Am I getting old and cranky or are show tunes getting crappy?

Probably a little of both, and I should say very quickly that there’s plenty of new show music that is thrilling, moving, funny, etc.

But I’ve been listening to the cast albums for Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein and the against-all-odds hit stage adaptation of Xanadu. And I really dislike them both.

I have friends who have seen both shows on stage. None of them liked Frankenstein very much (”overproduced,” “dull,” “not nearly as much fun as The Producers“), but all of them enjoyed Xanadu because it was able to laugh at itself (and the tickets, unlike Mr. Brooks’ show, weren’t $400).

After listening to the original cast album ($18.98, Decca Broadway), I wouldn’t pay any amount to see the show, even to see my beloved Andrea Martin, who can do no wrong and comes across better than anybody else on the disc.

Brooks’ music and lyrics are pedestrian at best, and he’s stealing from himself. If a musical motif or gag worked in The Producers, then chances are it pops up here in an only slightly different form.

Aside from Martin’s genuinely funny “He Vas My Boyfriend,” the album’s only other real highlight is Sutton Foster’s yodel on “Roll in the Hay.” I’m supremely disappointed in the material given to Megan Mullally, another favorite. Although, mercifully, Mullally’s version of “Alone,” a song cut from the final show, is included and gives her a little something to play with. If you’r a Mullally fan, as I am, I recommend skipping this disc and going straight to her quirky new CD “Free Again” with her band, Supreme Music Program ($ ). The wonky, wonderful disc ranges from “Up a Lazy River” to “Ave Maria.”

I would probably buy a ticket to Xanadu because the terrible Olivia Newton-John movie holds a place in my heart where bad musicals go to rest (right next to Grease 2 and Newsies). I’ve heard wonderful things about Douglas Carter Beane’s hilarious book and Christopher Ashley’s direction — both of which I’m sure are delightful.

But the music on the original cast album ($19.98, P.S. Classics), taken from the movie with more ELO and Olivia Newton-John songs thrown in to beef things up, is not a pleasant listen. It’s not very funny, the campy treatment of the songs makes them almost unlistenable, and Kerry Butler’s mysterious Australian accent (an homage to Newton-John) comes across as harsh, nasal and grating. Mary Testa and Jackie Hoffman, by all accounts the comic livewires of the show, labor to make the funny work on disc, but the laughs — at least for me — were as low as the original Xanadu’s box-office take.

Not wanting to leave this post in a negative place (I’m so California), may I recommend a CD by a group that I was turned on to by a fellow show tune lover: The Puppini Sisters’ “The Rise & Fall of Ruby Woo” (Verbe, $13.98). This is the second disc by the British trio — Marcella Puppini, Stephanie O’Brien and Kate Mullins — and it’s as fantastic as the first. Tight, 1940s girl-group harmonies applied to songs both traditional (”Old Cape Cod,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing”) and nontraditional (”Could It Be Magic,” “Spooky,” “Crazy in Love”). This album is more elaborately orchestrated, which is fun, and the girls sound better than ever. Check it out.

So many fine gift ideas, so little space. Let’s get started with some great theater books.

In the realm of books about theater, this year’s standout comes from San Mateo native Thomas Schumacher, who also happens to be the president of Disney Theatrical, the producer of such hits as The Lion King and Mary Poppins. Schumacher’s How Does the Show Go On? An Introduction to the Theater (Disney Editions, $19.95) is geared toward the young theatergoer (ages 9 to 12), but it’s a hugely entertaining look at the entire theatrical picture, from the beginning of a show to the most intricate details of daily production.

The Bay Area can’t get enough of the musical Jersey Boys. For the most avid fans, there is, of course, a coffee-table book. Jersey Boys: The Story of Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons (Broadway, $40) contains the show’s libretto, lots of photos and a thorough guide to the real Four Seasons and their Broadway counterparts.

You think you know everything about The Sound of Music? Think again. Author Laurence Maslon has assembled the ultimate look behind the scenes of the world’s most beloved movie musical. The Sound of Music Companion (Fireside, $40) covers every aspect of the show, right up to the British reality TV show that allowed viewers to vote on the actress who wound up playing Maria on London’s West End.

