Smokey Joe's Cafe - Musical Theater Question

[MagnaKen]

I just finished playing Seussical for a local theater group here (my first musical theater show) and it was a lot of fun once I got the key changes nailed down. Now they want to do Smokey Joe's Cafe. Has anyone played both? Can you describe the difficulty of one vs. the other? I'm going to definitely do it, I just wonder what I am getting myself in for. That's the one problem I see with musicals is you can't get the music until the company rents it. I guess that is another question. Any ideas how I can get an advance copy of the music? Thanks.

[Ed Fuqua]

You can generally find cast recordings though, so you can at least hear the music. best recollection SJC is a revue of early 60s soul music, not original composition...

[mrwink]

For the most part it's cake... my reading bites so I mostly memorized everything... get the recording - I was at least "familiar" with most of the tunes so that made things a lot easier.

It was a really fun show!

[5StringBlues]

It's all Leiber/Stoller tunes. You can find the list of tunes on Wiki.

[One Bad Monkey]

Another +1 to getting a copy of the Broadway Cast recording. Those are usually the "closest" to the actual book. YouTube is beginning to be a really big haven for finding show clips (legal or not, they're there). That should be enough to get you going.