“What Ms. McDonald makes of Lizzie Curry is a dazzling case for the musical as a dramatic form that plumbs hearts and minds. Ravishing of voice and Olympian of starture, she's an overwhelming presence.” –The New York Times
“The score aches, shimmers, transcends.” –LA Times
“This production has it all, and the CD does it the kind of justice only the very best recordings can.... It emerges as one of those rare discs that repeated rehearings can only, inexhaustibly, enhance.” –Broadway.com
“The kind of cast recording that makes you proud to be a fan of musical theater and of cast recordings. It is a sonically splendid capturing of a musically marvelous, lyrical score telling a warmly human story of decent people.” –Potomac Stages
110 in the Shade New Broadway Cast Recording Audra McDonald and John Cullum
Four-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald triumphantly returns to Broadway in the role she was born to play: Lizzie Curry in 110 IN THE SHADE, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s heartrending musical adaptation of N. Richard Nash's classic play The Rainmaker.
Amidst a heat wave in 1930s Texas, Lizzie – despite her wit, intelligence and homemaking skills – is on the verge of becoming an old maid, until a charismatic rainmaker named Starbuck enters town and her world is shaken. 110 IN THE SHADE originally premiered in 1963 – Jones and Schmidt’s first Broadway musical following their unprecedented off-Broadway triumph with The Fantasticks. Joining McDonald for this Roundabout Theatre Company revival are two-time Tony Award-winner John Cullum and, fresh from Spamalot, Steve Kazee as Starbuck.
PS Classics and the Roundabout previously collaborated on Grammy-nominated and top-selling recordings of Nine: The Musical and Assassins; this CD is another definitive Broadway cast album, this time headed by one of Broadway's brightest crown jewels.
