Sweet Bye & Bye: 2011 Studio Cast Recording

Could Sweet Bye and Bye be the greatest theatre score no one's ever heard? It certainly boasts an amazing pedigree: music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by Ogden Nash, a book by S. J. Perelman and Al Hirschfeld. It crashed and burned during it's pre-Broadway tryout in 1946 for various reasons - some conceptual, some creative, some casting-related - but at the end of the day what's left is a glorious collection of songs: restlessly inventive, playful and romantic - perhaps Vernon Duke's finest theatrical achievement. A futuristic farce sending up big business, telecommunications, robotics, space travel, self-help groups and even the traditions of courtship and matrimony, at heart Sweet Bye and Bye is a simple love story with some of the most beautiful ballads Broadway had ever heard. The world premiere recording of this Broadway-musical-that-never-was has been lovingly restored from Duke and Nash's original manuscripts by producer Tommy Krasker and orchestrator Jason Carr. With conductor Eric Stern leading the orchestra, and featuring a cast of Broadway and recording veterans - including Danny Burstein, Philip Chaffin, Jim Stanek, Heidi Blickenstaff, Graham Rowat, Michele Ragusa, Telly Leung, Sara Jean Ford and, in the starring role originated by Dolores Gray, Marin Mazzie - Sweet Bye and Bye is perhaps the ultimate jewel in the crown of PS Classics' forgotten musicals series.