The hottest show on Broadway is the multi-Tony Award-winning Spring Awakening. Fans already have memorized the great cast album, so give them Spring Awakening (Theatre Communications Group, $13.95), the libretto (by Steven Sater) and a new adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s original play by novelist Jonathan Franzen (Faber and Faber, $11.70). Franzen hates the musical, by the way, so it’s interesting to see how the play and the musical diverge.

DVDs
This was the year of the movie musical — or maybe I should say the good movie musical. If your gift recipient loves musicals, make sure he or she has Hairspray (New Line Home Entertainment, $34.98 for two-disc version, $28.98 for single-disc), the joyous movie version of the Broadway hit; Once (20th Century Fox, $29.99), a fascinating and musically rich love story about an Irish street musician and an interesting woman he meets by chance; Colma: The Musical (Lionsgate, $27.98), a locally grown musical with catchy tunes and a better-than-average cast of characters. The best of the big-ticket DVD items this year is The Noel Coward Collection ($79.98 BBC/Warner), a veritable treasure trove of Cowardly delights. The set contains seven discs and runs some 19 hours (plus another 12 hours of bonus material that includes interviews, radio plays and more). The plays included are Private Lives (with the delectable Penelope Keith), Hay Fever, Design for Living, Present Laughter, A Song at Twilight, Mr. and Mrs. Edgehill and Tonight at 8:30.

This isn’t a CD, but while we’re on the subject of Coward, this year saw the release of a fantastic volume of Coward’s letters: The Letters of Noel Coward (Knopf, $37.50), edited by Barry Day. The beauty is that the book contains letters both from and to Coward, whose beastly wit entertains in every epistle.

CDs
The fine folks at PS Classics, the show-minded label that, in addition to turning out excellent original-cast albums, allows musical theater performers the chance to show their vocal stuff, have released some terrific new discs just in time for the holidays.

The best of the bunch is Lauren Kennedy’s Here and Now, a marvelous collection of show music and pop. Album highlight is Andrew Lippa’s “Spread a Little Joy,” followed closely by Jason Robert Brown’s “In This Room” and Adam Guettel’s “Through the Mountain” (from Floyd Collins). Kennedy’s voice is so vibrant — at times so Streisandian — it’s irresistible.

PS Classics also is offering two more Broadway divas: Tony Award-winner Victoria Clark (Light in the Piazza) with Fifteen Seconds to Love, a solid collection mixing standards (“Right as the Rain,” “I Got Lost in His Arms”) and newer material (Ricky Ian Gordon’s “The Red Dress,” Jane Kelly Williams’ “Fifteen Seconds of Grace”); and Andrea Burns (soon to be on Broadway again in In the Heights) with A Deeper Shade of Red, a set that mixes Joni Mitchell (“Chelsea Morning”) with Stephen Sondheim (“What More Do I Need?”) and Melissa Manchester (“Through the Eyes of Grace”) with Kate Bush and Rodgers and Hammerstein (“Man with the Child in His Eyes/Something Wonderful”).

PS Classics’ Songwriter Series with the Library of Congress’ latest offering is a doozy: Jonathan Larson: Jonathan Sings Larson. The composer of Rent, who died tragically the night before his show opened, is heard singing demos and performing live, and the disc paints an incredible portrait of an artist full of talent, humor and ambition. The accompanying DVD features four live performances from Larson’s gig at New York’s Village Gate.

During the recent Broadway strike, the AIDS fundraising charity Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS lost an estimated $40,000 a day without its holiday fund appeal, which usually happens during shows’ curtain calls. That makes the group’s annual holiday CD, “Broadway’s Greatest Gifts: Carols for a Cure 9” (Rock-It Science), all the more vital.

Companies from nearly all the Broadway musicals contribute songs for what amounts to a wonderfully entertaining, occasionally inspired two-disc collection.

