My Year in Show Music

Every recording—which I’ve listened to in its entirety; the only criterion for making it onto this list—is linked to its own page on castalbums.org (a site I highly recommend for serious collectors of theatre music).

An asterisk indicates a first-time listen.

1/3 – Mame [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/4 – A Little Night Music [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/5 – Candide [1974 Broadway Revival Cast Recording]
1/8 – Out of This World [Encores! Cast Recording]
1/9 – Kiss Me, Kate [The New Broadway Cast Recording]
1/14 – Harmony Close [Original London Cast Recording]
1/16 – Hello, Dolly! [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/22 – Kimberly Akimbo [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/28 – Once Upon a Mattress [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/30 – Oklahoma! [World Premiere Complete Recording]
1/30 – Seventh Heaven [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/30 – Mr. Wonderful [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/30 – West Side Story [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/30 – Bye Bye Birdie [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/31 – Bye Bye Birdie [Original London Cast Recording]
1/31 – Bajour [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/31 – Sweet Charity [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
1/31 – Chicago [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/31 – Bring Back Birdie [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
1/31 – Kiss of the Spider Woman [Original Cast Recording]
2/1 – Nine [The New Broadway Cast Recording]
2/1 – The Visit [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
2/9 – Boulevard! [Concept Cast Recording]*
2/16 – The Crystal Heart [Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording]*
2/18 – The Sound of Music [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
2/20 – Betty Buckley: New Ways to Dream
2/26 – Jelly’s Last Jam [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
2/29 – The Pirates of Penzance [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
3/1 – Sweeney Todd [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
3/6 – Over Here! [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
3/26 – Funny Girl [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
4/7 – High Spirits [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
4/7 – South Pacific [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
5/2 – Sunday in the Park with George [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
5/7 – Kimberly Akimbo [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
5/9 – Passion [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
5/17 – Here We Are [Original Cast Recording]*
6/4 – My Favorite Things: The Rodgers & Hammerstein 80th Anniversary Concert*
8/25 – Mame [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
8/29 – Kimberly Akimbo [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
9/13 – Carousel [World Premiere Complete Recording]*
9/18 – Stereophonic [Original Cast Recording]*
9/27 – New Faces of ’56 [Original Broadway Cast Recording]*
10/6 – Mack & Mabel [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
10/7 – Aaron Lazar: Impossible Dream*
10/14 – Paint Your Wagon [Encores! Cast Recording]
10/15 – Suffs [Original Broadway Cast Recording]*
10/17 – South Pacific [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
10/18 – The Black Mikado [Original London Cast Recording]*
10/20 – Peter Pan [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
10/21 – My Fair Lady [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]
10/24 – Sunset Boulevard [2023 London Cast Recording]*
10/29 – Jason Robert Brown and Stephen Sondheim: Live in Concert*
11/5 – Porgy and Bess [Houston Grand Opera Cast Recording]
11/5 – The Sound of Music [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – Super Deluxe Edition]
11/11 – Ragtime [Concept Cast Recording]
11/14 – Mame [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
11/16 – The Sound of Music [Original Broadway Cast Recording
11/18 – Kiss Me, Kate [The New Broadway Cast Recording]
11/22 – Gypsy [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
11/28 – Hadestown [Original Broadway Cast Recording]*
12/5 – Ernest in Love [Original Cast Recording]
12/6 – Hadestown [Original West End Cast Recording]*
12/8 – Valmouth [Original London Cast Recording]*
12/10 – South Pacific [The New Broadway Cast Recording]
12/15 – I Had a Ball [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
12/24 – She Loves Me [Original Broadway Cast Recording]
12/31 – Bye Bye Birdie [Original Broadway Cast Recording]

The Year of Living Cinematically

The only rule: each entry was watched in its entirety. All films that I saw for the first time are marked with an asterisk.

*Design for Living (1933) 1/3
*The Devils (1971) 1/6
*Oliver Twist (1948) 1/11
*The Holdovers (2023) 1/11
*Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) 1/15
*The Late Show (1977) 1/30
*Baraka (1992) 2/3
*Mikey and Nicky (1976) 2/6
*Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) 2/10
*Ishtar (1987) 2/20
*The Pirate (1948) 2/29
*Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022) 3/4
*Oppenheimer (2023) 3/8
Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994) 3/23
Hello, Dolly! (1969) 3/25
The Strawberry Blonde (1941) 4/1
*Sayonara (1957) 4/11
*The Trial (1962) 5/5
*The Unknown (1927) 5/27
Kindergarten Cop (1990) 6/21
*After Hours (1985) 7/2
Twister (1996) 7/17
*Twisters (2024) 7/18
His Girl Friday (1940) 7/22
*Touch of Evil (1958) 7/31
Airport (1970) 8/4
*The Other Side of the Wind (2018) 8/17
*The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) 8/19
Punch-Drunk Love (2002) 8/21
Never on Sunday (1960) 8/21
Margie (1946) 8/24
*Risky Business (1983) 9/6
The Sound of Music (1965) 9/13
Carousel (1956) 9/15
*Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) 10/7
*Superstar (1999) 10/12
Paint Your Wagon (1969) 10/13
*Merchant Ivory (2023) 10/16
Murder By Death (1976) 11/15
Starman (1984) 11/18
*Wicked (2024) 12/1
*Conclave (2024) 12/13
Christmas Vacation (1989) 12/25
The Bishop’s Wife (1947) 12/28