(AGENPARL) - Roma, 5 Maggio 2025 - (AGENPARL) – Mon 05 May 2025 A blue text on a white background
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MAY 5, 2025
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MYSTIC PIZZA
Will Record a Concept Album
This Month
(New York, NY) Lively McCabe Entertainment, the global theatrical production and management company, announced the concept recording of the new musical Mystic Pizza today. The album, from Joy Machine Records, will be produced by the show’s Grammy-nominated arranger and orchestrator, Carmel Dean, Brian Usifer for Joy Machine Records, and Michael Barra for Lively McCabe Entertainment. The recording is set for May 2025 with a release date to be announced.
Critics praise Mystic Pizza as “a bona fide blast” and “dance-in-the-aisles fun” (NJ.com). TheaterMania raves this “delicious adaptation of the beloved rom-com dances right off the stage and into your heart” and “delights with a zesty ‘80s score and a stellar cast.”
The album will feature Krystina Alabado, Alaina Anderson, Chachi Delgado, Ben Fankhauser, Jennifer Fouché, Mia Gerachis, Deánna Giulietti, F. Michael Haynie, James Hindman, Michael James, April Josephine, Vincent Michael, Adriana Negron, Louis Pardo, Alyssa M. Simmons, Jake Swain, Zephaniah Wages, Rachel Kae Wirtz, and music direction by Kristin Stowell.
Based on the 1988 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion picture starring Julia Roberts, with story and characters by Amy Holden Jones (Fox’s “The Resident”), and written by Sandy Rustin (The Cottage), Mystic Pizza is a new musical about three working-class girls who navigate the complexities of life, love and family in a small-town pizza joint. The infectious score, arranged and orchestrated by Carmel Dean (The Notebook), features megahits of the ‘80s and ‘90s, from “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” to “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” and songs originally recorded by Melissa Etheridge, Cyndi Lauper, John Cougar Mellencamp, Debbie Gibson, Wilson Phillips, The Bangles, Belinda Carlisle, Rick Astley, Bryan Adams, among many others. The musical was originally directed by Casey Hushion (Clue) and was developed by Lively McCabe Entertainment, with critically acclaimed regional productions at Ogunquit Playhouse, La Mirada Center for the Performing Arts, Riverside Theatre (Vero) and most recently this past February at Paper Mill Playhouse.
ABOUT CARMEL DEAN
Carmel Dean is a Grammy-nominated theatre musician hailing from Australia and based in New York. As Musical Director and/or Arranger: BROADWAY: The Notebook, Funny Girl, If/Then, Hands on a Hardbody, American Idiot, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. WEST END: Clueless. OFF-BROADWAY: Really Rosie, Everyday Rapture, Vanities, Elegies. OTHER INTERNATIONAL: Fun Home, Chicago, 2000 Sydney Olympics Opening & Closing Ceremonies. TELEVISION: “Up Here.” As Composer: Maiden Voyage (London 2025), Renascence (Off-Broadway), Well-Behaved Women (studio album & multiple regional/ international productions), EDUCATION: MFA in Musical Theatre Writing (New York University), BMI Lehman Engel Musical Workshop. AWARDS: Fulbright Scholar, Sydney Theatre Award, Off-Broadway Alliance, Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award for Composition. 
ABOUT JOY MACHINE RECORDS
Joy Machine Records is a record label seeking to change the way we think about theater music. We call ourselves Joy Machine because we love making records. The music we release embraces the joy of authenticity, both in style and genre for today’s artists and audiences. Our focus on process and collaboration stems from our collective experience in the recorded music industry as well as our work on Broadway. Our hands-on approach to each project allows artists at every level to develop their own voice. Artists will be greeted with kindness and transparency as they explore the best solutions for their unique musical projects. Our services provide the ability for artists who have typically worked within the space of musical theater to explore where they fit within the recorded music industry. We are a company of theater music artists for today.
ABOUT LIVELY MCCABE ENTERTAINMENT
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