The best of the bunch is the cast of Spring Awakening singing a stunning “What Child Is This?” And the cast of Mamma Mia! harmonizes beautifully through “My Gift.”

For comedy, there’s the cast members of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (most of whom starred in the San Francisco production) singing an original variation on of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

You can find the CD at the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Web site here, where there are many other fine shopping opportunities, all of which help the group catch up to its fundraising goals.

Here are some suggestions:

The annual Broadway Bares calendar. The 2008 edition is “Myth Behavior.” $20

The annual Broadway Cares T-shirt featuring logos of 24 musicals on Broadway in 2007. $20.

Some interesting show and show-related CDs are popping up just in time for the holidays. In the next few weeks, I’ll be highlighting some of winners and losers.

Judy Kuhn, “Serious Playground: The Songs of Laura Nyro” (Ghostlight Records) — Kuhn was Broadway’s original Cosette in Les Miserables and she just joined the cast of the current revival as Fantine. Though she has a fine Broadway pedigree (Chess), she’s more than capable of singing more than show tunes, as this excellent CD proves. Kuhn appeared in the Nyro revue “Eli’s Comin’,” and her affinity for the early ’70s groove and muscle of Nyro’s songs is apparent.
Jeffrey Klitz’s arrangements and orchestrations don’t try to modernize Nyro’s songs but rather give them a timeless sound that captures pop, blues, and great American balladry all at the same time.

The big hits, for the most part, aren’t here, and that’s OK. Kuhn trains her emotional, often thrilling voice on finding the joy, depression, funk and enigmatic pulse of Nyro’s distinctive songs.

One of the most exciting tracks turns out to be “Stoney End,” which couldn’t be more different from Streisand’s well-known version. Kuhn delivers it almost as a lullaby, backed by a soothing acoustic guitar and cello.

Then a tune such as “California Shoeshine Boys” comes along, with its ebullient horns, to liven things up. But boy can Nyro get dramatic — “Been on a Train” is practically a self-contained musical tragedy.

There’s no denying that Nyro wrote sensual songs. If Carole King was the singer-songwriter you wanted to introduce to your parents, Nyro was the one you wanted to play hooky with down by the river.

Probably the best thing about “Serious Playground” is that the Kuhn-Nyro combination is sexy. There’s heat and spirit here to spare.

Grease, The New Broadway Cast Recording (Masterworks Broadway) — Not the oil slick of the 1994 Broadway revival, this pleasant, not-really-necessary production exists (and is selling tickets) because of the reality show that preceded it: “Grease: You’re the One That I Want” let America (or the 12 regular viewers) vote on who should star as Danny and Sandy. The winners, Max Crumm and Laura Osnes, seem like nice kids, and they sound good if uninspired on this cast album, which is the first cast album to contain the songs written for the movie (“Grease,” “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “You’re the One That I Want”).

Musical director Kimberly Grigsby, who did such spectacular work on Spring Awakening, wisely tries to dull the sheen of these overly shiny songs by attempting a more authentic ’50s sound — spare and percussive — when she can get away with it. More of that might have made this the definitive Grease, but as it is, the new disc won’t supplant the movie soundtrack in most fans’ collections.

Hey, Theater Dogs — it’s time to check in with the hip, the hot, the happening in the world of theater and beoynd. I figure that a common-denominator blog such as this one, where readers (and the writer) gather because they love theater, will also enjoy similar tastes elsewhere, in music, books, TV, movies, etc.

So, from time to time, I’ll share what’s being watched, listened to and otherwise enjoyed in my Dog House, and I’d like for you to do the same. But rather than posting a comment (which you’re still welcome to do), e-mail your hot-list enthusiasms to me directly at cjones@bayareanewsgroup.com, and I’ll post them here in the main column, where they’re more visible and accessible.

