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It is time, once more, to catch up with a clutch of recent theatrical CDs. The current group is led by Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak's A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder [Ghostlight], which has been entrancing audiences since it opened in November at the Walter Kerr. This stylish entertainment stars Bryce Pinkham as a distant relative to a titled family in Edwardian England, with Jefferson Mays playing the eight D'Ysquith relatives who stand in Monty's way to title and fortune (and whom he unceremoniously bumps off).
If this sounds like that jolly old Alec Guinness movie "Kind Hearts and Coronets," there is a reason. Both are based on the same source, the 1907 novel "Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal" by Roy Horniman. (My understanding is that Freedman & Lutvak were hired by producers who controlled the adaptation rights to the screenplay, but said producers at some point decided to switch songwriters. Freedman & Lutvak retained their score, removed copyrighted material created for the film version, and went ahead with characters and complications existing in the original, public-domain novel.)
A Gentleman's Guide originated at Hartford Stage in October 2012, directed by that regional's artistic director, Darko Tresnjak. On the heels of good reviews — including an outright rave from the New York Times — the show was remounted in March at the Old Globe in San Diego, and with a virtually all new cast (other than Mays and heroine Lisa O'Hare) and opened at the Walter Kerr as the first important new musical of the current season. While the 2014 Tony Award nominations will not be announced until April 29, A Gentleman's Guide can be seen as a prime contender for a clutch of nods.
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There are three dozen or so cast albums of Les Misérables and no, I have not assiduously tracked them all down. Presumably, there will be yet another with Karimloo and the current Broadway cast. That said, this 2010 recording is presumably of great interest to fans of the show, as the production was carefully reconceived by Cameron Mackintosh for current-day conditions and audiences.
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Privates, with its cross-dressing hero, was controversial at the time and quite celebrated. It came to the Long Wharf in New Haven in 1979, with Jim Dale in the main role; was filmed in 1982, with Quilley and John Cleese; and reached New York in 1989, with Dale again playing the role at the Roundabout (back when it was on Union Square), and with future Tony winners Donna Murphy and Gregory Jbara in the cast. The show was revived in London by Michael Grandage at the Donmar Warehouse in 2001, and just recently returned to the West End as the first production of the Michael Grandage Company at the Noel Coward Theatre, starring Simon Russell Beale. And now, belatedly, the original RSC cast album has finally found its way to CD.
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Porter seems to have had an open hand at selecting songs, personnel, sculpting arrangements (mostly with Rob Mounsey) and more. As it turns out, his musical taste matches his talent. We get ten tracks, mostly show tunes including two Styne, two Sondheim, and one Loesser, one Loewe and one Lauper. Lauper not only provides "I'm Not My Father's Son," from Kinky Boots; she joins Porter as vocalist on a very nice duet combining "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Get Happy."
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The star of Grey Gardens and other entertainments gives us fourteen songs, including a couple by Gershwin (led by "Shall We Dance"), a couple by Mercer, and single selections by Styne, Rodger & Hart, Porter and others. There are also assorted standards like "Am I Blue," "After You've Gone," and "I'll Be Seeing You," that are swell to hear. I never gave a second thought to "Something There" — yes, that's from Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's Beauty and the Beast — but it sounds brightly breezy here. Having missed "Strings Attached" in 2013, I naturally enough wasn't able to include it in last year's holiday gift column. But it belongs on the list, and I promise that in the future I will listen to Ebersole albums in a more timely fashion.
(Steven Suskin is author of "Show Tunes," "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble," the "Opening Night on Broadway" books, and "The Book of Mormon: The Testament of a Broadway Musical." He also writes the Aisle View blog at The Huffington Post. He can be reached at [email protected].)