To purchase the 2010 Broadway Revival Cast Recording of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, click on the image above.
The new Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles, the second we’ve seen in the past decade, officially opens tonight on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre.
With a book by Harvey Fierstein and music by Jerry Herman, the show tells the tale of romantically partnered Georges and Albin, the suave owner of a glitzy drag club on the French Riviera and its high-strung star performer, whose lives are disrupted when Georges’ son announces his engagement to the daughter of a conservative right-wing politician who’s coming to dinner.
Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge lead the cast of this revival as as Georges and Albin respectively, with Fred Applegate as Edouard Dindon/M. Renaud, Veanne Cox as Mme. Dindon/Mme. Renaud, Chris Hoch as Francis, Elena Shaddow as Anne, A.J. Shively as Jean-Michel, Christine Andreas as Jacqueline, Robin de Jesús as Jacob, Heather Lindell as Colette, Cheryl Stern as Babette, Bill Nolte as Tabarro and David Nathan Perlow as Etienne. The Cagelles include Nick Adams as Angelique, Sean A. Carmon as Phaedra, Nicholas Cunningham as Hanna, Sean Patrick Doyle as Chantal, Logan Keslar as Bitelle and Terry Lavell as Mercedes. Also in the cast is Dale Hensley as a waiter, while Christophe Caballero, Todd Lattimore and Caitlin Mundth are the swings.
Direction for the show is by Terry Johnson with choreography by Lynne Page. This particular production was seen in the London last year to great acclaim. The official website for the show is available here.
Musical Cyberspace 
SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM Photographs
Sondheim on Sondheim is the Roundabout Theatre’s new musical revue that aims to give the audience “an intimate portrait of the famed composer in his own words… and music”, using exclusive interview footage to gain an inside look at Sondheim’s personal life and artistic process. Here are the first official production photographs, taken by Richard Termine.
Conceived and directed by James Lapine, the production features Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams, Tom Wopat, Leslie Kritzer, Norm Lewis, Euan Morton, Erin Mackey and Matthew Scott.
As followers of this blog might know, I haven’t been a punter of this show, despite being a fan of Sondheim’s work. I’m still not enamored by the idea of it all. Roundabout’s marketing of the show, first as an original musical – it’s not, it’s a revue and as such doesn’t deserve a nod in the “Best Musical” category or in any of the acting categories, for that matter – and now as an evening that is unique in its intent when it’s basically an updated Side by Side by Sondheim from a slightly different perspective with a bigger technical budget, hasn’t help to win me over either. The most intriguing part of the whole thing is the video material featuring the Sondheim interviews. I wouldn’t mind seeing those interviews ported onto DVD, but let’s lose the revue performances and replace them with archival performances from the actual shows or, when that kind of material isn’t available, with filmed reproductions of the songs as they were originally seen in their original productions. As they were meant to be seen.