So here’s what I’ve been enjoying recently:

TV: “Pushing Daisies,” Wednesdays on ABC, and not just because Broadway vet Kristin Chenoweth is so delightful (and she sang “Hopefully Devoted to You” a couple episodes back, which makes this television’s only musical series after the welcome demise of “Viva Laughlin.” “Pushing Daisies” is a whimsical delight and feels like a weekly dose of the French movie Amelie. And last week’s was another tiny slice of musical heaven with Chenoweth and Ellen Greene singing They Might Be Giants’ “Birdhouse in Your Soul.” Oh, this is good TV.

BOOKS: Hero by Perry Moore (Hyperion, $16.99). They call this a young-adult novel, but boy howdy, young adult novels sure have changed since I was a young adult (but then again, we didn’t have Internet porn then, which is something that comes up in this book, along with some decidedly adult language). This fascinating book is about high schooler Thom Creed, who’s dealing with his single dad, a disgraced super hero, and dealing with his own budding super-hero powers as well as his emerging homosexuality. Moore’s deft novel combines the best of the coming-out novel with the excitement of the geeky super-hero world. This will make a great movie (or heck, great musical). Check out Moore’s Web site here.

MUSIC: Jens Lekman, “Night Falls Over Kortedala” (Secretly Canadian, $14.98). This disc is such a charming surprise I can’t quite get over my delight with each song on this Swedish crooner’s latest. I’m a fan of big orchestrations (must be the show tune genes at work), and Lekman never met an orchestral sample he couldn’t use. His sound, awash in strings, horns and catchy hooks, is somewhere between Burt Bacharach and Belle & Sebastian, but with its own unique charm. Check out the record company’s Web site here, where you can download songs (I recommend all of them, but do “The Opposite of Hallelujah” first

Here’s Lekman live singing “The Opposite of Hallelujah.”

Now it’s your turn.

Howdy, Theater Dogs.

I’ve been on vacation for the last week or so, but I’m back, eager to bring you interesting tidbits of theater news and reviews.

Took a roadtrip up the Oregon coast — took 101 from San Francisco to the beautiful little hamlet known as Rockaway Beach. Breathtakingly beautiful pretty much the entire way. I highly recommend it. At Rockaway, one of the most striking local attractions is called Twin Rocks, and they’re just offshore of a gorgeous expanse of white-sand beach. Here — see for yourself (it’s much prettier in person):

But now to my point. For me, road trip means one thing: a big-time show tune sing-along. I’ll spare you all the gory details (and believe me, if you’re not traveling with the right people or person, show tunes in an enclosed space can be dangerous, so please, exercise caution), but I will tell you that there were two big hits on the California-to-Oregon playlist: the cast album of Legally Blonde, the Musical and the soundtrack recording of Hairspray.

Legally Blonde, the Broadway musical version of the hit movie that had its pre-Broadway tryout in San Francisco, makes for a fun listen. People who saw the show here can give a listen to the new songs (”Positive”) and all the changes made to the versions we heard (most notably, Orfeh gets a big Broadway finish on the “Ireland” reprise). Bouncy and happy, the score is light and enjoyable, but I will say it suffers some in translation to disc. It seems sillier on disc than it does on stage, and Laura Bell Bundy as Elle, so chipper and bright onstage, doesn’t have a great voice. And some of the songs (”There! Right There!” and “Chip on My Shoulder” are good for a listen or two but are definitely not worth the space they take up on the ol’ MP3 player. Some enjoyable tunes — “What You Want,” for instance — are fun onstage, but they go on forever on disc. But if you have affection for the show, as I do, the cast album is a must.

The most enjoyable album of the summer belongs to the most enjoyable movie of the summer, which also happens to be the most enjoyable movie musical to come out since…I guess Chicago, but Hairspray is an awful lot more fun because it’s not remotely cynical.

With this soundtrack, composer Marc Shaiman (a pop-show tune genius), who co-wrote the score with the equally brilliant Scott Wittman, indulges his every fantasy to beef up the orchestrations with strings, horns and even more good humor. A song I don’t like much from the Broadway original, “Miss Baltimore Crabs,” is turned into a true event thanks to Shaiman’s witty arrangement and Michelle Pfeiffer’s fabulously pinched performance. The same is true of the title song, which is pretty forgettable, but Shaiman beefs it up, and James Marsden’s surprisingly delightful performance makes it a winner (check out his little Michael Buble moment toward the end).

