THE LAST SHIP – the new musical with music and lyrics by 16-time Grammy Award-winner Sting and book by Tony Award-winner John Logan and Pulitzer Prize-winner Brian Yorkey opened on Broadway last month with overwhelming praise for its emotionally powerful score.
On December 16th, Universal Music Classics will release the Original Broadway Cast Album for THE LAST SHIP, produced by the Emmy-Award winning and multi-Grammy-nominated producer Rob Mathes. The play is directed by Tony Award-winner Joe Mantello and choreographed by Olivier Award-winner Steven Hoggett, with musical direction, orchestrations and arrangements also by Rob Mathes.
In the fall of 2013, Sting introduced some of the selections heard in the musical on his own album of the same name, The Last Ship, released on Cherrytree/Interscope/A&M Records. The new Broadway Cast Album will include some of those original compositions performed by the acclaimed Broadway cast, as well as selections exclusively written and recorded for the stage production. Highlights include the title track “The Last Ship,” show favorites “We’ve Got Now’t Else” and “If You Ever See Me Talking to a Sailor” plus “When We Dance,” a beloved song from Sting’s catalog. The Original Broadway Cast Recording will also include two versions of the stirring ballad “What Say You, Meg?” – one sung by the character Arthur Millburn and one recorded by Sting which will appear as a bonus track, available exclusively on the cast album for the first time anywhere.
THE LAST SHIP – which marks Sting’s debut as a Broadway composer – is set in the English seaside town of Wallsend, a close-knit community where life has always revolved around the local shipyard and the hardworking men construct magnificent vessels with tremendous pride. But Gideon Fletcher dreams of a different future. He sets out to travel the world, leaving his life and his love behind. When Gideon returns home many years later, he finds the shipyard’s future in grave danger and his childhood sweetheart engaged to someone else. This love triangle ignites just as the men and women of Wallsend take their future into their own hands and build a towering representation of the shared dream that defines their existence. And in the end Gideon comes to understand that he had indeed left behind more than he could have ever imagined.