Kudisch and Co. Sing on The Thing About Men Original Cast Album, Released April 6

By Ernio Hernandez
April 6, 2004

The original cast album of the recent Off-Broadway musical The Thing About Men will hit stores, April 6.

DRG Records recorded the show penned by Joe DiPietro and Jimmy Roberts and featuring Marc Kudisch, Ron Bohmer, Leah Hocking, Daniel Reichard and Jennifer Simard.

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change creators Roberts and DiPietro unveiled their newest work, The Thing About Men, at Off-Broadway's Promenade Theatre, Aug. 27, 2003 after previews beginning Aug. 6. The show closed Feb. 15, 2004.

Mark Clements (Speaking in Tongues) directed the production with musical staging by Tony Award-winner Rob Ashford (Thoroughly Modern Millie).

Kudisch left the production Feb. 8, 2004, to begin rehearsals for the Broadway revival of Assassins. Understudy Graham Rowat (Broadway's Beauty and the Beast) played the final week of the run.

Billed "a musical comedy affair," The Thing About Men features music by Roberts with book and lyrics by DiPietro. The show — once simply called Men — is based on the German filmmaker Doris Dörrie's 1985 movie "Männer" (Men). The plot finds a middle-aged ad exec (Kudisch) who moves out after discovering his wife (Hocking) is cheating on him. The spurned man then takes up residence with an artist (Bohmer) — who is "the other man." The interactions between the love triangle are accented by a male and female narrator-like duo (Reichard and Simard), who also play all the show's other eclectic and eccentric characters.

The songlist for The Thing About Men cast album is as follows:

1. Opening/Oh, What A Man!
2. No Competition For Me
3. Opportunity Knocking
4. Free, Easy Guy
5. Free, Easy Guy (Reprise)
6. Take Me Into You
7. Because
8. The Confession
9. The Greatest Friend
10. Downtown Bohemian Slum
11. You WIll Never Get Into This Restaurant
12. Me, Too/One-Woman Man
13. Take Me Into You (Reprise)
14. Highway Of Your Heart
15. The Better Man Won
16. Too Road To Lucy
17. Make Me A Promise, Thomas
18. New, Beautiful Man
19. Time To Go Home
20. Finale/You Can Have It All

The stock and amateur stage rights to the show are now represented by The Rodgers & Hammerstein Theatre Library — as is the songwriter's other show I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.

The Thing About Men played at the Promenade, 2162 Broadway (at 76th Street). For more information, visit www.thethingaboutmen.com.