Bruce Kimmel Launches New CD Label, 'Kritzerland' With Two Recordings
By: BWW News Desk May. 25, 2005
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Bruce Kimmel has started a new label, Kritzerland, which he describes as "a boutique label for recordings of theater music, as well as the odd jazz and film album." The name "Kritzerland" is taken from one of Kimmel's novels.The label will debut with two albums in mid-July: The cast album of the Irish Repertory Theater production of Noel Coward's After the Ball, which Kimmel recorded recently at Right Track Studios. The production was directed by Tony Walton, and starred Kathleen Widdoes, Mary Illes, Kristin Huxhold, Paul Carlin, David Staller, Collette Simmons, Greg Mills, Josh Grisetti, Drew Eshelman, and Elizabeth Ingram. Musical direction is by Mark Hartman.
The second disc is a solo album with the ever-elusive Guy Haines, his follow-up to his well-received debut album, Haines His Way. The new album is entitled New Guy in Town, and it includes duets with Kerry Butler (Bat Boy, Little Shop of Horrors, Hairspray), Juliana A. Hansen (Thoroughly Modern Millie), and Jessica Rush (Cinderella with Eartha Kitt, Paint your Wagon). The songs are by Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Bacharach and David, Gene de Paul and Johnny Mercer, Tim Moore, Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin, Andre Previn and Dory Langdon, Sylvia Fine and Sammy Cahn, Gerry Goffin and Carol King, and others of their ilk. The album also includes two world premiere recordings - a new Craig Carnelia song, and a never-before-heard song by Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones. Music director is Grant Geissman.
Mr. Kimmel, who, in the past, has produced albums for Bay Cities (which he founded), Varese Sarabande, and Fynsworth Alley (a label he created and then parted ways with in 2001), over 135 in all including the critically-acclaimed Lost in Boston and Unsung Musicals series, cast albums of Hello, Dolly! (for which he was nominated for a Grammy), The King and I, Bells are Ringing, the Ann-Margret The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Play On, the Rob Marshall production of Little Me, as well as many off-Broadway cast albums, including one of the longest- running off-Broadway shows in history, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change.He has produced solo albums with Judy Kaye, Judy Kuhn, Petula Clark, Helen Reddy, Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner, Christiane Noll, Brent Barrett, Liz Callaway, the late Laurie Beechman, Sally Mayes, Randy Graff, Michelle Nicastro, and others, and has done a historic series of jazz albums devoted to the scores of Stephen Sondheim.
Kritzerland's albums will be available online at its own website, as well as other online establishments and in select stores across the nation. Photo Credit: Craig Brockman
Kerry Butler sings "Sure Thing" which will appear on Guy Haines' "New Guy In Town" CD (Top)
Bruce Kimmel and Kerry Butler (Bottom)
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