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Avengers

It’s a busy week on Billboard’s Cast Albums chart (dated Sept. 30), as the original cast recordings of StarKid’s Nerdy Prudes Must Die., Disney and Marvel’s Rogers: The Musical and the world-premiere complete studio cast recording of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! debut at Nos. 1, 2 and 8 respectively. Meanwhile, New York, New York: A New Musical re-enters at No. 4 (a new peak) after its release on CD.

With the arrivals at Nos. 1, 2 and 8 on Cast Albums, it’s the first time at least three albums have debuted in the top 10 in the same week in more than four years. It last happened on the June 22, 2019-dated list, when the original Broadway cast recordings of Beetlejuice and Tootsie launched at Nos. 2 and 6, while the 2019 Broadway cast recording of Kiss Me, Kate! bowed at No. 8.

Billboard’s Cast Albums chart ranks the top-selling musical cast recordings of the week in the U.S., based on traditional album sales, as tracked by Luminate.

Nerdy Prudes Must Die. is “a teen slasher comedy about a group of geeks and their ghostly tormentor.” The show, with music and lyrics by Jeff Blim, had a brief run at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood, Calif. in February. It’s the third No. 1 on the Cast Albums chart for the StarKid production team, following Black Friday (in 2020) and Starship (2011). In total, Nerdy Prudes is the 17th charting effort on Cast Albums from StarKid, with 13 having reached the top 10. StarKid’s first entry on the tally was Me and My Dick, which peaked at No. 11 in 2010.

Rogers: The Musical – an abridged version of the life of the first Avenger, Captain America (aka Steve Rogers) – had a limited run at Disney California Adventure Park’s Hyperion Theater in Anaheim, Calif. from June 30-Aug. 31. Rogers’new original songs were written by composer Christopher Lennertz, with lyrics by Jordan Peterson, Lennertz and Alex Karukas. The new tunes were joined by earlier-penned songs like “Save the City” (music by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman) and “Star-Spangled Man” (by Alan Menken and David Zeppel).

Rogers: The Musical is the first cast recording from a Disney Parks-presented stage show to chart on Billboard’s 17-year-old Cast Albums ranking. Previous musical shows staged at the Hyperion include Frozen: Live at the Hyperion (2016-20) and Aladdin: A Musical Spectacular (2003-16). (The Broadway versions of Aladdin and Frozen saw their companion cast recordings hits Nos. 1 and 2 on the Cast Albums chart.)

Both Nerdy Prudes Must Die. and Rogers: The Musical were only available to purchase as digital download albums. The third debut in the Cast Album chart’s top 10, the new studio cast recording of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, was available as a download and on CD and vinyl.

The studio cast recording of Oklahoma! was released by Chandos Records and is the first recording to boast the complete score performed with Robert Russell Bennett’s original orchestrations. Oklahoma! was the first musical written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and it premiered on Broadway in 1943. It was later adapted into a film in 1955, which won two Academy Awards and launched a soundtrack that spent four weeks atop Billboard’s Best Selling Popular Albums chart in 1956. Oklahoma! has been revived on Broadway four times, most recently in 2019, when it won two Tony Awards, including best revival of a musical.

Finally, the original Broadway cast recording of New York, New York: A New Musical, re-enters Cast Albums at No. 4, having previously spent one week on the list at No. 7 (on the July 8-dated chart). The album returns to the list following its Sept. 15 release on CD, as the set was only previously available to purchase as a digital download. New York, New York played for three months at the St. James Theatre in New York earlier in 2023 and garnered nine Tony Award nominations, winning one for best scenic design of a musical.

Rogers: The Musical will see its cast recording album hit digital retailers and streaming services on Friday, Sept. 15 from Walt Disney Records, Billboard can exclusively reveal.
The 12-track set is the companion album to the stage show of the same name, which played for two months this past summer at Disney California Adventure Park’s Hyperion Theater in Anaheim, Calif. (See below for the tracklist to the album as well as a preview of the set’s “What You Missed.”)

The mini-musical – from the creative teams at Disney and Marvel – brings to life an abridged version of the life of the first Avenger, Captain America (aka Steve Rogers), alongside singing-and-dancing Avengers (including Nick Fury!). The one-act show – which boasts a range of musical styles – premiered June 30 for a limited run at the nearly 2,000-seat theme park venue, and closed on Aug. 31. No further presentations of the stage show have been announced.

The musical grew out of a sequence in an episode of the Disney+ series Hawkeye in 2021. In the episode, the title character (an Avenger himself) attends a showing of Rogers: The Musical, and the song “Save the City” is performed by characters playing Avengers. Both the musical and “Save the City” became fan favorites, with the latter generating over 1 million on-demand official streams in the U.S., according to Luminate.

Presently, the Rogers: The Musical cast album will only be commercially available as a digital download album and via streaming services. There’s no word on if it will be released in any physical formats, such as CD, vinyl or cassette.

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Following the premiere of Rogers: The Musical at the Hyperion, the show’s composer, conductor and arranger Christopher Lennertz said, “[It] was really important to all of us … to give everyone — both musical theater fans and superhero fans — something they would love about the music. And the fact that we get to span 70 years and do everything from ‘40s-style big band jazz to a singer/songwriter style pop tune and obviously the Nick Fury patter song meets ‘Uptown Funk’ — it’s the idea of giving everyone something that they can grab onto and really feel like it’s part of their story too.”

Rogers: The Musical Tracklist:Title, Artist“U.S. Opening Night,” Bella Hicks, Krystle Rose’ Simmons, Alex Karukas, Matthew P. Selby, Rogers: The Musical – Cast“I Want You,” Josey Montana McCoy“Star-Spangled Man,” Bella Hicks, Krystle Rose’ Simmons, Rogers: The Musical – Cast“Just One Dance (Preprise 1),” Luke Monday, Rachel Wirtz“Star-Spangled Man (Reprise)/Just One Dance (Preprise 2),” Luke Monday, Rachel Wirtz“What You Missed,” Jay Donnell, Bella Hicks, Krystle Rose’ Simmons, Luke Monday“Save the City,” Bella Hicks, Andrew Hubert, Luke Monday, Alex Karukas, Rogers: The Musical – Cast“Save the City (Playoff),” Luke Monday, Rogers: The Musical – Cast“End of the Line,” Luke Monday, Josey Montana McCoy“Just One Dance,” Rachel Wirtz, Luke Monday“Rogers: The Musical Finale/Save the City (Reprise),” Luke Monday, Rachel Wirtz, Josey Montana McCoy, Jay Donnell, Andrew Huber, Bella Hicks, Krystle Rose’ Simmons, Alex Karukas“Rogers: The Musical (Playoff),” Christopher Lennertz, Alex Karukas