Kurt Deutsch: The Last Five Years... of Musical Theater Legacies

About the author:
Kurt Deutsch and Broadway are making beautiful music together. On a whim, this one-time stage, film, and TV actor took a turn for the tuneful when he and his wife, Tony-nominated actress, Sherie Rene Scott, started the successful record company Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records. Deutsch, who met Scott while they were both in a production of Faust at California's La Jolla Playhouse in 1995, is embracing the long-lasting power of theater music for sale on CD. With the Grammys on the way and three nominations in his pocket--for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in which Scott stars, Hair and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in the Best Musical Show Category--this proud producer has a smile on his face and a song in his heart. Read on to hear his thoughts on his talented wife, his serendipitous career and keeping shows alive through their songs.

Five years ago, my wife, Sherie Rene Scott, and I decided to make a little record. She was about to star in Aida on Broadway and had been offered a contract by a small record label to do a Broadway show tune record, which is what record labels often try to do with Broadway artists; they pigeonhole them. She had an idea that was a bit out of the box: To try on a recording artist persona she called her Sherie Rene instead of Sherie Rene Scott and to do a record of songs by all of the composers with whom she had worked Randy Newman, Elton John, Pete Townshend, Kander & Ebb and Jonathan Larson. We figured we could make it ourselves, sell it online through her website which she would list in her Playbill bio, and make the record we wanted to make and not the record they wanted us to make. If everything worked out, we might even be able to make our money back. So we did it. Neither of us really knew anything about the music business; we were both actors. We financed it ourselves and hired Joel Moss, a multi-Grammy-winning producer/engineer, to produce. It was Sherie's debut CD, and it was called Sherie Rene… Men I've Had. Sh-K-Boom was born.

A side note about the name Sh-K-Boom, since I know you're probably curious. Whenever Sherie and I went on a road trip together, we always used to sing this song from The Muppet Movie called "Movin' Right Along." You probably know it. Here are some of the lyrics: "Movin' right along in search of good times and good news,/With good friends you can't lose,/This could become a habit!/Opportunity knocks once let's reach out and grab it yeah!,/Together we'll nab it,/We'll hitchhike, bus or yellow cab it!/Movin' right along./Chickaboom chickaboom/Footloose and fancy-free./Getting there is half the fun; come share it with me." We thought the "chickaboom" could be Sh-K-Boom--spelled with our initials Sh for Sherie and K for Kurt. It is really silly, but that is the truth. We like to say Noah Cornman, who has worked with us from almost the beginning is the "Boom." We later added another name to our work: Ghostlight Records, which is obviously more theatrical.

Anyway back to our story… As we were gearing up to make Sherie's CD, we started dreaming a bit and doing more research about the recording industry. We were thinking if we could do this with Sherie, why not do it with our other friends in the Broadway community that wanted to make music that the major record labels haven't picked up yet? Adam Pascal was doing Aida with Sherie, Alice Ripley and Michael McElroy both did Tommy with Sherie. We thought we would form our own little group of Broadway United Artists and make records and do concerts. It was such a terrific dream. The most important thing I learned in college was, "Nobody is going to do it for you. You have to do it yourself if you want to make something happen." We took that to heart, and here we are five years later with 25 records on the label. We also now have three Grammy nominations this year--for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Hair.

When we started Sh-K-Boom, I never really thought we would be making cast albums. However, when no other label wanted to record Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years, which I personally think is a masterpiece, I couldn't believe it. So I talked to the producers of the show about becoming financial partners in the cast album the same way they are partners in the show. And we made the album. I believe that the recording contributed to the fact that The Last Five Years has had over 200 productions around the world. Musical theater students can study those songs and use them for auditions, which they do all the time. And the composer and the actors have a document of their work that will last forever. Without the album, chances are the show would have only lived in the memory of those who saw it.

A cast album really lives in history. There is the immediate need when a show is running to be able to use it as a tool to help sell tickets, win awards and ultimately get licensed for future productions. But later, it becomes part of our theatrical legacy. Because theater is a live art form that is rarely filmed, the cast album is really the only tangible document we have of the show. Without the cast album the work of these artists might be forgotten and the show might never be produced again.

When I was a kid growing up in St. Louis, my mother took me to The MUNY every Tuesday in the summer. That was my introduction to musical theater. I would see the show and usually get the record and listen to it over and over. Those cast albums were my only real connection to Broadway. I think that there are thousands of people just like me that never get the chance to come to New York to see a show. All they have are the recordings. I feel a tremendous responsibility and honor that the company that Sherie and I started will continue to provide kids with dreams--and the music that they can dream to. I truly believe that if we were to stop making these records, a big part of Broadway would be lost.