(Title of Show) by Original Cast (CD, Jul-2006, Ghostlight)

I first came in contact with [title of show] through a New York Times review of it. The show sounded pretty promising at the time, especially with the show getting extension upon extension at the theatre. Seeing as I'm only a poor college student, I couldn't really afford to go see the show, so I hoped that they'd at least put out the soundtrack so I could get a feel for what it was like. I didn't really think they would have actually done it though. Needless to say, I own my own copy now.

I had heard little parts of the songs before and wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised at what the show had to offer. There were a few songs that weren't really as good as the rest, such as "Monkeys and Playbills" and "The Tony Award Song," but even those silly songs went with the show and added their own touch to the show's humor. My personal favorites on this cd happen to be "Die Vampire, Die," which talks about the threats to your own creative self-expression, and "Nine People's Favorite Thing," detailing their refusal to generalize the show so that everyone would accept it, which would basically leave the show a hollow shell. The rest of the songs vary from OK to great, but I would group most of the songs closer to the great end.

[title of show] is basically about two people trying to create a musical about two people trying to create a musical about... within a time frame of 3 weeks, so they'd be able to submit it to a musical theatre festival. It's about the hardships about actually trying to create a show and staying true to your ideas. In short, its about the making of itself. Before you criticize it for being a show about itself and all the references to so many other theatre topics, just consider how original the show actually is. In today's theatre, there are so many shows that are based off of books ("Lestat") or movies ("Tarzan") and other shows that use big actors and actresses to try and gain appeal (Paris Hilton in "The Apple Tree"). I have seen the NY Times reviews for each of these, and I'm not that impressed. Each of these ideas are wearing thin these days and we need to look for original ideas, and the authors of [title of show] have done something that's new, and they made sure that if nothing else, it would be something that they themselves would want to see.

The show contains a lot of comedy, but it also contains a lot of foul language, most notable being the F-word. Personally, I'm just fine with that, but you may not be. Please, keep in mind that this show was not meant for everyone, so even if you don't like this show, don't turn your back on all of musical theatre, for there are so many good shows/soundtracks out there.

I consider myself of the nine people, I hope you consider yourself one too.

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