If/Then Cast Recording
If/Then Cast Recording
#1If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 5:49pm
According to James Snyder's video blog the cast recording is available at the theatre!
If anyone grabs it, tell us how it is! Anxious to hear how the score sounds on the CD as opposed to in the theatre.
"Oh look at the time, three more intelligent plays just closed and THE ADDAMS FAMILY made another million dollars" -Jackie Hoffman, Broadway.com Audience Awards
CoreyRyan3
Featured Actor Joined: 5/2/13
#2If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 6:00pmThe CD is very well done. the score sounds great and Idina sounds amazing.
#2If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 6:09pmIt sounds great! I forgot about a lot of the great songs in the show. Love While You Can sounds incredible. What the F*ck is just as funny on the recording as it was live. The only thing that disappoints me is that the small monologue before Always Starting Over is not on the recording.
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
#3If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 7:04pm^That made me sad too. I really hope they include that and Starting Over during the Tonys
"Life in theater is give and take...but you need to be ready to give more then you take..."
jacobsnchz14
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/13/06
#4If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 7:18pmI heard a clip of some dialogue at the beginning of the show that sets up "What If?"... is that on the recording?
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#5If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 7:36pm$10 on Amazon as opposed to a hell of a lot more @ the theater.
Poster Emeritus
#6If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 7:41pm
Theatre = Available now
Amazon = Available in 2 weeks
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#7If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 7:45pmIf someone thinks they cannot wait 2 weeks and wants to throw away $15, be my guest.
Poster Emeritus
#8If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 7:50pmFor those who are not struggling financially, they might not consider the impact of 'throwing away' $15 a big deal. Additionally, the money would be going to what I think most around here would consider a good cause (i.e., financially supporting the show). Luckily, both options are available so people can do what they want.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
#9If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 7:51pmPersonally, I would wait, as well. But I'm just saying that is the difference right now. It is only available in one place.
#10If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 7:56pm
"I heard a clip of some dialogue at the beginning of the show that sets up "What If?"... is that on the recording?"
Not sure what clip of dialogue you mean as it's just Liz and Josh "talking" first, but the song starts with Liz singing "Hey you there with your face in the mirror."
I absolutely love the recording and the way they were able to drop the dialogue out of the songs seamlessly.
Mr Roxy
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/17/03
#11If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 8:02pmDoubt if you buy it at the theater the extra $15 goes to support the show.
Poster Emeritus
#12If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 8:07pmWhat I have heard sounds great. I ordered on Amazon, and am looking forward to finally getting it!
#13If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 8:09pmThe show can get the CDs at cost, so any profits can go directly to the show's bottom line. I have friends who are authors and they do the same with their books, buy from the publisher at cost, sell them at events for full MSRP (signed and personalized), etc.
#14If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/23/14 at 10:41pmI've heard a bunch of the songs from the cast recording. The cast sounds great...Listening to it is making me want to see the show for a third time!
Auggie27
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
#15If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/24/14 at 11:46am
(Post moved to Tony performance thread.)
"I'm a comedian, but in my spare time, things bother me." Garry Shandling
Updated On: 5/24/14 at 11:46 AM
DeNada
Broadway Star Joined: 7/7/07
#17If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/24/14 at 5:36pm
I hadn't realised how heavily string-led the orchestrations are which gets lost in the theatre a bit I think. It's a strangely weightless score as a result - perhaps this is a criticism that should also be levied at BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, but that feels much punchier somehow (probably due to the way the piano seems to pound away rather than shimmering along in the background as it does here?) Maybe it's the addition of the woodwind in IF/THEN that flattens it out more. Someone more sophisticated when it comes to orchestrations can probably explain it better than I can.
Reflecting on the show while listening to the CD it strikes me that many of the songs seem to blend into one. It's not even that they don't have melodies or are weirdly inaccessible - they just all start to fade into one another, or into other Tom Kitt scores. Whenever Jenn Colella sings it sounds like a HIGH FIDELITY outtake; Here I Go sounds virtually the same as parts of This Day at the opening of the second act; James Snyder's songs are super-bland and nice (much like the character) although kudos to him for singing in such a high tessitura for most of the show. Idina sounds great, but it doesn't mean that she's singing anything massively interesting and I still find her surprisingly uncharismatic.
In fact, divorced of the staging Latinate is also robbed of much of her charm; while she's great on stage, her songs aren't really all that exciting, and her accomplished vocals alone don't really capture what makes her so good. Anthony Rapp is better served by the recording as there's less of his character's whiny friend zone behaviour to listen to...
This sounds awfully negative. I think it's an okay recording, actually, and I need to listen to it a few more times. I guess it just feels like so many of the songs retread the same themes lyrically and musically - shimmery vaguely Celtic string triplets and generic stories about choices and changes that don't always feel like they come from the characters but from stock situations - that it never really excites.
jacobsnchz14
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/13/06
#18If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/24/14 at 8:29pmThe dialogue I'm talking about at the beginning of the show starts off like "Hey there, it's me" or something. lol. Is that on the recording?
#19If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/24/14 at 9:04pm
"The dialogue I'm talking about at the beginning of the show starts off like "Hey there, it's me" or something. lol. Is that on the recording?"
Oh, that's the very first line of the show, not before WTF. haha
And no, that dialogue is not there. It starts w/ an instrumental Prologue and then goes into the opening song, "What If."
#20If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/24/14 at 9:52pm
"The dialogue I'm talking about at the beginning of the show starts off like "Hey there, it's me" or something. lol. Is that on the recording?"
The line is "Hey, it's me." It is the first line spoken when Idina appears on the fire escape. It also is the first line of the monologue before Always Starting Over. Sadly, it is not on the recording at all.
"There’s nothing quite like the power and the passion of Broadway music. "
NeverSoShy
Understudy Joined: 10/8/11
#21If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/25/14 at 3:00pmFrom what I've heard so far (which isn't the complete recording), the lack of almost any dialogue is a little disappointing. I know it's hard to draw the line on how much to include, but little bits like the opening dialogue/the dialogue before Always Starting Over as mentioned would have added a lot to the recording.
JoeKeegan
Swing Joined: 5/26/14
#22If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/26/14 at 2:42am
I saw a clip on YT and Idina's acting is AMAZING a well deserved TONY nom
#23If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/27/14 at 12:50pm
Here's a first listen for those of us that don't live in NY
If/Then First Listen
#24If/Then Cast Recording
Posted: 5/27/14 at 1:52pm
The article at the link above has an endearing freudian slip - they said that Next to Normal won the 2009 Tony award for best musical, as indeed it should have.
