Eschewing major record labels, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' lead producer Marty Bell told Playbill.com the cast album will be produced by the show's producers and other investors. Dirty Rotten Records will produce and release the disc, in association with Ghostlight Records and its president, Kurt Deutsch, Bell confirmed March 10.
"The best experience I ever had with an album was doing our own for The Last Five Years with Kurt Deutsch," Bell told Playbill.com.
Producing the disc on his own allows Bell and his partners to control the album and aggressively use it as a marketing tool for the show. He said he expected to announce exciting plans for the disc to find its way into the hands of musical theatregoers. As with great musicals of the past, "the songs sell the show," Bell said, and he wants the songs out in the world.
Details about a release date for the disc will be announced in the coming weeks.
* Deutsch runs Ghostlight Records, a spinoff of Sh-K-Boom Records. Deutsch is married to Dirty Rotten's leading lady, Sherie Rene Scott.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz as the title characters, opened March 3 at the Imperial Theatre. Joanna Gleason, Greg Jbara and Sara Gettelfinger are among the principals.
The show, based on the film of the same name, has a libretto by Jeffrey Lane and reunites Full Monty and Hairspray pals Jack O'Brien (director) and Jerry Mitchell (choreographer). Yazbek is the composer of The Full Monty. His Dirty Rotten Scoundrels covers a lot of musical territory, including nods to Henry Mancini and Noel Coward and use of tangos and funk.
Visit www.dirtyrottenscoundrelsthemusical.com.
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Expected from Ghostlight and Sh-K-Boom in 2005 are the Broadway cast album of Little Women (on Ghostlight), the concert recording of Hair (on Ghostlight) and the studio cast album of the revised pop musical Bright Lights, Big City (on Sh-K-Boom).
A special Sh-K-Boom limited-edition web release of the new Billy Porter album, "At the Corner of Broadway and Soul," coincides with his run of Ghetto Superstar at Joe's Pub in New York.
The disc will be in stores come summer, but the new "Broadway and Soul" album — made up of songs by hot contemporary theatre writers (Jason Robert Brown, Stephen Sondheim, Adam Guettel, Jeanine Tesori), R&B writers and Porter himself — is first available at www.sh-k-boom.com and at Joe's Pub.
