First Daughter Suite - Original Cast Recording

Composer / Lyricist Michael John LaChiusa's latest musical theater score continues his exploration of the women who maneuvered behind the scenes of the world's most powerful political position to keep together the First Families. Titled, "First Daughter Suite," it was produced by the Public Theater last year and is the sixth score by LaChiusa to be recorded and released on Ghostlight Records.

A sequel to LaChiusa's 1993 chamber musical, "First Lady Suite," this new work focuses on the past occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since 1968: Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and Bush (both W. and H.W.). Told in four vignettes running around 30 minutes each, we watch these various personalities react and deal with attempting to live lives of meaning and substance while constantly being under the world's microscope for the relatively short period of the respective employment of their father / husband.

The sung-through work begins during the Nixon administration on the day of the marriage of Julie Nixon (Caissie Levy) to David Eisenhower. The competition between Julie and her sister, Tricia (Betsy Morgan) is heard by us and their mother, Pat (Barbara Walsh) as their father attempts to run the country.

The second piece is a dreamscape inside the mind of Amy Carter (Carly Tamer), the only daughter of the Rosalyn, a possessive mother, and President Jimmy Carter. Amy is conversing with Susan Ford (Morgan), who must deal with her own demons in the form of her alcoholic mother, Betty.

A bitter and sarcastic Patti Davis (Levy) converses by the pool with her stepmom, Nancy Reagan (Alison Fraser) at the height of Ronald Reagan's presidency, and Mary Testa gives a sophisticated vision of Barbara Bush in 2004, as the former First Lady expresses her concern for the legacy that her bumbling son, George, is creating.

Music director Or Matias ("Natasha and Pierre...") leads the six musicians through LaChiusa's mature music, deftly providing a soundscape as complex as the characters they are accompanying.

"First Daughter Suite"
$16.99
CD and digital formats
www.ghostlightrecords.com