Despite an accomplished background as both a writer and an actor, has never been known as a playwright. It has been left to other writers to put 's works on the stage, and several have given it a shot, including ( ) and ). But none of them has had more success than , whose adaptation of 's has been produced around the world for more than 20 years now. In 1999, set about the task of updating the to reflect the changes in the workplace since the show debuted in 1978. The cast recording of the revised production demonstrates the continued relevance and resonance of 's work as well as the evocative range of the songs by and his five well-known collaborators. The strength of the is the diversity of the songwriting, which is meant to reflect the diversity of the working men and women of America. and are especially effective at capturing the voices of their characters without falling back too readily on cliches. There are one or two clunkers here that suffer in the translation from live performance to recorded soundtrack ( tops that list), but on the whole the soundtrack captures the substance of both the 's book. ~ Evan Cater