As for the great songs — “Good Morning, Baltimore,” “Welcome to the ’60s,” “I Know Where I’ve Been,” “I Can Hear the Bells,” “Run and Tell That,” “Without Love” and “You Can’t Stop the Beat” — they’re better and brighter than ever. And I must say, I’m quite fond of the new songs “Ladies’ Choice,” sung by Zac Efron, and the end titles song, “Come So Far, Got So Far To Go,” sung by most of the cast. I don’t quite get the other end titles song, “Cooties,” but hey, it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.

Shaiman and company have outdone themselves on this album, which I’m playing repeatedly. Sorry, Spring Awakening, but Hairspray the movie is my new favorite thing (so sue me, I’m fickle).

Every year around the Fourth of July, I like to celebrate something entirely American: the musical.

I’m a little late this year, but it’s my patriotic duty. So here, better late than never, are some show tune suggestions to get you through the summer.

Of course the original cast album of the moment is Spring Awakening (Decca Broadway). The Duncan Sheik-Steven Sater score, performed by the most appealing cast on Broadway, calls out for frequent spins and rewards careful listening.

Almost as appealing, but in an entirely different way, is Curtains (Broadway Angel), the John Kander and Fred Ebb (with help from Rupert Holmes) show that has turned into a reliable hit on Broadway. The score by Kander and the late Ebb is pure, old-fashioned Broadway, with a few of the duo’s famed vamps thrown in for good measure.

The emotional highlight is Jason Danieley’s “I Miss the Music,” which is, in some ways, Kander’s musical memorial to his late writing partner.

Stars David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk are completely charming, and the disc is highly enjoyable — a classic show music experience. And for theater fans, there are abundant inside jokes (especially on Monk’s “It’s a Business) and a new theater anthem, a la “There’s No Business Like Show Business” in the rousing “Show People.”

The CD from the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of 110 in the Shade (PS Classics) is worth owning for one reason: Audra McDonald. She elevates this 1964 Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones score to fine art. Just listen to her extraordinary performance — both acting and singing — on “Love, Don’t Turn Away,” “Raunchy” and “Old Maid.”

An unusal occurrence in this day and age, Grey Gardens received cast albums for both its off-Broadway and Broadway incarnations. The Broadway album (distinguished by the green cover with star Christine Ebersole wearing a hat and peering around a hand mirror) from PS Classics is the one to own. It’s a more polished version of the score, and the performances (especially from Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson, both Tony winners for this show) are even richer. It’s sad that the musical is closing so soon after winning Tonys, but at least the performances are preserved here.

I’ve reviewed the revival CD of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company in this space before, but I have to amend that review. After seeing the show, I fell in love with the CD, especially the performance by Raul Esparza, which I had disparaged after just listening to the disc.

Esparza was amazing onstage, and the disc from Nonesuch/PS Classics captures every bit of warmth and flawed humanity he displays in person.

Finally, we have a disc from one of the season’s major flops. High Fidelity (Ghostlight Records) never should have been a musical, and this disc demonstrates exactly why. Nick Hornby’s story about popular music snobs who work in a record store is full of very strong opinions about what makes music good and what makes it suck. The kind of music delivered here by composer Tom Kitt is exactly the kind of music that the story’s characters would make fun of. Amanda Green’s lyrics are actually pretty clever, but they’re mired in mild-to-murky pop that obscures their charms.

Two more discs to check out: Broadway Scene Stealers: The Women and Broadway Scene Stealers: The Men, both from Playbill Records and Masterworks Broadway. Hardcore show tune enthusiasts will already have most of the cuts on these discs, but they’re excellent surveys of musical theater and don’t have all the usual suspects (for instance, there’s no Andrew Lloyd Webber), and all the cuts are from original cast albums originally released on Columbia or RCA (a benefit of the Sony/BMG merger).

