Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Cast Album Review

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Cast Album Review

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

Though critics didn’t exactly fall all over themselves with love and adoration for the confection that is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with or without their approval, the musical already has many things going for it that are bound to lure in crowds. It has a family-friendly, magical story by Roald Dahl that takes audiences (particularly children) on a wondrous journey into the world of candy. It mines the best of the Leslie Bricusse/Anthony Newley songs from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, while calling on the usually dependable composing team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can) to write additional songs to fill the score. It also stars one of Broadway’s finest character actors, Christian Borle, in the role of candy-maker extraordinaire, Mr. Willy Wonka. Even anticipating the worst (or taking the critics’ assessments as gospel), this show was always going to have something going for it.

2017 Tony Award Season Album Review

2017 Tony Award Season Album Review

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

Broadway Records has done it again. They have given us a treat of album, this time one that celebrates the 2016-2017 Broadway Season. What a terrific idea to create a compilation of the best-of-the-best, one song from almost every musical that opened on Broadway leading up to this year’s Tony Awards. It’s an archive of a year’s worth of Broadway excitement for fans to look back at a period of musical theatre. It makes one wonder why someone hasn’t done this sooner. Make no mistake, the 2017 Tony Award Season album will be a welcome addition to your musical theatre library.

Dear Evan Hansen: 13 BETTER Reasons Why

Dear Evan Hansen: 13 BETTER Reasons Why

Mark Robinson
Tube Tied, Music That Makes Me Dance

In its own right, Dear Evan Hansen is a thrilling and topical musical addressing the isolation so many of us feel. In this day and age, bullying leads to suicide, anxiety leads to building protective walls. Dear Evan Hansen demonstrates how the arts can respond to societal ills and makes a case for our individual and collective healing through the catharsis of relevant and timely musical theatre. It’s an inspiring story about how one of these disconnected people, frozen by their own inability to reach past their self-prescribed detachment, finally learns how to break down the walls that have crippled him with anxiety and depression. Sure, it comes with its complications and a handful of misconceptions and lies, but it is essentially a fairy tale for those of us who have felt, like Evan, that we are invisible and/or unworthy.

Anastasia Cast Recording: A Review

Anastasia Cast Recording: A Review

Mark Robinson
Music That Makes Me Dance

Though it may have received a lukewarm reception from critics, the original cast recording of the Broadway musical Anastasia gives no indication that this show has any failings. In fact, the lush and lively cast album from Broadway Records is a delight from start to finish. The Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty score percolates with energy and sumptuous voices. The songs that have been kept from the 1997 film are as wonderful as they ever were, but even more importantly, the new ones written for this Broadway mounting sparkle and reveal new depths to the characters, the story, and the mood of the piece.

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