Independent Arts News Reporting 
Pictured Above: Patti LuPone (center), Van Dean (2nd from right) and the Center Stage Records team. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Intersections of Producing and Preserving
By Anthony Stoeckert
Feature writer Anthony Stoeckert reveals the intersections of Broadway Producing and Preserving in his interview with Tony and Grammy-winner, Van Dean.
Van Dean’s passion for musical theater was sparked when he was a teenager, growing up in Connecticut, and led to him appearing in some shows and even writing a musical when he was in college.
“I ultimately decided I was better-suited to producing,” Dean says. “I started to take opportunities in that area and have been at it for almost 20 years now.”
To say Dean has been “at it” is a bit of an understatement. His first producer credits came with shows at the New York Musical Theater Festival, and his first off-Broadway show was the acclaimed Rooms: A Rock Romance at New World Stages in 2009. He made the jump to Broadway with the Tony-nominated Catch Me If You Can, and went on to win a Tony for the 2012 revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Dean’s impressive list of credits also includes Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella and Anastasia.
Dean is also a record producer, winning a Grammy for his work on the cast recording for the 2015 revival of The Color Purple. His newest venture is Center Stage Records, a label that focuses on Broadway, off-Broadway, and West End recordings, as well as solo albums from Broadway artists.
Pictured Above: Album art for The Color Purple. Photo Credit: Contributed.
“It allows me more creative freedom and autonomy going forward to be able to go after all the projects I want to do,” says Dean, who is also a founder of Broadway Records. “I’m very excited for all the things we have released, and all the things on our roster for the coming year and beyond. It’s really about preserving the art form, especially cast recordings, and also doing solo albums where it makes sense.”
The label is planning to release two dozen titles in 2024, and in July announced a new album from Patti LuPone, titled A Life in Notes, which is available for digital download and will see a CD release on August 30.
“We’re very excited about that,” Dean says. “We have lots of relationships throughout the community with amazing artists that we love to work with, and we’re also building new relationships all the time.”
Pictured Above: Album art for “A Life in Notes”. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Dean says A Life in Notes explores LuPone’s youth and the music that she loves, as well as songs she’s known for performing, sung in new ways.
“It’s a very stripped-down album with just a few instruments, and it sounds amazing,” Dean says. “It accompanies a new tour that she’s been doing, of the same name, A Life in Notes. She’s been doing that and wanted an album to go along with it. We’re very excited to put that out. It’s pretty special.”
Dean wasn’t able to share details of other releases at the time of this interview, but did say that Center Stage Records’ slate of releases includes a musical by a pop star who has not released new material of his own in a while.
“I think his fans will be extremely excited and pleased with what his contribution to this work is and excited to have that out in the world,” he says. “That will be out in the fall and will be announced relatively soon.”
Streaming is the primary way people listen to music these days, though vinyl has been enjoying a comeback for a while, and some of us still buy CDs. But a fair question to ask is, What exactly is a record label in this era?
“It’s a company that helps artists and shows get their work out in the world,” Dean says. “Obviously, it’s a different world than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago, and this business is constantly evolving. So there’s less of a physical component than there used to be; we still do release CDs and vinyl, but that’s definitely less prevalent than it was even five years ago.”
He adds that physical formats, like vinyl and CDs, have a following among Broadway fans.
“People still like to have a memento of the show they’ve seen, and have the lyrics and photos and everything, so there is still that experiential aspect,” he says. “But it’s definitely evolved quite a bit, and digital and streaming formats are more prevalent.”
Pictured Above: Sample catalog of the latest releases at Broadway Records & Center Stage Records. Photo Credit: Sourced.
Dean says producing both Broadway shows and cast recordings allows him to work two sides of his creative interests, and that the two sides feed off each other.
“With all the people I’ve worked with on the album side of things, which is a vast number, it helps when I want to get projects off the ground or work on film projects, or other types of things, to have that vast network to be able to tap into,” he says. “So they definitely feed each other and support each other.”
And while a show and its cast recording may share the same music, they are presenting that music in different ways.
“Of course, the audio experience is different than the visual one, so you have to present it in a way that works for somebody who hasn’t necessarily seen the show,” Dean says. “And for those who have, it needs to be a good memory of what they saw. It’s a preservation and a way for the show to live on. It’s very hard for shows to be produced after Broadway if they aren’t preserved in some way, because it’s hard to know what that experience was. So [the cast recording] is critical on many levels, and a successful one is a great presentation in another format.”
Working on The Color Purple cast recording remains special to him and not only because of that Grammy. “It was a very intimate show, and with the album, we really tried to capture the intimacy and make you feel like you’re in the room, or even on stage with the characters,” Dean says. “Whereas there are other shows that are much more expansive in terms of the orchestration and the feel of it, and therefore, it’s a totally different approach.”
He describes winning the Tony and the Grammy as “surreal” and says that the Grammy win holds a special place for him, because he won it with his then-girlfriend by his side, Alejandra, who is now his wife.
“To be able to share that with somebody important to you was meaningful,” Dean says. “That was a magical experience.”
Pictured Above: Van Dean outside of Hammerstein’s home, Highland Farm. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Dean has a lot of projects in the works, including a new play, The Hills of California, written by Jez Butterworth and directed by Sam Mendes, which had an acclaimed run on London’s West End and is set to open on Broadway in September. He’s also working on Smash, a musical based on the 2012 NBC series whose producing team includes Steven Spielberg and which is set for next spring.
He’s also venturing into film. Dean has already produced some documentaries, and is working on his first feature with Kiss of the Spider Woman, directed by Bill Condon and starring Jennifer Lopez and Diego Luna.
So with a Tony and a Grammy on his shelf, could his movie work be part of his plan to become an EGOT winner?
“It’s not the impetus for it, but if that should happen some day, I wouldn’t complain,” Dean says with a laugh.
Dean is also involved in the efforts to preserve Highland Farm in Doylestown and make it the home of the Oscar Hammerstein Museum & Theatre Education Center. After reading an article about that project a few years ago, he was inspired to get involved, and he’s working on a fundraising Gala for the museum in the fall.
“It immediately resonated because growing up with a passion for the theater and wanting to enter it as a professional, I read every biography I could get my hands on, especially Oscar Hammerstein’s,” Dean says. “So I knew very well about the history of that house and how important it is. I personally describe it as the most important private home in musical theater history, because not only is it where Oscar wrote all of his works with Richard Rodgers, but it’s also where he mentored a young Stephen Sondheim. And one could very easily argue that nothing that Sondheim created as an artist, which has so impacted our artform, would have existed if it were not for that home and for his having met Oscar Hammerstein. Oscar had such a big influence on him, and he had a little bit of a troubled home and needed a mentor figure.”
Pictured Above: Oscar Hammerstein II. Photo Credit: Contributed.
Without that mentorship, is it possible Sondheim wouldn’t have written Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George or Merrily We Roll Along? Dean thinks so, and that’s why part of the Hammerstein museum will offer education and mentorship.
“All the things that he had created throughout his career wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for that home,” he says. “So I thought it was very very important for it to be preserved and hopefully inspire new generations.”
Learn about the latest releases at Center Stage and Broadway Records here: BroadwayRecords.com
