Anything Goes - The New Broadway Cast Recording

Anything Goes – The New Broadway Cast Recording
2011, Ghostlight Records

Between the seminal performance of Ethel Merman as Reno Sweeney and the 1980's role as re-imagined by the incomparable Patti Lupone, it's hard to imagine anyone being brave enough to reincarnate the role on The Great Way, much less standing on par with those two great ladies of theater. Yet if you were to ponder the current and up-and-coming stars of Broadway, you'd eventually settle on the notion that if anyone could do it, it would be Sutton Foster. This must have entered the thinking of director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall. Turns out it was right thinking. Just take a listen to the new cast recording of The Roundabout Theatre's 2011 production of Anything Goes, and you'll wonder if anyone has ever worn Reno Sweeney so well.

This show isn't just about Foster's performance so well. She is surrounded with a superb cast that includes Broadway legend Joel Grey (Cabaret, Wicked) as Moonface Martin, Colin Donnell as Billy Crocker and Laura Osnes (Grease, South Pacific, Bonnie & Clyde) as Hope Harcourt. The show is based on the same book and score used in the 1987 Broadway Production with minor changes, but sticks very close to Cole Porter's original vision. Highlights include Foster's performances on "I Get A Kick Out Of You", "Anything Goes" and "Blow Gabriel Blow" and Grey's "Be Like The Bluebird", but the best chemistry occurs on songs such as "You're The Top" (Foster & Donnell); "Friendship" (Foster & Grey), and "It's De-Lovely" (Donnell & Osnes). Jessica Stone makes a nice turn on "Buddie Beware", backed by the whole ensemble. Her voice is part ingénue and part moll, an eclectic sound that's unforgettable and perfect for the role of Erma.

For all that goes well on the cast recording of Anything Goes, it doesn't quite have the pizzazz of the 1987 cast recording, but it seems attributable to the use of all digital technology which is as much a bane as a boon to musical purists. The cast, as a whole, is absolutely superb, and Sutton Foster and Joel Grey are everything you could expect and more, and Laura Osnes building on her inarguable credibility as a Broadway leading lady. It's easy to see why Anything Goes took home three Tony Awards this year, including Best Revival, Best Actress In A Musical (Sutton Foster), and Best Choreography (Kathleen Marshall). Ghostlight Records does it again, documenting a wonderfully vibrant revival of a classic show with a cast recording of Anything Goes that will draw you back again and again.

Rating: 4.5 Stars (Out of 5)

Learn more about Anything Goes at www.AnythingGoesBroadway.com or www.roundabouttheatre.org.  Anything Goes - The New Broadway Cast Recording is available from Amazon.com as a CD or Download.  The album is also available via iTunes.

In case you need convincing, check out this clip from the Late Show with David Letterman:

Sutton Foster – An Evening With Sutton Foster – Live At The Café Carlyle

Sutton Foster – An Evening With Sutton Foster – Live At The Café Carlyle
2011, Ghostlight Records

Good actors can bend themselves to any role.  Great actors wrap a role around themselves like a second skin, becoming both themselves and the other.   For all of the acting classes and workshops one can take, this particular quality is not one that can be learned.  It’s a quality shared by some of the greatest names to grace the stages of the Great White Way:  Patti Lupone.  Bernadette Peters.  Angela Lansbury.  Kristin Chenoweth.  Sutton Foster. 

Sutton Foster made a name for herself as Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, winning the 2002 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, as well as similar awards from Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk and the Fred Astaire Award for best actress in a musical.  Foster has gone on to roles such as Jo March (Little Women – Tony, Outer Desk and Drama League nominations); Janet Van De Graaf (The Drowsy Chaperone – Tony, Drama Desk, Drama League and Outer Circle nominations) and Princess Fiona (Shrek The Musical – 2009 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical).  On March 10, 2011, Foster began previews at The Roundabout Theatre for the Cole Porter classic musical Anything Goes.  As if she’s not busy enough, Foster also released her second album, An Evening With Sutton Foster – Live At The Café Carlyle, this week.

Live albums are always a risk.  Even in an era where genius and technology can make a rough performance sound great after the fact, an artist is totally exposed in a live performance, and particularly in the intimate setting of a cabaret show.  At the same time, the magic that occurs on stage is ever-so-difficult to transfer to an audio recording.  Yet it’s delightful to report that Sutton Foster pulls it all off with unabashed charm on An Evening With Sutton Foster.  Culling songs from her debut album Wish, as well as from her previous work on Broadway, Foster charms with a blend of songs and stories that will entertain you, touch your heart and make you laugh out loud.

The show opens with “I’m Beginning To See The Light”, a Duke Ellington number performed by Foster with the sole accompaniment of ukulele.  It’s a brilliant opening full of showgirl zeal but with an air authenticity that simply cannot be manufactured.  Foster has one of those voices that rings in your mind for ever after hearing it, and is personality plus on stage.  Foster strings together snippets of songs from roles she’s played in a medley of “Not For The Life Of Me” (Thoroughly Modern Millie), “NYC” (Annie) and “Astonishing” (Little Women).  As medleys go this one works better than most, the transitions almost seamless, even if “Not For The Life Of Me” was cut woefully short.  “Up On The Roof” is offered in a sweet and lyric interpretation that’s full of heart and a sense of reminiscence about her early years in New York City.

Foster’s cover of Christine Lavin’s “Air Conditioner” is perhaps even funnier than the original, owing a great deal to the charm and pizzazz of the singer, qualities that wash through your speakers and bathe the listener whole.  Foster changes paces nicely with “Warm All Over”, a sultry and sweet take on the Frank Loesser tune from Most Happy Fella.  Foster rips off the roof (and a boob pad) in “Show Off”, one of the signature numbers from The Drowsy Chaperone.  The roof lands several blocks away, as Foster cranks it up with a powerful, thousand-watt performance; while the boob pad hilariously lands on her brother, Hunter Foster.  The show goes on, but the moment is timeless and thankfully not excised from the recording.

