People forget a huge part of why the “encore!” tradition exists in theatre. Before cast recordings were invented, an encore was the ONLY way an audience member could EVER hear a song in a musical performed again the way it was performed IN that musical.

In the first half of the 20th century, the only way to hear a song again after LEAVING the theater was if A) you were lucky enough to have access to a piano AND the sheet music was published, or B) an artist covered the song and you got the recording or caught it on the radio.

The modern “cast album” was essentially invented with This Is The Army and Oklahoma! in the 1940s. Those two shows were recorded with original cast members, band members, and arrangements which was absolutely revolutionary.

But barely any other musicals in the 1940s got cast albums. The technology was not conducive to it. Oklahoma was SIX cumbersome discs in the age of 78s.

In the 1950s, with the advent of the LP, Broadway was revolutionized as an art form because cast albums that really established what a show was could go ANYWHERE and exist FOREVER.

A listener who had never been to America could hear Julie Andrews’ performance in My Fair Lady in their home in Japan. A listener who had never had enough money to see live theatre could learn R&H’s story of The King & I by listening to the disc’s songs in order in Texas.

Imagine if only the audience members who sat in the Imperial in 1964 knew what Fiddler on the Roof actually sounded like/ was about. The rest of us ONLY knew 1/3 of its songs from jazzy covers by pop stars. THAT was musical theatre prior to the cast album.

Now, not only were the biggest hits recorded, MANY shows were. And since people heard them, people wanted to SEE them. Candide’s cast album was more popular than its original production and now we have a world where art not fully appreciated in its time has an avenue to RETURN.

Cast recordings contributed to establishing shows as fixed works that could be understood and recreated. Rather than sending the message that there were definitive performances of roles, they gave a worldwide audience a collective universal understanding of each musical.

Today, not only do we have cast albums, we have dozens of ways of listening to them. You can even listen to them ON THE STREET. Or IN A CAR. Or on a PLANE! That would have been unfathomable a few decades ago.