Listen: EMPIRE Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording Out Now

Empire: Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording has been released in digital and streaming formats. Empire – a musical about the creation and impact of the Empire State Building – features book, music, and lyrics by Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull. Empire ran Off-Broadway in 2024 in a production directed by Tony Award winner Cady Huffman and choreographed by Lorna Ventura. Lena Gabrielle was music supervisor and Gillian Berkowitz served as music director. The album includes orchestrations by Lena Gabrielle and arrangements by Robert Hull and Lena Gabrielle. The album was produced by Michael Croiter. Listen now!

Told through three generations of dreamers and doers spanning the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the Bicentennial Year of 1976, Empire is an original story that shines new light on one of history’s greatest feats of will and desire. With a desperate city pinning its hopes on this seemingly impossible project, only skyscraper-levels of grit and determination can keep it climbing. Empire presents a dramatic tale of derring-do, told through foot-tapping music and timeless characters, including the industrialist visionaries, can-do immigrants, and brave Mohawk ironworkers, who had the guts to go up when everyone else was down. These universal stories of extraordinary resilience and optimism still inspire today.

Empire features performances by Danny Iktomi Bevins (Jesse Bland), Devin Cortez (Joe Pakulski/Mayor Walker), Morgan Cowling (Emily O’Dowd/Lois), Kaitlyn Davidson (Frances Belle “Wally” Wolodsky), Joel Douglas (Billy Betts), Alexandra Frohlinger (Goodie Goodheart/Mrs. Janet Arthur), Albert Guerzon (Charles Kinney), Kiana Kabeary (Rudy Shaw/Rayne), Howard Kaye (John J. Raskob/Abe Klayman), April Ortiz (Mohawk Grandmother/Hazel/Speakeasy Chanteuse), Jessica Ranville (Sylvie Lee), Paul Salvatoriello (Al Smith), J Savage (Ethan O’Dowd), Robbie Serrano (Matteo Menzo), and Ethan Saviet (Paolo de Caprio). The ensemble includes Joseph Fierberg, Kennedy Perez, Matt Gibson, Julia Louise Hosack, and TJ Newton.

In addition to the New York run, Empire has been produced at Southern California’s La Mirada Theatre (four L.A. Ovation Award nominations); Stamford Center for the Arts in Stamford, CT; Hudson Backstage Theater in Los Angeles, CA; and beyond.

Empire: Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording – Track Listing

1. Prologue
2. Everybody Up Heyday
3. Moxie
4. My Story
5. Never Say Never
6. Precision & Rhythm
7. Protect What’s Mine
8. Stuck With You

9. When to Say Whoa
10. Nothing Comes for Free
11. Lookahee

12. Don’t Look Down (When You’re Going Up)
13. A Change of Worlds
14. Touch the Sky
15. Al’s Moxie
16. Castles in the Air
17. We’ll Work
18. Poetry
19. We Were Here
20. Our Al and Wally Way
21. Empire
22. Bonus Track - Traditional Mohawk Cornbread Song