Now here’s an original cast album that will be near and dear to many a Bay Area theater-loving heart: Martin Short’s Fame Becomes Me.

Last year, under the auspices of Best of Broadway and SHN, Canadian comic Short and his intrepid crew unveiled a Broadway-bound musical at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre that was messy but fun.

The idea was that Short is performing a one-man autobiographical show. But in truth, Short’s life has been pretty sweet and happy, so he made up a bunch of stuff (family dysfunction, drug addiction, death by giant snowball) and hired some really terrific supporting players to fuel his lies.

The focus was more on Short and his slapstick-happy antics (with guest appearances by his characters Ed Grimley and Jiminy Glick) than it was on show tunes. But writers Marc Shaiman (music) and Scott Wittman (lyrics) came up with some lively songs that live on in a new recording from Ghostlight Records.

What’s interesting for those of us who saw the show in San Francisco is how different the score was on Broadway. In the three months it took for Fame to go from the Bay Area to New York, the score shaped up quite nicely. For instance, the opening number we saw, “Party with Marty,” is replaced with the much tighter “Another Curtain Goes Up.”

Mary Birdsong’s extraordinarily good Judy Garland imitation is put to great use on “The Salesman That Got Away” (called “The Farmer’s Daughter” here), and there’s a spiffy “welcome to Broadway” number called “Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba Broadway” that we didn’t see here.

Short’s courtship with his wife (played by “MadTV’s” marvelous Nicole Parker) is given a Sondheim spin in “Backstage Courtship” and “Married to Marty.”

The deathly snowball is gone, replaced by a lightning bolt. But some of the best stuff we saw _ the Hair spoof, Stepbrother de Jesus, Parker’s Britney Spears imitation and Capthia Jenkins’ aptly named “A Big Black Lady Stops the Show” _ is still here.

Funny lines (there’s a generous amount of dialogue included) and lyrics abound. I think my favorite is Jiminy Glick visiting a near-death Short in the hospital and singing: “We’ll visit Cher up in the plastic surgery ward. We’ll gather all the skin she left and make a little man.”

In San Francisco, Jenkins sang “Frieda May’s Lament,” but that song was gone by the time the show reached New York. Luckily for us, Jenkins’ vibrant performance is preserved as a bonus track.

The recording of Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me hits shelves of both the solid and digital variety April 10. For more, visit www.ghostlightrecords.com or www.martinshortthemusical.com. There are rumors that the show will tour later this year.

Here’s Marty introducing Capathia Jenkins and her big number, “Let a Big Black Lady Stop the Show” at last year’s Broadway on Broadway in Times Square.

In honor of this week’s vernal equinox, I want to sing the praises of my latest musical theater obsession: Spring Awakening.

Having been a Duncan Sheik (below, left) fan from the moment I listened to his first album (1997’s Duncan Sheik), I was anticipating greatness when I heard that Sheik and his frequent songwriting partner, Steven Sater(below, right), were working on a musical. I liked what the two had done with Sater’s Nero (Another Golden Rome) at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre last year, but that was really more of a play with music than a full-on musical.

When Spring Awakening opened last summer at the Atlantic Theatre Company in New York, I was thrilled by the positive buzz but unsure that any new musical of quality, especially a brainy one based on a late-19th-century drama by Franz Wedekind, would surely be a commercial disaster.

I’m so happy I was wrong. Spring Awakening triumphed at the Atlantic and moved to Broadway in December, and, perhaps best of all, the cast recording was released on Decca Broadway.

Here’s a clip of the Broadway cast singing “Touch Me” from last month on “The View” (Rosie O’Donnell is a HUGE fan of the show).

The album is a Duncan Sheik/show tune fan’s dream. Sheik’s inimitable sound infuses almost every track, but the voices of the young cast (they’re all 20 or younger) are stunning. Some of the male voices even sound like Sheik from time to time, and the opportunity to hear the “Sheik” sound sung by women is heavenly.

