Seussical: The Musical

1	Overture 0:58
2	Oh, The Thinks You Can Think! 3:51
3	Horton Hears a Who 2:37
4	Biggest Blame Fool 3:55
5	Here on Who 6:00
6	A Day for the Cat in the Hat 2:46
7	It's Possible (McElligot's Pool) 2:37
8	How to Raise a Child 0:39
9	The Military 3:07
10	Alone in the Universe 4:49
11	The One Feather Trail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz 1:16
12	Amayzing Mayzie 2:10
13	Amayzing Gertrude 2:11
14	Monkey Around 1:50
15	Chasing the Whos 2:47
16	How Lucky You Are Mayzie's Reprise 1:40
17	Notice Me, Horton From "Seussical" 3:07
18	How Lucky You Are Mayzie's Reprise 1:36
19	Horton Sits on the Egg Act I Finale 2:21
20	Egg, Nest and Tree 1:40
21	Mayzie in Palm Beach (Reprise) 2:16
22	Alone in the Universe (Reprise) 1:06
23	Solla Sollew 3:31
24	Havin' a Hunch 3:21
25	All for You 3:37
26	The People Versus Horton the Elephant 4:30
27	Finale/Oh, the Thinks You Can Think (Reprise) 3:50
28	Green Eggs and Ham (Curtain Call) 1:17

Barnes & Noble

It might shock fans of John Grisham and Stephen King, but America's most widely read author of all time may be Dr. Seuss (Ted Geisel, 1904-91). And now, the creator of the Cat in the Cat, Horton the Elephant, and the Grinch is the toast of Broadway with Seussical: The Musical, the most fantastical and "stoo-mendous" hit in ages. Producer Phil Ramone has captured every delicious drop of whimsy in this 100 percent faithful cast recording. A superb ensemble featuring David Shiner, Kevin Chamberlin, and the sassy-throated Sharon Wilkins is no less stunning than the amazing creations that populated Seuss' preposterous imagination. Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty have seamlessly melded their words and music to the Good Doctor's world, brewing an ear-popping gumbo that includes touches of Latin, pop, vaudeville, swing, gospel, and funk.Seussical is simply a magical listening experience for children of all ages. David Cohen

All Music Guide

Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's first three Broadway musicals, Once on This Island, My Favorite Year, and Ragtime, each suggested by its subject an appropriate style of music to employ, and to a large extent, they followed the material, writing island music, 1950s-style pop, and ragtime as required. For their fourth musical, Seussical, based on the children's stories of Dr. Seuss, "We found there were no limits to what kind of music we could use," they wrote in a note contained in the booklet to the original Broadway cast album. As a result, "The score emerged as a Seussian gumbo of musical styles" that ended up including elements of Latin, swing, gospel, R&B, funk, Spike Jones-style comedy music, vaudeville, and synthesizer pop, among other things. It sounds like Flaherty also may have recycled music from earlier shows, with "Amayzing Mayzie" having the Caribbean feel of Once on This Island and "A Day for the Cat in the Hat" sounding like something from Ragtime. The familiarity of the styles makes the music seem like a series of pastiches, however, from the pop/rock of the "Overture" to the Aretha Franklin/Patti LaBelle impersonation Sharon Wilkins indulges in during "Biggest Blame Fool" and elsewhere, concluding with the swing sound of "Green Eggs and Ham." Far more accomplished are the more traditional pop theater songs, particularly "Alone in the Universe." But if Flaherty's music does not impress, Ahrens' lyrics do. Occasionally borrowing directly from Seuss, she writes songs that capture the zany style of the books. Though she and Flaherty have deliberately undertaken disparate projects, the element that unites them is the warmheartedness of their tone. Ahrens always approaches her material with sympathy and sweetness, which makes a children's show a good project for her. In their libretto, she and Flaherty have not entirely solved the problem of knitting together a group of separate stories, so the show is episodic. Just as the music lacks unity, so does the plot. But individual parts work well, and it's Ahrens' lyrics, particularly the affecting song of devotion "All for You," and some of the performances, notably those of Kevin Chamberlin as Horton the Elephant, Michele Pawk as Mayzie LaBird, and Janine LaManna as Gertrude McFuzz, that give the show its best moments. William Ruhlmann