Lucky Stiff Off-Broadway Cast album

Weekend at Bernie's meets musical comedy in Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens' Lucky Stiff. No one is quite what or who they seem to be in this show that is not really a Who done it? but rather at They did What?

This is the first appearance of the song-wrting team of Flaherty and Ahrens in my Year, and I will need to make a point of finding other examples of their work, which includes Seussical, Ragtime, and Once on this Island. Lucky Stiff was their first effort together and, according the brief history of the show presented in the CD booklet, it premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 1988. This recording came out in 1994, though, and seems to be a studio recording made with an amalgam of casts, some from the original 1988 version.

The music is uniformly good. My only beef with the score is that perhaps much of it sounds the same. Since it is mostly upbeat, however, that's an easy sin to forgive. Two songs in particularly struck me and deserve some life outside the show: "Speaking French" is a faux-cabaret number which spoofs the language and the people; "Times like This" has particularly hilarious lyrics and is a nice dog alternative for listeners (like me) who are tired of characters singing about their cats.

The cast on this recording includes some notable performers who have continued to have significant musical theater careers, mostly Jason Graae and Judy Blazer. None in the cast seems a dud, though. Judy Blazer and Mr. Graae both appeared previously in my Year (both in a studio recording of Jerome Kern's Sitting Pretty), and they each seem enjoyable, versatile performers.

Lucky Stiff
Music by Stephen Flaherty
Lyrics and book by Lynn Ahrens
Opened in 1988
Studio cast recording made in 1994
Cast: Judy Blazer, Jason Graae, Debbie Shapiro Gravitte, Paul Kandel, Evan Pappas, Mary Testa