Broadway baritone, Brian Stokes Mitchell's new album, Plays With Music, is released through Broadway Records. Featuring a wide variety of show tunes from Irving Berlin to an unrecorded Stephen Sondheim song, Tony award-winner Mitchell approaches each song as its own mini-play, leaving his indelible mark on such classics as 'I Won't Send Roses,' 'If Ever I Would Leave You,' 'Getting Married Today' and the world premiere of a terrific new song called 'A Wizard Every Day'...

Brian Stokes Mitchell's Plays With Music is a well balanced album that shows off his range perfectly. Without a doubt, the highlight has to be the touching and amusing 'A Wizard Every Day'.

From the opening 'There's No Business Like Show Business' to the closing 'What a Wonderful World' Mitchell attempts to make each song his own... with varying degrees of success. The problem here is that so many of the songs you'll know so well that any interpretation will take time to embraced. Who can possibly top Louis Armstrong's original version of 'What a Wonderful World'? Well, no one, but the version here is about as good as it gets.

Musical theatre fans will get a huge amount of pleasure from this release.

Track listing:

01 - There's No Business Like Show Business (4:18)
02 - Gesticulate (3:00)
03 - By Myself (4:21)
04 - I Won't Send Roses (3:42)
05 - If Ever I Would Leave You (4:40)
06 - Getting Married Today (3:53)
07 - The Man I Love (4:59)
08 - Hello, Young Lovers (3:48)
09 - A Wizard Every Day (4:12)
10 - Flag Song (2:44)
11 - What a Wonderful World (4:53)

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Nick Smithson