Drg
2000
Forbidden Broadway 20th Anniversay Edition
About This Album
Forbidden Broadway, a revue that satirizes Broadway musicals and their stars, began as a five-person cabaret act (four singers and a pianist) in a club on the Upper West Side of New York in January 1982. The brainchild of Gerard Alessandrini, it was an immediate hit, its format allowing for (in fact, demanding) frequent infusions of new material. DRG Records began releasing albums drawn from the successive editions of the show in 1984, with the fifth volume, Forbidden Broadway Cleans Up Its Act, appearing in 1999. This 20th anniversary compilation (released, with typical cheek, 18 and a half years after the show premiered) presents highlights from those five albums, along with eight new tracks. Not surprisingly, the compilers have opted to include bits with long-lasting appeal, if only because the shows they make fun of were still running in 2000, such as The Lion King and Les Miserables. There are also evergreens such as parodies of famous Broadway divas Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Julie Andrews, Carol Channing, and Barbra Streisand. Broadway fans will also recognize the impersonations of Elaine Stritch, Patti Lupone, Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno, and Mandy Patinkin. You might expect that the new material would be about recent shows, but if you did, you would be wrong.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,8,9,10,13,15,16,18,19,20,21,22,23 and 24)

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