Among the latest album releases from the New York City stage are an EP from an upcoming Broadway musical, the original cast recording from a highly acclaimed hit of this season, and a signature concert by a popular NYC-based cabaret artist. You can see the shows in person, then continue listening to their music with digital downloads and streaming.
Makin’ it Work with Joy – On Friday, February 28, Ghostlight Records, the leading independent force in original Broadway cast recordings, with a library of more than 200 over the past 25 years, released the four-track EP from the new Broadway show Real Women Have Curves: The Musical, based on the play of the same name by Josefina López that inspired the HBO hit film. Now available in digital and streaming formats, the album features Joy Huerta (half of the internationally acclaimed Latin Grammy-winning duo Jesse & Joy, who was named a “Leading Lady of Entertainment” by the Latin Recording Academy) performing songs she co-wrote with composer/lyricist Benjamin Velez for the new musical, including the selections “Make it Work,” “Daydream, “Flying Away,” and “Real Women Have Curves.” Along with Huerta, the EP also features performances by Katya Diaz, Nadia DiGiallonardo, Aline Mayagoitia, and Mari Solis.
Following its critically acclaimed world premiere at Harvard University’s American Repertory Theater (A.R.T) in 2023, Real Women Have Curves: The Musical will begin previews on April 1, at Broadway’s James Earl Jones Theatre, ahead of an opening night on April 27. Ghostlight will release the musical’s original Broadway cast recording later this spring.
Maybe Happy Ending – Starring Darren Criss and Helen J Shen, Maybe Happy Ending tells the offbeat heartwarming story of two outcast robots near the end of their warranty who discover that even they can be swept off their feet. The original Broadway cast recording of the irresistible musical rom-com, featuring a score by the internationally acclaimed duo of Will Aronson and Hue Park, is now available for pre-order, and will be released by Ghostlight Records in digital and streaming formats on Friday, March 14, with CD and vinyl editions due later this spring. In addition, the first single from the album, “The Rainy Day We Met,” is now available to stream or download here, and a video trailer for the album, featuring exclusive studio footage, can be viewed on YouTube.
Written in both Korean and English-language versions, the Korean production opened at Seoul’s DaeMyung Culture Factory in December 2016, and subsequently won six Korean Musical Awards, including Best Musical. The English-language version was awarded the 2017 Richard Rodgers Production Award, had its US premiere at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in the 2019-2020, and is now playing an open-ended engagement at the Belasco Theatre.
Mostly Marlene – The latest concert album from Australia-born, Helpmann Award-nominated, and 2022 Bistro Award-winning actor and cabaret artist Kim David Smith, to be released on Apple Music in digital and streaming platforms on Friday, March 21, honors the music associated with the legendary bisexual German-American performer Marlene Dietrich (1901-92), focusing on the her collaborations with Weimar-era composer Friedrich Hollaender, in songs traveling from Weimar Berlin, to Hollywood, through the battlefields of Europe, and beyond. Recorded live at NYC’s Joe’s Pub in February 2024, the 21-track album, containing such iconic selections as “Falling in Love Again,” “The Boys in the Back Room,” and “Just a Gigolo,” features Smith and the concert’s guest vocalists – pop wunderkind Bright Light Bright Light and New York cabaret favorite Sidney Myer – along with bonus studio duets with Tony-nominated playwright and performer Charles Busch, downtown luminary Joey Arias, Australian opera star Ali McGregor, and Smith’s own mother Linda Randall, accompanied by music director Tracy Stark on piano, Matt Podd on accordion, Skip Ward on bass, and David Silliman on drums.
Back at Joe’s Pub, a special NYC concert that night, beginning at 9:30 pm (click here for tickets), will launch the album’s release, and will also celebrate Smith’s self-proclaimed “idolatry practice of queer worship” of mega-muses Liza Minnelli, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, and more, whose styles collide with Dietrich’s in his reimagined repertoire of new musical rearrangements, including an original French translation by Gay Marshall of Minogue’s “Padam Padam” and an all-German rendition of Kander & Ebb’s “Cabaret” (the first single from the recording, for which customers who pre-order the digital album will immediately receive a download). According to Smith, “Releasing this record in 2025 feels akin to an act of protest . . . I invite my audience to celebrate queer existence as resistance.”
