Broadway Cast Recordings Released

Fans of the new musical Next To Normal, with a score by Tom Kitt (High Fidelity) and Brian Yorkey will be pleased to know that the original Broadway cast recording is now available for purchase. With 30 songs, the recording is a 2-disc set and features vocals by Alice Ripley and J. Robert Spencer. The Broadway cast album for the new revival of West Side Story, starring newcomer Josefina Scaglione and Karen Olivo (In the Heights), is on the verge of release, set to come out on June 2. (The extremely short-lived new musical The Story of My Life, starring Will Chase and Malcolm Gets, will also have its cast CD released on that day.) Fans of that classic Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim score, featuring songs like "Maria" and "Tonight," will want to get the new recording, especially since it has something prior incarnations don't - Spanish language versions of "I Feel Pretty" and "A Boy Like That". Another Broadway revival, the new production of Hair, also has a recording soon to be released. The Hair CD, boasting the talents of Will Swenson and Gavin Creel, will be out on June 23.

Next To Normal To Play Broadway

It's been a long road to Broadway for the musical Next To Normal, a family drama written by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, but it will finally arrive on the Great White Way this spring. Previously titled Feeling Electric, Next To Normal had workshops in NYC and was given a staged reading at the New York Musical Theatre Festival prior to opening Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre in 2008. The Second Stage production was well-received and led to rumors that the musical would transfer to Broadway, but, curiously, the show took another route. Following rewrites by the creative team, Next To Normal went on to another run, with almost the entire Off-Broadway cast intact, at Washington D.C.'s Arena Stage. Now Next To Normal, with the same cast and director as the Arena production, will at last come to Broadway's Longacre Theatre, with an official Broadway opening scheduled for April 15.

Off-Broadway Musical Next To Normal Opens

The new Off-Broadway musical Next To Normal, written by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, opens tonight at Second Stage Theatre in New York City. Alice Ripley and Brian d'Arcy James, both Broadway regulars, star in the production, which is directed by Michael Greif (most famous for helming Broadway's Rent). Composer Tom Kitt's most recent New York show was High Fidelity, which had a very short run on Broadway's Great White Way.