The Original Cast Album - A Blessing or a Curse?

We all seem to reach for the latest cast album or cast recording before we launch into the rehearsal period. Choreographers do it, directors do and the cast certainly do it. But why do we think we need to reproduce someone else's work in every respect? Should we not try and be a little creative ourselves?

[@JoshToth]

The "who cares?" at 9:58 got an audible laugh from me because I think I know what post you're talking about 😂

[@shaunblake2215]

7:49 I wish my society did this better, I did a production of West Side Story some years ago and a committee member gave the choreographer a CD of a cast recording to work with. The problem is THIS particular recording had cut a small section of "Dance at the Gym". However she set the dance to this anyway, and didn't realise this until a rehearsal where the MD attended to play live piano for us (he was usually away in another room working with other soloists while the choreographer set dances in the early rehearsal days). It led to a somewhat heated discussion, leading to her "begging" the MD to cut the section in what he'd be playing and adjust the band copies of the score to accomodate what she had choreographed because she didn't want to do it all over again. He did accomodate her request but as someone who really likes the score for WSS, and as someone who was listening to a recording which DID have the missing section, I was disappointed the choreographer got her way. If only that committee member had actually checked it before handing a load of disks out.......

[@MusicDirectorOnline]

Hi Shaun. Experienced exactly the same around 30 years ago...and guess what...the musical was also WSS :)

[@shaunblake2215]

@Music Director Online i guess this is what happens when Cast Recordings cut sections of the music out in the middle of the song. We had a similar problem with Beauty and The Beast 2 years later as well with Be Our Guest as our score was longer than the version on the Broadway Album, but the West End album had the full version.
I guess they did this to ensure there was enough space on the CD. I'm hoping in the age of streaming on Spotify, Amazon and TH-cam etc this problem should occur less frequently for newer musicals and updated cast recordings