Search - Cincinnati University Singers, Earl Rivers, Cincinnati University Theater Orchestra :: I Wants To Be A Actor Lady And Other Hits From Early Musical Comedies

A magnificent historical recreation

F. Behrens | Keene, NH USA | 06/27/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For lovers of the Broadway musical, this is a find indeed! Here are several entirely authentic recreations of songs from long forgotten shows played and sung the way they were meant to be. Where else can you hear selections from the legendary "The Black Crook"--the show that set the standards for the Broadway music for decades to come? Or from "Robin Hood" or "A Trip to Chinatown" (from which the evergreen "The Bowery" comes). Or to hear Jerome Kern's first big hit "How'd you like to spoon with me"? And so and so on. Some of the songs are wonderfully terrible, especially the one called "Buckets of Blood" that tries so hard to imitate "The Pirates of Penzance." And thanks to New World for including an example of the racist songs so common back then, the "Bully" song. (Try the New World "Don't Give the Name a Bad Place" for an entire program of this genre.) The head of publicity a New World tells me this has always been a best seller with them and I am amazed to be the first person to review it on this website. Very little of this material is available in its authentic setting anywhere else, as far as I know; so if there was ever a "Grabbit," this is it!"