My Musical Theater Voyage of Discovery; The Sondheim Files - Saturday Night

SATURDAY NIGHT is simply one of the most charming and delightful musicals you could choose to put in your player. It’s that Stephen Sondheim musical that was written before he was famous and never got a production until after he was a legend. I had heard songs from it on the album A STEPHEN SONDHEIM evening and was, immediately in love with it. The title song, What More Do I Need (sung by Liz Callaway) and (especially) Isn’t It (sung by Victoria Mallory) – all three of these songs filled my college years. I did NOT get to hear the album from the first production, a UK based one – and I realized, later, that the cosmic reason for this was so that my first exposure to the play would be one starring one of my best friends, David Campbell (the man is like a brother to me). When Saturday Night debuted in New York, David was the lead and his fellow actors included Christopher Fitzgerald, Clark Thorell, Andrea Burns, Natascia Diaz and a host of other wonderful New York actors. This recording is a splendid example of how an actor can go into the recording studio and still sing like they are onstage without either over or underplaying it. The entire cast does a marvelous job with the score and their characters and the producer of the cd managed to keep it from sounding tinny. And, really, what great songs.

Isn’t that where it all starts?

Great cd.