The public library system here in Cleveland is fantastic, with a great many new cast recordings at my disposal between my library’s well curated stock and what I can find through inter-library loan. Every few weeks I drop off a collection of CDs and pick up a new one. The Cast Recording Response contains my thoughts on my latest returns.

First Date
Instinct (as well as critical and commercial response) told me I wouldn’t like this score. It’s certainly admirable for a group of producers to bring an “original” musical comedy by unknown writers to Broadway. And there are a few nice ballads as well as fine performances by the leads (who will hopefully star in future, more deserving, musicals). But while the best the score ever gets is “pleasant”, at it’s worst its patently offensive and clueless. The “techno”-styled voicemails left by a gay best friend are inexcusably stereotypical (did no one on the creative staff know an actual gay person?). The number in which the protagonists imagine their respective parents’ disapproval of a Christian going on a date with a Jew is just…forget knowing an actual gay person, did anyone on the creative staff ever meet an actual person?

Hawks Test Report Card: Not a single song would qualify a “great”. Many are terrible. The worst is repeated THREE TIMES.