Among the latest music releases from the NYC stage and its artists are two original Off-Broadway cast albums, the debut recording of The Broadway Ensemble, a collective of musical theater stars founded earlier this year, covering songs of a chart-topping pop-rock singer-songwriter, and a concept album of the touring musical-theater adaptation of a popular 1988 movie rom-com.
We Live in Cairo: Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording – Following its extended engagement last year at New York Theatre Workshop, Center Stage Records has released, in streaming and digital formats, the album of the multi-award-nominated musical, twelve years in the making, about the youth movement in Egypt during the 2011 Arab Spring, with book, music, and lyrics by The Lazours.
The recording, produced by two-time Grammy and two-time Tony Award winner Charlie Rosen, with orchestrations by two-time Tony Award winner Michael Starobin, features performances by Ali Louis Bourzgui (Tommy; The Lost Boys), Nadina Hassan (Mean Girls), Michael Karadsheh (The Ally), Drew Elhamalawy (The Queen of Versailles), Rotana Tarabzouni (Alien of Extraordinary Ability), and John El-Jor, who was nominated for a 2024 Drama Desk Award for his performance in the acclaimed Off-Broadway production.
You can stream or download the album here, and a new video with exclusive studio footage of El-Jor’s lead vocal on the song “The Benevolent Regime of King Farouk II” is now available on YouTube.
Welcome to The Big Dipper – The original Off-Broadway production, with music and lyrics by Jimmy Roberts (known for composing the score to the award-winning I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change) and book by Catherine Filloux and John Daggett (who also contributed additional lyrics), first premiered with The York Theatre Company at The Theatre at St. Jean’s in November 2024. Set in an historic inn near Niagara Falls, in Bigelow, New York, it tells the uplifting story of a woman struggling to keep her family’s beloved Big Dipper Inn from closing, when a massive blizzard strands two mismatched groups of travelers together there and changes their lives forever.
Now available for streaming here through StarVista Music, the 15-track album, recorded and mixed in New York at Audioworks by Julian Evans, features orchestrations by Doug Katsaros, a four-person band conducted by pianist Beth Falcone, and performances by Debra Walton, Christian Magby, Michael Yeshion, Tony nominee Robert Cuccioli (Jekyll & Hyde), Mia Pinero, Jayae Riley, Jr., Jennifer Byrne, Darius Harper, Pablo Torres, and Jillian Louis.
The Billy Joel Project – Yellow Sound Label has released, in streaming and digital formats and a physical CD edition, the debut album of The Broadway Ensemble, an eleven-member cast with a combined 48 Broadway credits, founded in 2025 by Grammy-nominated record producer Phil Geoffrey Bond (the force behind the Grammy Award-nominated album series Sondheim Unplugged), to bring Broadway’s artistry to contemporary hits by major singer/songwriters of our time, and, in so doing, to reach a larger audience.
While honoring the original versions of such beloved Billy Joel classics as “Angry Young Man,” “Only the Good Die Young,” “She’s Always a Woman,” “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” and “New York State of Mind,” the premiere 24-track album offers new interpretations of his songs through the vocal talents of musical-theater artists Farah Alvin (Drama Desk nominee, The Marvelous Wonderettes), Nicholas Edwards (& Juliet; Frozen), John Treacy Egan (The Producers; The Little Mermaid), Annie Golden (Assassins), Aaron Ramey (The Visit; The Bridges of Madison County), Nicholas Rodriguez (Company; The Sound of Music), Courter Simmons (Jersey Boys), Rachel Ulanet (Beauty and the Beast; LoveMusik), Donna Vivino (Wicked; Hell’s Kitchen), Michael Winther (Flying Over Sunset; Songs from an Unmade Bed), and ten-time MAC Award winner Lina Koutrakos, supported by an outstanding orchestra of Broadway pit musicians, with music direction by Jeremy Robin Lyons (Anastasia).
Mystic Pizza: A New Musical – Based on the 1988 MGM motion picture rom-com starring Julia Roberts, written by Sandy Rustin, with story and characters by Amy Holden Jones, the concept recording of the new stage musical adaptation is now available in digital and streaming formats from Joy Machine Records, produced by the show’s Grammy-nominated arranger and orchestrator Carmel Dean (Broadway’s The Notebook, Funny Girl, If/Then, Hands on a Hardbody, American Idiot, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), Brian Usifer for Joy Machine, and Michael Barra for Lively McCabe Entertainment, a global theatrical development, acquisition, and management company founded in 2017, best known for Joe Iconis’s Punk Rock Girl! and Clue: A New Comedy, which is currently touring the US.
The musical, following the journey of three women working in a small-town pizza place, played critically acclaimed regional productions (most recently this past February at NJ’s Paper Mill Playhouse), and is currently booking a national tour to begin in the Fall of 2026. The album, mixed by Derik Lee and edited by Ian Kagey, features its 25 megahits of the ‘80s and ‘90s, originally recorded by Melissa Etheridge, Cyndi Lauper, John Cougar Mellencamp, Debbie Gibson, Wilson Phillips, The Bangles, Belinda Carlisle, Rick Astley, Bryan Adams, and many others, from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” to “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” with vocals by Krystina Alabado, Alaina Anderson, Chachi Delgado, Ben Fankhauser, Jennifer Fouché, Mia Gerachis, Deánna Giulietti, F. Michael Haynie, James Hindman, Michael James, April Josephine, Vincent Michael, Adriana Negrón, Louis Pardo, Alyssa M. Simmons, Jake Swain, Zephaniah Wages, and Rachel Kae Wirtz, accompanied by music director Kristin Stowell (keyboard), Jason May (keyboard and sax), Max Caine and Jared Cannata (guitars and sax), David White (bass), and Peter Saleh (drums and percussion). To listen to it now, click here.
