Adding Machine: The Musical composer Joshua Schmidt and lyricist Jan Tranen authored the intimate, chamber musical based on the 1898 version of George Bernard Shaw's Candida, which premiered Off-Broadway this spring. It has a book by Tony-nominated actor and director Austin Pendleton.
PS Classics announced that A Minister's Wife is available for pre-order via their website at the discounted cost of $9.95 through the Aug. 30 release date. Label co-founder Krasker told Playbill.com that theatre fans who already pre-ordered the album will receive the discounted rate. Sound clips of the score are currently on the PS Classics site.
"We recognize that these are tough financial times," Krasker told Playbill.com. "Our customers write us and tell us they wish they were able to purchase all our CDs, but they have to draw the line somewhere. And frequently, they buy the Broadway cast albums but have to pass on the Off-Broadway ones. A Minister’s Wife is an astonishing score by an acclaimed new composer, and we want to give our customers every opportunity to hear it. Our mission is to share great music; if we fail at that, we fail, period."
The CD comes with a 28-page full-color booklet complete with synopsis, lyrics, production photos and an essay by John Guare.
The track listing for A Minister's Wife follows: 1. A Fine October Morning
2. Sermon
3. "The Hoxton Freedom Group..."
4. Candida's Coming Home
5. Enchantment
6. In Response
7. "Stagger me, my boy..."
The First Preaching Match:
8. The Love of a Fool
9. Kingdom of Heaven
10. Is It Like This for Her Here Always?
11. Shy, Shy, Shy
12. Isn’t He Foolish?
13. Shallops and Scrubbing Brushes
14. Off to the Guild of St. Matthew
15. At the Gate of Heaven
16. Candida, Candida!
17. "The man Candida married..." 18. The Second Preaching Match
19. Champagne
20. "I am to choose, am I?..."
21. The Bids for Candida
22. Spoiled from the Cradle
23. Into the Night
A Minister's Wife debuted at the Writer's Theatre in Glencoe, IL, in May 2009. Writer's Theatre artistic director Michael Halberstam, who conceived the production and staged the premiere, directed the Lincoln Center Theater production, which ran April 7-June 12 in the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.
Tony-nominated actors Steggert (Ragtime, The Grand Manner), Kudisch (9 to 5, The Apple Tree) and Jeff Award-winning Chicago actress Fry (Oh Coward!), make up the love triangle central to Shaw's tale of a wife asked to choose between her tight-laced husband and a handsome young poet. Completing the cast are Liz Baltes and Drew Gehling. Fry and Baltes both appeared in the 2009 premiere of the musical.
The musical, according to Lincoln Center Theater, "explores the fires burning beneath the surface of a seemingly ordinary marriage. The Revered James Morell (Kudisch) and his wife, Candida (Fry), are happily married – or at least they think – until a romantic young poet (Steggert) enters their life."
Founded in 2000 by Tommy Krasker & Philip Chaffin, and a six-time Grammy nominee (for its cast albums of Assassins, Nine: The Musical, Grey Gardens, Company, A Little Night Music and Sondheim on Sondheim), PS Classics celebrates the heritage of Broadway and American popular song through its award-winning cast recordings; solo albums by Kate Baldwin, Maureen McGovern, Victoria Clark, Jessica Molaskey and Christine Andreas and others; and recordings drawn from rare sound archives, including "Sondheim Sings."
Recent releases include Jason Robert Brown and Marsha Norman's "novel symphony for actors and orchestra" The Trumpet of the Swan, the 1930 version of George and Ira Gershwin's Strike Up the Band and albums by Kate Baldwin and Liz & Ann Hampton Callaway.
Visit the label's website, PSClassics.com.
