CDs: There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway

It's the season for stage-to-screen musicals with original Broadway cast members. Unlike the movie versions of Chicago and The Phantom of the Opera, the films of Rent and The Producers are chock full of performers who created their roles in the Broadway productions.

Because there have been no foreign cast albums of The Producers, the new soundtrack CD is only the second recording of this smash. And like the original Broadway cast set, it's a Sony Classical CD featuring Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Gary Beach, and Roger Bart.

Omitted from the original Broadway score are the Max-Leo duet "Where Did We Go Right?"; the Act One finale version of "We Can Do It"; most of the overture; and Franz's brief "In Old Bavaria." And there are brief cuts in "I Wanna Be a Producer," "Along Came Bialy," "Springtime for Hitler," "Betrayed," and "Leo and Max."

Cut from the film is Max's big opening number, "The King of Broadway," but it's included on the soundtrack CD as a bonus track. No doubt the actual footage of the number will turn up on the DVD release, much the way the cut "Class" number was included on the Chicago DVD.

But the soundtrack includes several pieces of new material. A brief chorus called "You'll Find Your Happiness in Rio" appears to be a restoration of a song dropped from the stage version. And there's a catchy if derivative new song, "There's Nothing Like a Show on Broadway," featuring Lane and Broderick and heard during the final credits. This is obviously the film's bid for a Best Song Oscar nomination.

Also heard during the closing-credits sequence is an amusing track called "The Hop-Clop Goes On." This is a lyrical, slowed-down elaboration of "Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop," sort of a power-ballad version of the song, performed by the film's Franz Liebkind, Will Ferrell, and obviously meant as an exit-music jest. "Goodbye," the stage version's quick curtain-call ensemble farewell, is heard on the soundtrack following this "Hop-Clop" track.

Although Lane produces a couple of slightly flat sustained notes, he sounds as ideal for the role of Max as ever, while Broderick seems to be singing better than ever. Beach and Bart remain just dandy. Newcomers Ferrell and Uma Thurman as Ulla don't have voices as big as their Broadway predecessors-one misses Cady Huffman's belting in "When You Got It, Flaunt It"-but both are no doubt fine in the film. Heard as the "Springtime for Hitler" tenor is West End star John Barrowman.

It's somewhat surprising that leading man Lane has lost two major musical numbers in the film. One suspects that "King of Broadway" may have slowed down the beginning of the picture. And "Where Did We Go Right?" may have been rendered superfluous by the restoration of the bar scene from the original Producers film or some other indication of the success of "Springtime for Hitler."

This soundtrack disc seems to bear out reports that the Producers film sticks closely to the stage version. True, the soundtrack's expanded orchestrations give everything a grander, glossier sound, so the disc should be interesting listening even for those very familiar with the Broadway CD. But with those original cast members still present, this soundtrack is, at least until the final-credits sequence, pleasant but unsurprising.

CAPTAIN LOUIE PS Classics

Having recently moved to a new neighborhood, lonely boy Louie, with the help of his toy plane and his imagination, takes a trip back to the old neighborhood. There he encounters sinister things, which turn out to be his old friends dressed up for Halloween. After learning some lessons about fitting in and helping others, Louie returns home in time to dress up as Captain Louie for Halloween and go out and make friends in his new neighborhood.

Meridee Stein of New York City's First All Children's Theatre first got the idea of musicalizing Ezra Jack Keats' 1978 picture book The Trip, with Anthony Stein as book writer and no less than Stephen Schwartz as songwriter. Keats' illustrations were adapted for the show's sets and costumes. The result played during the 1983-'84 season as The Trip in New York and at the Kennedy Center. In 2000, the creative team expanded the show into an hour-long piece, now called Captain Louie. Last spring, it was seen for a limited engagement at York Theatre Company. It reopened at Halloween of this year for a commercial run at the Little Shubert Theatre, but is closing this weekend after just two weeks.

Directed by Stein and with an orchestra of five musicians, Captain Louie is clearly intended as a show for young people and their families. But it's notable because the ten-song score is by Schwartz, composer-lyricist of the current monster hit Wicked and, of course, songwriter for shows like Godspell, Pippin, and The Baker's Wife. Released to coincide with the York production was PS Classics' premiere recording, which features mostly the York cast. The recording runs only thirty minutes, but then the whole show is still only about an hour long.

There's an attractively plaintive opening number for Louie, "New Kid in the Neighborhood," followed by a catchy, calypso-style trip on a "Big Red Plane." In the old neighborhood, Louie is confronted with some menacing "Shadows," then there's a toe-tapping salute to "Trick or Treat." A rousing title tune is followed by a sweet farewell to his old neighborhood in "Home Again."

The score to Captain Louie is quite nice, and, as the hero, Jimmy Dieffenbach sings well.

OPPOSITE YOU PS Classics

Here's an album of duets sung by musical-theatre performers and married couple Marin Mazzie Ragtime, Passion, Kiss Me, Kate and Jason Danieley The Full Monty, Candide, Encores!' A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Opposite You is based on a live concert that the pair performed in 2002 as part of Lincoln Center's American Songbook series.

The CD closes with the title song, a rhapsodic new number by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. And there's also new material in the form of two songs by the team of Scott Burkell and Paul Loesel. The centerpieces of the disc are a trio of medleys: a beguiling sequence of four Harold Arlen songs; three peppy counterpoint numbers by Irving Berlin; and a five-song Sondheim sequence that includes "Happiness," introduced by Mazzie in Passion, and "Not a Day Goes By," a song Mazzie has sung in a couple productions of Merrily We Roll Along. Also featuring "Too Many Mornings" and "Move On," this Sondheim suite is a beauty.

With musical direction and arrangements by David Loud, Mazzie solos on a fine combination of "I Got Lost in His Arms" and "Who Are You Now?," and also goes it alone on the attractive Burkell-Loisel "A Sorta Love Song" and "Not a Day Goes By." Danieley's solos are a comically conflicted "I Want You to Be" by Barbara Schottenfeld, "I Won't Send Roses," and "Good Thing Going."

Otherwise, this is all duets. Mazzie and Danieley are blessed with rich, attractive, warm voices as well as impeccable technqiue. They blend beautifully, but they make a lovely sound whether together or separate. Ranging from the lightweight "Honeysuckle Rose," "Aba Daba Honeymoon," "Nellie the Nudist Queen" to the intensely dramatic, Opposite You is a handsome disc.