“More To The Story” is a song that was cut from Shrek: The Musical before it came to New York, and you have to wonder why.  After hearing Foster’s performance here you won’t be able to imagine the show without it.  Foster’s performance is full of heart and beauty that moves beyond music into the sublime.  “My Heart Was Set On You” is an amazing tune – a heartbreaker about forbidden love that works out the way everyone expected all along.  An inexorable tragedy in song that finds the heroine still somewhat in love even from the other side of heartbreak.  This is a pure “WOW” moment.  The transition into “Down With Love” (Hooray For What!) is classic, with Foster offering a quirky/sweet performance that is perhaps the perfect spoiler to the heartbreak that preceded it.

Foster pulls off another “WOW” moment on Duke Ellington’s “I Like The Sunshine”, offering a lyric performance full of vulnerability and hope that are palpable.  For a performer who can belt with such aplomb to be able to pull off a number like this is stunning.  A small lottery conducted by Music Director Michael Rafter leads next to a roof-raising performance of “Defying Gravity” (Wicked).  Dare it be said that Foster pulls it off as if she, herself, originated the role.  Foster puts on the faux ingénue qualities of a classic movie moll for “Late Late Show”, before moving into a sweet and lyric version of John Denver’s “Sunshine On My Shoulders”.  Foster gives up the belt here for a light and airy sound that highlights the utter beauty of her voice.  “Anyone Can Whistle/Being Alive” and “”Come The Wild Wild Weather” are both sweet numbers that serve as a bit of a respite for the singer before building to the big finale.  Foster begins the end with The Beatles’ “Here, There And Everywhere”.  Accompanied by banjo alone, Sutton Foster creates one of those pure musical moments that are steeped in an esoteric and timeless beauty that’s about as impossible to describe as it is to create in the first place.  It’s moments like this that concert goers remember all their lives.  As if that weren’t enough, Foster goes over the moon with “And I Am Telling You (I’m Not Going)” from Dreamgirls.  If Foster blew the roof off earlier in the show, this number couldn’t have left a wall standing.

Sutton Foster is what is considered a triple threat on Broadway.  She sings, she dances and she acts.  But sometimes the term triple threat doesn’t even begin to explain what an actor can do.  Foster’s sense of showmanship combines with an utter authenticity that’s built on smarts, humor, a little bit of grit, and a healthy dose of southern charm and sophistication.  Add to that a voice that can lull you into the ether and then blow you away all in the same breath and you have a singular, rare talent who will be remembered for generations.  An Evening With Sutton Foster – Live At The Café Carlyle is a document and testament to talent, charm and grace to one of the leading ladies of the stage.  Sutton Foster shines bright.  An Evening With Sutton Foster – Live At The Café Carlyle can be nothing less than a Wildy’s World Certified Desert Island Disc.

Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)

Learn more about Sutton Foster at http://www.suttonfoster.com/ or on Facebook.  An Evening With Sutton Foster - Live At The Café Carlyle is available from Amazon.com as a  CD or Download.  The album is also available from iTunes.

Joséphine Ancelle – Ends With Always

Joséphine Ancelle – Ends With Always
2010, Joséphine Ancelle

New York City-based Parisienne singer/songwriter Joséphine Ancelle returned in December of 2010 with her third effort, a five song EP entitled Ends With Always.  Sung in a patois of English and French, Ends With Always displays Ancelle’s sharpest songwriting to date, and the same sweet and exceedingly sultry voice that has made her a favorite both in New York City and Paris.

Ends With Always opens with “Tree”, a joyous, quietly catchy little tune about the roots of who we are.  The song is written in both French and English, and will get stuck in your brain even if you don’t know French.  “Ends With Always” plays like something right out of a Broadway show, like something you might here Sutton Foster delivering from the stage of the Marquis Theatre.  Ancelle does a fine job with vocals, giving a playful, light feel to the song that is endearing in its essential sweetness.  “Comme Un Livre Ouvert” uses strings, clarinet and piano built around a pretty melody to display a sense of simple emotional vulnerability.  This is a true wow moment for Ancelle as both a singer and songwriter.   “Man” finds Ancelle sounding a lot like Lisa Loeb in a song about the difficulties a woman has in just shaking off emotion.  Ancelle postulates what it would be like to be a man in this regard but runs into the contradictions of still being in love.  It’s a cute tune that shows a sense of wit that seems somewhat new to Ancelle’s songwriting.  Ends With Always closes with “De L’Air”, showing off an absolutely gorgeous melody line with a country feel.  The song explores the unknowable future, built on a sense of being headed in the right direction.  There’s a sweet simplicity here that is undeniable and enthralling.

Joséphine Ancelle just keeps getting better with time.  Ends With Always shows real development over 2009’s The I Love Yous, itself an outstanding effort.  Where Ancelle has existed in the past on pure talent and a sweet sense of perspective, her songwriting on Ends With Always shows magical flair of artistic genius at times.  As a performer Ancelle continues to improve as well, blending the essential sweetness of her nature with a growing maturity and confidence that make her a force to reckon with.  Ends With Always is Joséphine Ancelle’s best work to date, and that’s saying a lot.  Ends With Always is a Wildy’s World Certified Desert Island Disc.

Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)

Learn more about Joséphine Ancelle at www.josephineancelle.com or www.facebook.com/josephineancellemusic.  Ends With Always is available from Amazon.com as a CD or Download.  The EP is also available from iTunes.  Be sure to check out Wildy's World reviews of Joséphine Ancelle's other albums, The I Love Yous and Unfinished Life.