Things I’m excited about at the moment:

– The new Chorus Line cast recording (stay tuned for more on that one), which came out last week.

– Two off-Broadway musicals making their way to Broadway: Spring Awakening and Grey Gardens. The good folks at Broadway.com have posted a world-premiere video from Spring Awakening, a musical by Steven Sater and popster Duncan Sheik (I’m a big fan — interviewed him on his tour bus earlier this year). Watch the video for “The Bitch of Living” here.
This is the first I’ve heard of the score, and it sounds neither like High Fidelity nor Legally Blonde. It sounds like, well, Duncan Sheik, and that’s always good in my books. And the video is actually sort of funny in a Dead Poets Society-meets-‘N Sync -meets-Rock ‘n’ Roll High School sort of way. Very exciting.
On his blog, Sheik says he’s hoping for an early December release for the cast album.

As for Grey Gardens, I’ve only heard the cast album, but Act 2 sounds especially promising, and Christine Ebersole sounds better than ever. If you haven’t seen the documentary that inspired the musical, go rent it right now.

– Audra McDonald’s “Live from Lincoln Center” concert last weekend on PBS. Like an idiot, I missed McDonald’s two-night stand at Bimbo’s in San Francisco. As she did at her SF gig, the luminous McDonald sang songs from her new CD, “Build a Bridge” (read my review here) as well as some musical theater chestnuts. My favorite track from the CD (and her most passionate performance in concert) is Laura Nyro’s “Tom Cat Goodbye.” My only disappointment with the show was that she didn’t sing Rufus Wainwright’s “Damned Ladies.”
Hard to complain too much when you consider the songs she did sing: “It Might As Well Be Spring,” “Hey Buds Below,” “When Did I Fall in Love?” and an “Edelweiss” to melt the hardest of hearts.