CD DESSA ROSE - Original Off-Broadway Cast 2005

(Stephen Flaherty, Lynn Ahrens) Rachel York, LaChanze, Rebecca Eichenberger, Tina Fabriqu , Michael Hayden, David Hess, Kecia Lewis, Norm Lewis, William Parry, Soara-Joye Ross, James Stovall, Eric Jordan Young - Basierend auf dem Leben zweier realer Frauenpersönlichkeiten aus der Zeit vor dem amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg handelt das Musical vom fiktionalen Zusammentreffen der weissen Gutsbesitzerin Ruth Sutton und der schwarzen Sklavin Dessa Rose und wie sich beide Frauen gegenseitig beeinflussen. Geschrieben vom Autorenteam, das 'Once Upon An Island', 'Ragtime', und 'Seussical' geschaffen hat. Doppel-CD.

• Disc 1:
  
• 1. We Are Descended
  
• 2. Comin' Down the Quarters
  
• 3. Ol' Banjar
  
• 4. Oh, Slavery Didn't Do Away...
  
• 5. Something of My Own
  
• 6. Watch Your Step, Mr. Nehemiah...
  
• 7. Ink
  
• 8. Hey Hey, Hey Hey...
  
• 9. You Had No Call to Break That...
  
• 10. Why You Kill Him?...
  
• 11. The Gold Band
  
• 12. See Them Stars...
  
• 13. Little Star
  
• 14. Hey, Pretty Girl...
  
• 15. The Gold Band (Conclusion)
  
• 16. Ladies
  
• 17. Bertie's Waltz
  
• 18. At the Glen
  
• 19. Good Afternoon, Odessa...
  
• 20. Observations on the Farmed Devil Woman...
  
• 21. Catpure the Girl
  
• 22. Janet? Philip?...
  
• 23. The People on Her Place...
  
• 24. Miss. We Was Only
  
• 25. Fly Away
  
• 26. That's the First Time...
  
• 27. I'm Sorry, Master...
  
• 28. Fly Away (Conclusion) / How Long Will It Be?
  
• 29. Dessa Rose Escapes Nehemiah
  
• 30. Terrible
  
• 31. Mmm... Mmm...
  
• 32. Obstinate Little Fool...
  
• 33. Their Eyes Are Clear, Blue Like Sky
  
• 34. This Baby Don't Need No Name
  
• 35. Twelve Children
  
  
• Disc 2:
  
• 1. Noah's Dove
  
• 2. Through Talking to Nathan...
  
• 3. Why Y'all Call Her Devil Woman?...
  
• 4. It Was Then I Knew...
  
• 5. Fly Away (Reprise)
  
• 6. Ah, Look There!...
  
• 7. The Scheme
  
• 8. Nathan Thinks We Might Could...
  
• 9. Why Miz Ruth...
  
• 10. In the Bend of My Arm
  
• 11. Miz... Nathan! Nathan!...
  
• 12. Better If I Died
  
• 13. Ten Petticoats
  
• 14. We Organized to Go...
  
• 15. Just Over the Line
  
• 16. Now Things Was Going...
  
• 17. A Pleasure
  
• 18. That Mr. Oscar Is...
  
• 19. Not If Your Tongue Gets Loose...
  
• 20. I Understood...
  
• 21. White Milk and Red Blood
  
• 22. They Tell You About...
  
• 23. Anna, I Swear You Are As Slow As Molasses...
  
• 24. It Was Just Like Her...
  
• 25. Master, Master...
  
• 26. S'caped...
  
• 27. I Don't Want Your Money, Child
  
• 28. Sheriff, Thias Gal Ain't Got...
  
• 29. Sheriff, I Got...
  
• 30. No. No! Look Here...
  
• 31. Mistress, I...
  
• 32. We Are Descended
  
• 33. Just Over the Line

Label-Informationen:
Based upon the lives of two real women living in the antebellum Deep South, DESSA ROSE explores the fictional meeting of these women and the impact they have on each other. Dessa Rose (LaChanze) is a pregnant slave condemned to death after leading an uprising. Her captors, choosing not to destroy "perfectly good property," delay her sentence and keep Dessa imprisoned until she gives birth. As she awaits her hanging, Dessa is interviewed by Adam Nehemiah (Michael Hayden, of LCT's Henry IV, Far East, and Carousel), who is writing a book on slave rebellions.

Ruth Sutton (Rachel York) is a white woman abandoned by her slave-owner husband on an isolated farm in Northern Alabama. When Dessa and her companions escape, they make their way to Ruth, who has begun to provide sanctuary to fugitive slaves. Initially distrustful of each other, Dessa and Ruth form an unsteady alliance after a bold scheme is devised to win the slaves' freedom by fleeing to the West. Through hardship and humor, the two women slowly become united, discovering greater strength by being together than by being alone.

DESSA ROSE, perhaps Ahrens and Flaherty's most ambitious musical to date, is almost entirely sung through. The score and its extended musical themes reveal the rarely told story of the strong-willed American women from whom our country derives much of its strength, character, and identity. The authors have structured DESSA ROSE as an oral history being passed down from Dessa Rose and Ruth to their children and grandchildren.