The Full Monty [Original Broadway Cast]

1	Overture / Kimberly Grigsby 1:28
2	Scrap / Kimberly Grigsby 3:45
3	It's a Woman's World / Kimberly Grigsby 2:19
4	Man / Kimberly Grigsby 3:10
5	Big-Ass Rock / Kimberly Grigsby 3:42
6	Life With Harold / Kimberly Grigsby 2:20
7	Big Black Man / Kimberly Grigsby 3:50
8	You Rule My World / Kimberly Grigsby 3:21
9	Michael Jordan's Ball / Kimberly Grigsby 2:28
10	Jeanette's Showbiz Number / Kimberly Grigsby 3:41
11	Breeze off the River / Kimberly Grigsby 2:41
12	The Goods / Kimberly Grigsby 4:32
13	You Walk With Me / Kimberly Grigsby 3:12
14	You Rule My World (Reprise) / Kimberly Grigsby 1:52
15	Let It Go / John Conlee 3:52

Barnes & Noble

The Full Monty is a full-frontal smash! The new hit theatrical adaptation of the 1997 British cinematic sleeper has brought musical comedy back to Broadway in a big, big way. Tony Award winning playwright Terrence McNally has Americanized the familiar fable of six unemployed steel workers who become strippers to help a down-and-out comrade and elevated it to new heights of hilarity. Newcomer David Yazbek's peppy score has just the right mix of pop, rock, and showbiz glitz to enliven this odyssey of self-discovery, human bonding, and the changing nature of traditional gender roles. An explosive cast is headed by veterans Andre De Shields, Emily Skinner, Kathleen Freeman, and Patrick Wilson. This remarkable recording crackles with personality, wit, and charm and features De Shields's salacious showstopper "Big Black Man" as well as such memorable moments as "It's a Woman's World," "Man," "Jeanette's Showbiz Number," "Let It Go," and "The Goods." A nigh perfect entertainment, The Full Monty overflows with spirit, humor, and warmth. David Cohen

All Music Guide

At a time when a number of Broadway musicals have been built unimaginatively -- and unsuccessfully -- around popular films (Footloose, Saturday Night Fever), the creative team behind The Full Monty, which opened on October 26, 2000, succeeded by avoiding an exact recreation of the acclaimed 1997 British movie about a group of unemployed steelworkers in Sheffield who decide to become strippers. For one thing, the setting has been moved to Buffalo, NY, allowing the men to become typical working-class Americans who drink beer and cheer Michael Jordan. From there, though the overall plot is the same, the details are all different, while the film's mixture of comic and pathetic elements is preserved. No small part of the show's success is the score of first-time composer David Yazbek. His work is steeped in American popular music of the 1950s and '60s, especially R&B, with funky rhythms and a busy horn section. And his lyrics, full of American colloquialisms, capture the work's comically desperate tone, notably in "Big-Ass Rock," a song that finds two of the male characters kidding a third one out of suicide by sarcastically describing various ways to achieve it. The Full Monty has the feel of a bunch of aging jocks together for a Monday night football game, if those guys were as witty as they think they are after a few brews and could sing. And the ensemble cast gives the score an excellent reading. Annie Golden stands out among the women and André De Shields among the men, but there are no bad performances. Who'd have guessed that such a quintessentially English movie would be adapted into such a quintessentially American musical? William Ruhlmann