Arts & Entertainment
Mystic Pizza the Musical Concept Album will be Released Aug. 29
The concept recording of the new musical Mystic Pizza will be released in digital and streaming formats on Friday, August 29.
Press release
MYSTIC PIZZA
New Musical
Concept Album
Will be Released by Joy Machine Records on
Friday, August 29th
Pre-Save The Album Now
Lively McCabe Entertainment, the global theatrical production and management company, are excited to announce the concept recording of the new musical Mystic Pizza will be released in digital and streaming formats on Friday, August 29. The album, from Joy Machine Records, is 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. Pre-save the album now at this link.
Critics praise Mystic Pizza the Musical 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 vocals by 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 Negrón, Louis Pardo, Alyssa M. Simmons, Jake Swain, Zephaniah Wages, and Rachel Kae Wirtz.
Music director and keyboard player Kristin Stowell leads the band, featuring Jason May on keyboard and saxophone, Max Caine and Jared Cannata on guitars, David White on bass, and Peter Saleh on drums and percussion. The album is mixed by Derik Lee and edited by Ian Kagey.
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.