I read the Wedekind play to get a better idea of what I was listening to and was surprised just how out there this 1891 play really is with its frank depiction of represeed German teenagers exploring sex and their bodies and being punished for it. In the play we get suicide, abortion, child abuse and even a little homosexuality. Frankly, after reading the play, I still wasn’t sure how the decidedly pop-rock music worked in the show.

Then I saw a bootleg DVD of Spring Awakening, filmed by a ballsy audience member when the show was still at the Atlantic (I know, I know, bootlegs are wrong, but sometimes you just can’t get to New York). Suddenly I got it. The songs are the contemporary link to all the angst and passion of the century-old story. Sater’s adaption of the play is pretty faithful to Wedekind (mercifully streamlined), and the songs (Sater’s lyrics, Sheik’s music) are happening now, and comment on the play and on the characters’ inner thoughts and feelings.

The CD, as brilliant as it is, doesn’t convey nearly the level of energy on stage, which is heightened enormously by Bill T. Jones’ choreography and the performances by the tremendously appealing cast. But the CD is fantastic (beautifully produced by Sheik), and it’s a step forward for the “rock” musical because it’s not trying too hard. It rocks when it needs to and gets introverted and intimate when it needs to. The score is passionate and painful and moving. Tony Awards, please, for Sheik and Sater. Best of all, the music sounds like something teenagers might actually listent to without pandering to trendy tastes or apologizing for being show music.

I’m going to see Spring Awakening in April. I just hope the real thing is as good as the version in my head. I’m guessing it will be.

Here’s the cast in a video for “The Bitch of Living.”

Visit the official Spring Awakening Web site here.

There’s a whole realm of local show business we don’t get to see unless our company throws a big shindig and hires an entertainment provider like Clark Sterling’s Sterling Performances.

For the last 15 years, Sterling — a veteran of Les Miserables and numerous other shows — has been working with a stable of local performers to provide show tune pizzazz to corporate events, concerts and special occasions.

The only problem with finding success in this corporate realm is that too often theater enthusiasts aren’t able to enjoy the fruits of Oakland-based Sterling’s labors.

Being the generous man he is, Sterling has produced a new CD, “Sterling Ovations: The Best of Broadway with Clark Sterling & Company.”

“I decided it was time to share these terrific vocalists, musicians and songs with a broader audience,” Sterling says.

The CD, which is available at Amazon.com, features Sterling along with Danielle Bixby, Jesse Bradman, Elizabeth Ann Campisi, Susan Himes-Powers, Michelle Jordan, Jonathan Poretz, Stephanie Rhoads and Michael Taylor.

Musical directors Cesar Cancino and Ross Gualco venture just far enough away from the tried-and-true Broadway arrangements to make even chestnuts like “Ya Got Trouble” and “All That Jazz” fresh.

This is a great showcase for some truly wonderful local talent and is Sterling’s best CD yet.

For information visit www.sterlingperformances.com.

The next best thing to seeing a Broadway musical is listening to the cast album.

To these ears, nothing will ever supplant 1970’s original cast recording of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company as the definitive take on Sondheim’s brash, bitter, brilliant songs.

Well, there’s a new, mostly well-received Company on Broadway right now, and it has been Doyled, which is to say director John Doyle has done what is fast becoming his usual trick: there’s no orchestra per se. All the actors play their own instruments, which makes for an intriguing CD experience: we’re hearing the show, but missing it at the same time.

The new cast recording from Nonesuch/PS Classics gives us much more dialogue, so we get a real sense of just how icy and sharp this show really is. The dialogue interruptions can mar a song like “Another Hundred People,” but the talky chunks can also serve as a great bridge, as between “The Ladies Who Lunch” and the finale, “Being Alive.”

Raul Esparza, who stars as birthday boy Bobby, gives a full-throttle performance (especially on “Mary Me a Little,” cut from the original show but now restored), but he strains his way through some of the material like “Someone Is Waiting.”

The new orchestrations (by Mary-Mitchell Campbell) focus more attention on Sondheim’s incisive, often funny lyrics, which is a good thing. But no matter how much I enjoy the new recording, I find myself longing for the groovy ’70s vibe of the original.