewarding with familiarity? The albums on my list did not wear out their welcome and I think are especially notable. (Next week, I'll present a similar list of solo vocal CDs.) The ten titles are not in any particular order.
(On a list that also included The Light in the Piazza, The Frogs, Little Women and The Producers talkinbroadway.com’s Rob Lester had this to say about THE ROAD TO RUIN )
Speaking of tongue-planted-firmly-in-cheek musicals that parody old genres and are a hoot, come travel down The Road to Ruin. This welcome surprise is still a work in progress but already has a lot going for it. Set in 1928 and based on a silent movie from that year, it's a cautionary tale - or rather a skewering of such things. The innocent good girl gone bad has rarely sounded so good. Multi-tasking William Zeffiro wrote the music and lyrics and is pianist, vocal arranger, production supervisor and ensemble member. Broadway veteran George S. Irving is a major asset, capturing the right tone. Sebastian Arcelus is also just right as a gee-whiz teenager in love with the heroine, a role shared by Brooke Sunny Moriber and Stephanie Kurtzuba. With risque moments and good clean fun, fasten your seat belts while traveling along The Road to Ruin. The CD is from the adventurous label Original Cast Records and executive producer Bruce Yeko, with scores of scores from little-known musicals found and recorded.
- 1/5/06
Where to buy
Broadway and Beyond (Americantheaterweb.com/)
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Today: some thoughts on two discs from Original Cast Records.
I'm going to start with "The Road to Ruin." Without knowing the book for this show, I have to say that on disc is sounds like one of the funniest musicals that I've heard in a long time. The subtitle to "Ruin" is "A 1928 Exploitation Musical" and the musical is really a play-within-a-play. The premise is that Willis Kent has brought an "educational tent play" to a small town in New Jersey. The purpose of this piece is to teach parents how easy it could be for their daughters to go astray. Kent's play is all about Sally Canield, a 15-year-old who wants to be a veterinarian and has a secret cookie formula. A "bad" girl, Eve, befriends Sally and before you know it, Sally's smoking and drinking – a.k.a. on the road to ruin. Unfortunately, her mom is too addicted to the latest health craze – Radithor – a radium laced bottled water – to notice. Sally's life spins out of control, but in Kent's show, moral lessons are learned. For today's audiences or those of us listening to "The Road to Ruin", merriment is had.
William Zeffiro has written the book, music and lyrics for the show. What you'll hear on the disc is a bunch of wonderfully humorous and witty tunes with titles like "The Ballad of the Bobbed Hair Girl." Once Sally's really become a bad girl, one of the songs has a lyric "You can always earn a buck on your back." The coda to this tune is one of the women moaning, "Can't I just wash dishes or something?" Equally amusing a quartet for four moms in the show in which they try to prove whose daughter has gotten into the most trouble.
Also of note from Original Cast Records is a CD that features a concert in which Broadway veterans Judy Blazer, Christian Borle, Liz Callaway and Walter Charles perform selections from two musicals by Jeffery Saver and Stephen Cole. The first is a musical version of Sinclair Lewis' "Dodsworth" and the second is "Time After Time" – based on the Karl Alexander novel about H.G. Wells' time travel in pursuit of Jack the Ripper. Here, you'll find the music and lyrics to be darker than in "Ruin" but they are equally satisfying, particularly in "Time" – which sounds like it might be a thrilling ride in the theater.
This has been Andy Propst of AmericanTheaterWeb.com
Rob Lester from
Talkin’ Broadway (talkinbroadway.com/)
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If you're looking for a happy side trip with company that won't soon wear out their welcome, try a wild and wacky ride down The Road To Ruin. This new musical has had a couple of readings and is ready to hit the road. This studio cast album has some of the performers from the readings on board: theater veteran and longtime audience favorite George S. Irving (going back to 1948's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and so much more) has in his bag of tricks just the right take on this material, which requires tongue firmly placed in cheek. He plays a few broadly comic roles and is pure delight with his rolling Rs and, wide schmaltzy vibrato and more talent than performers one-quarter his age. The lusciously voiced Brooke Sunny Moriber (The Wild Party) shares the ingenue role with another charmer, Stephanie Kurtzuba. The role is a good girl gone bad.
The show is based on a silent movie intended to be a cautionary tale for teens about the dangers of a poorly-chosen life where one false turn can lead you down that road to ruin. Sebastian Arcelus is a great golly-gee-whiz type of wide-eyed suitor and does a splendid job, even in a song that lasts all of 53 seconds. Contrastingly, a 13-minute number at the end is a mini-musical in itself, with every bit of a classic melodrama's cornball fun not already covered in the previous 16 songs. Ann Morrison (played the original Mary of Merrily We Roll Along) is back after too long an absence from cast albums in a splashy, showy role as an enterprising Madam.
This parody of "cautionary" teen exploitation movies doesn't go so far into the world of "camp" as to run out of steam. The evils of pleasure are sung about with gusto, as if the do-gooders want us to know that if you take the road to ruin you may regret having to pay the toll. It's good, clean, silly-but-clever fun put together by composer-lyricist-book writer William Zeffiro, who takes a few turns at the mic as well, and is also on piano. There's no band, but for a change that's okay. He knows how to set a mood and keep things going, adding touches of silent-movie music and sparkle. Zippy Zeffiro does very well by some brassy characters, lots of irreverence without being mean-spirited. And the rhymes are creative and/or ridiculously cute. (When a character lies near death, someone croons, "If only you'd been more wary there'd be no coronary.")
This show, somewhat in the tradition of Little Shop Of Horrors, Zombie Prom and Zanna, Don't! has a fine company of performers and has entertainment pure and simple as its mission. With sung references to bobbed hair and Mah'Jong and being a "nice" girl, it succeeds. The music evokes the 1920s without letting itself get trapped in period nostalgia. Gosh, it's fun!
