By Robert Simonson
25 Apr 2005

DRG Records will preserve the score of Broadway's new Sweet Charity on a cast album May 9, president Hugh Fordin told Playbill.com. The disc will be released in stores June 24.

Playbill.com first reported on March 29 DRG's plans to record the musical. Fans of the Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields score can almost surely expect the disc won't sound like any other recording of the 1966 songs. Director Walter Bobbie and company have been working on changes in the Neil Simon script and Coleman-Fields score, with some songs cut, others added. The score's standouts are "Where Am I Going?," "If My Friends Could See Me Now," "Big Spender" and "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This."

Changes were being made throughout previews out of town, and it won't be known until the May 4 Broadway opening what the score will include. For example, "I Love to Cry at Weddings" was not part of the show early in the tryout, which played Minneapolis, Chicago and Boston. The show's signature songs remain intact.

Applegate ahs recovered from a broken foot suffered March 11 and performed for the first time in the Broadway staging on April 18. The show will open the show May 4 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre.

The score of Sweet Charity has been recorded three times in the U.S. — for the original cast album with Gwen Verdon in 1966, the soundtrack recording with Shirley MacLaine and the 1987 Broadway revival with Debbie Allen. Each disc offered different versions of the score, with changes in each successive incarnation.