Several Broadway Show Albums Nominated For Grammys

The Grammy Award nominations were announced yesterday, and the Best Musical Show Album category was almost entirely made up of Broadway musicals. The nominated show recordings were: Ain't Misbehavin' (30th anniversary cast recording featuring American Idol's Ruben Studdard and Frenchie Davis), Hair (Broadway revival cast album), 9 To 5 The Musical (featuring a score by country music superstar Dolly Parton), Shrek The Musical (Original Broadway cast recording), and West Side Story (new Broadway revival cast recording). If you want to hear what the fuss is about, three of the musicals - Hair, Shrek, and West Side Story - are still playing on Broadway. The winners of the Grammy for Best Show Album will be announced in January.

Dreamgirls and Ragtime To Perform at Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will feature Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals during its telecast on the CBS network on November 26. The musicals scheduled to perform at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade are the Broadway revivals of Ragtime and West Side Story, as well as the current production of Dreamgirls playing at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. The West Side Story cast will sing "America," and the Dreamgirls trio will perform the musical's title song on the show. The entire Ragtime cast will be gathering in Battery Park to sing the show's big anthem, "Wheels of a Dream," against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

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.

Upcoming Broadway Revival Of West Side Story Will Premiere In D.C. Before Hitting New York City

A new revival of the American musical theater classic West Side Story is coming to Broadway in February 2009, at a theater yet to be announced. This production of the Romeo & Juliet-inspired musical will be directed by the show's own bookwriter, Arthur Laurents. But before landing on Broadway, West Side Story will have an engagement at the National Theatre in Washington D.C., from December 2, 2008 to January 4, 2009.

West Side Story Coming Back to Broadway?

Arthur Laurents, bookwriter for West Side Story, recently indicated that he plans to bring a brand new version of the legendary musical to the Broadway stage. He claims that he's found a way to "update" the story (which is already an update of Romeo & Juliet) without changing any of the text. No details available as of yet, but in the meantime, we can look forward to the Laurents-directed revival of Gypsy (for which he also wrote the book), arriving on Broadway in early '08.