Curtains (2007 Original Broadway Cast)
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CD Details
Composer: John KanderComposer: Fred Ebb
Composer: Rupert Holmes
Performer: David Hyde Pierce
Performer: Debra Monk
Performer: Jason Danieley
Performer: Karen Ziemba
Edition: Music CD
Format: Cast Recording
CD Release Date: 2007-06-05
Music Label: Manhattan Records
Soundtracks:
- Overture
- Wide Open Spaces
- What Kind Of Man?
- Thinking Of Him
- The Woman's Dead
- Show People
- Coffee Shop Nights
- In the Same Boat
- I Miss the Music
- Thataway!
- The Man Is Dead
- He Did It
- In the Same Boat
- It's a Business
- Kansasland
- Medley: Thinking Of Him/I Miss the Music
- A Tough Act To Follow
- In the Same Boat
- In the Same Boat
- Show People
- Wide Open Spaces
- A Tough Act To Follow
Music reviews of Curtains (2007 Original Broadway Cast)
Music Review: THE RETURN OF THE GOOD OLD FASHIONED BROADWAY MUSICAL!!!
Rating: 5 Stars
This old-fashioned murder-mystery musical (and one of the final collaborations of composing team Kander and Ebb) is an amusing, tuneful show that frequently dazzles as it quietly builds charm making for a satisfying entertainment by it's final curtain. Much of the credit goes to it's expertly chosen cast. Chief among them -- David Hyde Pierce, delightfully mixing wide-eyed, kid-in-a-candy-store wonder with wry earnestness as Boston detective Frank Cioffi, whose community theater credits have given him an addiction to greasepaint. Matching him is Debra Monk, dead-panning up a storm as brassy, trash-talking producer Carmen Bernstein. (One can picture the great Ethel Merman in this role had it actually been written and produced back in 1959!)
Set in 1959, the show opens, appropriately, with the closing scene and curtain calls for "Robbin' Hood of the Old West" (think Destry Rides Again) at Boston's Colonial Theater, its proscenium re-created within that of the Hirschfeld by designer Anna Louizos. The disastrous and detested leading lady (Patty Goble) flubs her lines and screws up her dances before collapsing during the bows. Blistering reviews from the Boston critics next morning coincide with news of her death by poisoning. Enter Cioffi, who sequesters cast and crew in the theater for the investigation's duration.
While sizing up suspects, Frank becomes de facto show doctor, making subtle creative suggestions at first and later entirely overhauling numbers. His ideas are happily accepted by swishy director Christopher Belling (Edward Hibbert, all precision whip-turns and haughty attitude), who has no problem taking credit for other folks' work. Running parallel to the search for the killer in a company rife with motives is the bid to salvage the show's Broadway hopes. Former stage performer Georgia Hendricks (Karen Ziemba), the show's lyricist, is recruited to replace the slain lead, adding further friction to her relationship with ex-husband and composing partner Aaron (Jason Danieley). There's also a gentle courtship between Frank and peaches-and-cream ingenue Niki (Jill Paice).
The first act is like a congenial game of Clue, and as the conductor turns to face the audience at the top of act two to confirm the second murder, the musical really starts clicking. One musical high point, made irresistible by Monk's effortless delivery, is Carmen's cynical showstopper "It's a Business," in which she disses Gorky, Moliere, Beckett and O'Neill in favor of crowd-pleasing commercial froth. Also witty is "He Did It," in which suspicion rips through the company ranks; and "A Tough Act to Follow" a sugary fantasy that transforms Frank and Niki into Marge and Gower Champion. The most poignant moment is the sweet lament for a broken collaboration, "I Miss the Music," with lyrics, as well as music, penned by Kander after Ebb's death.
More than anything, Curtains is a glittery, hysterically funny homage to the those fluffy musicals of the1950s. An old-fashioned musical comedy that spares no expense in its quest to wow, amaze and excite.
Description of Curtains (2007 Original Broadway Cast)
Curtains is an entertaining play within a play, as well as a "whodunit" new musical comedy featuring one of the last scores by legendary, Tony Award-winning songwriters John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago, New York, New York). Starring David Hyde Pierce (Spamalot, "Frasier") and Debra Monk, the Curtains original Broadway cast album is produced by nine-time Grammy Award-winner Jay David Saks.Sadly, Curtains is the final entry in the long and fruitful partnership of lyricist Fred Ebb (who died in September 2004) and composer John Kander. While the show doesn't reach the heights of the team's previous masterpieces, such as Cabaret and Chicago, it's certainly a lot better than, say, their middling 1997 offering Steel Pier. Deliberately old-fashioned (it even features a real overture, something that's fast becoming a rarity), Curtains is a whodunit rolled into a musical--or vice versa. Set in 1959 Boston, it takes place backstage at a singing-and-dancing Western corker titled Robbin Hood. Someone gets killed, and a show tunes-crazy homicide detective (David Hyde Pierce) is called in. The plot is just a pretext for a series of very entertaining, characteristically brass-heavy songs that may not have the bite of old Kander and Ebb but are still very catchy. Above all, Curtains is (both thematically and stylistically) a love letter to old-school showbiz, and it's delivered on a silver platter by a cast of pros that includes the aforementioned Hyde Pierce, Kander and Ebb habituée Karen Ziemba, endearing Jason Danieley and, a notch above the rest, Debra Monk. Unsurprisingly, she chews the scenery and spits it right back in a pair of rowdy numbers: "Show People" and "It's a Business." --Elisabeth Vincentelli
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