Ghostlight Records and The Civilians will release premiere recordings of nine musicals written by the late composer and lyricist Michael Friedman, who passed away in 2017. The first three albums—The Great Immensity, The Abominables, and This Beautiful City—will be available for streaming and digital purchase October 18.
Get an exclusive first listen to "The Next Forever" from The Great Immensity below.
The Great Immensity, a thriller about climate change, was originally produced by The Public Theater and Kansas City Rep. The cast for the recording features Cindy Cheung, John Ellison Conlee, Dan Domingues, Trey Lyford, Erin Wilhelmi, Ally Bonino, Erica Dorfler, and Billy Hepfinger.
This Beautiful City was co-written with Jim Lewis from interviews conducted by the work's original company—Emily Ackerman, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Brad Heberlee, and Stephen Plunkett—and explores the Evangelical movement in Colorado Springs amidst the marriage equality movement. The album's cast features Ackerman, Blake, Geberlee, Plunkett, Conor Ryan, Alison Weller, Bonino, Ben Moss, Sabina Petra, and Stephen Schapero.
The Abominables is a satirical look at the world of suburban youth hockey that played Minneapolis' Children's Theater Company in 2017. The album's cast features John Behlmann, Audrey Bennett, Gerard Canonico, Daniel Jenkins, Mia Jenness, Alyse Alan Louis, Zell Murrow, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Brian Charles Rooney, Johnny Shea, Randy Blair, Jiho Kang, Petra, Sarah Beth Pfeifer, Curtis Reynolds, Sharone Sayegh, and Schapero.
All three albums are produced by Cosson and Ghostlight Records founder Kurt Deutsch. The Great Immensity is co-produced by Ian Kagey, Wiley DeWeese, Andrea Grody, Amy C. Ashton, and Greg Brunswick, with Grody serving as music director. The Abominables is co-producer by Kagey, DeWeese, Ashton, and Brunswick, with DeWeese serving as music director. This Beautiful City is co-produced by Kagey, DeWeese, Dan Lipton, Ashton, and Brunshwick, with Lipton music directing.Friedman is best known as the co-creator of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which premiered at The Public Theater before transferring to Broadway in 2010. Other musicals include Fortress of Solitude, Unknown Soldier (soon to play Playwrights Horizons), and Love's Labour's Lost. Friedman was a founding associate artist of The Civilians theatre company, working on such shows as Gone Missing, In the Footprint, The Great Immensity, Paris Commune, (I Am) Nobody's Lunch, The Abominables, and This Beautiful City.
