Tale of Two Cities, A Lyrics – All Songs from the Musical

"A Tale of Two Cities" – The Musical Guide & Song Meanings

Review

There are two obvious ways to adapt Dickens for musical theatre. One is to shrink the plot into digestible plot points and pray the audience brings its own emotion. The other is to pick one wound, press on it, and let the music do the bleeding. Jill Santoriello’s “A Tale of Two Cities” tries to do both. It wants the epic sweep and the intimate ache, and it keeps shifting the camera until you notice the craft.

The lyric DNA is fixation. Madame Defarge sings like a moral accountant, tallying debts with the calm of someone who has stopped expecting mercy. Sydney Carton sings like a man who is allergic to self-respect but cannot stop reaching for it. Lucie, by contrast, is written as the score’s steady pulse. When she gets quieter material, the show briefly stops being a history lesson and becomes a human one.

Musically, Santoriello writes in a contemporary Broadway language that favors driving rhythms, recurring motifs, and big ensemble pressure. Paris sounds like a crowd building momentum. London sounds like order pretending it is permanent. The best songs do not summarize events. They stage a choice. The weaker ones narrate the novel and hope the guillotine provides the suspense.

How It Was Made

Santoriello worked on this musical for decades. She has described starting to write songs based on Dickens while she was in college, then carrying the project through a long chain of concerts, readings, and development milestones before Broadway. That long process shows up in the score’s ambition and its occasional overstuffing. You can hear a writer who kept finding new angles on the same characters and did not always want to let any of them go.

Before Broadway, the show had a sold-out tryout at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota in 2007. From there it moved to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, with previews beginning August 19, 2008, an official opening on September 18, and a closing on November 9, 2008. The Broadway run was short, but the project’s recorded life is unusually rich: a 2002 concept recording, a PBS “In Concert” television event (filmed in Brighton and aired in late 2009), and an International Studio Cast recording that functions like a fuller audio edition of the piece.

Development detail that matters for lyric analysis: the show kept adjusting what it wanted the opening to do, and at least one song (“Resurrection Man”) was cut during previews. When a musical is still cutting that late, it is usually because the writers are trying to make the emotional argument sharper, not because they suddenly dislike the tune.

Key Tracks & Scenes

"Prologue: The Shadows of the Night" (Dr. Manette, Lucie)

The Scene:

Childhood memory as fog. Lucie’s past arrives in fragments, and Manette’s imprisonment hangs over the stage like a shadow that refuses to move. Lighting tends to isolate faces, as if history is a small lamp in a very large room.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric sets the show’s first rule: love is not a reward, it is a rescue operation. Lucie is not introduced as “the ingenue.” She is introduced as the person who will bring someone back from the edge.

"The Way It Ought to Be (Paris)" (Madame Defarge, Ernest Defarge, Ensemble)

The Scene:

Paris as a pressure cooker. The ensemble does not “sing about revolution” so much as gather heat, line by line, until the room feels unsafe.

Lyrical Meaning:

This number is a manifesto written as inevitability. Madame does not argue. She declares. The lyric frames vengeance as civic hygiene, which is exactly why it is frightening.

"The Way It Ought to Be (London)" (Sydney Carton)

The Scene:

London, alone. Carton watches the world and narrates it like a man who has already lost the trial inside his own head. The staging often turns him into a stationary point while society moves around him.

Lyrical Meaning:

Same title, different disease. In Paris, “ought” is collective and violent. In London, “ought” is personal and self-loathing. The lyric makes Carton’s cynicism sound like a bruised form of standards.

"No Honest Way" (Barsad, Carton, Cruncher, Ensemble)

The Scene:

Spies, deals, and the marketplace of bad faith. The lighting usually shifts to sharper contrasts, giving the scene a transactional chill.

Lyrical Meaning:

The song tells you the rules of the underworld. It is also a cheat sheet for the plot: information has a price, and the people selling it do not believe in refunds.

"I Can't Recall" (Sydney Carton)

The Scene:

Carton’s private reckoning. The room empties. The sound thins. The character is left with the one thing he cannot outdrink: his own memory.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric is about erasure that does not work. Carton wants to forget, but the song’s structure keeps pulling him back to the same emotional evidence. It is a confession disguised as denial.

"If Dreams Came True" (Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton)

The Scene:

Two men orbiting the same woman, pretending the orbit is about philosophy. The staging often makes them parallel, not face-to-face, emphasizing how much of this rivalry is internal.

Lyrical Meaning:

The lyric is a duel of self-concepts. Darnay treats love as a future he can build. Carton treats love as an impossible standard that exposes him. The song matters because it frames Carton’s later sacrifice as a choice he has been rehearsing in language for an entire act.

"Without a Word" (Lucie)

The Scene:

Lucie stands at the story’s emotional crossroads, surrounded by noise she cannot control. The staging often isolates her in a tighter pool of light while the revolution and the men continue to spin.

Lyrical Meaning:

This is Lucie as the show’s ethical center. The lyric is about endurance, not passivity. She is not silent because she has nothing to say. She is silent because she is carrying everyone else’s fear.

"Let Her Be a Child" (Sydney, Little Lucie, Charles)

The Scene:

A rare moment where the musical stops to protect someone. The adult stakes remain, but the focus shifts to the cost those stakes impose on the next generation.

Lyrical Meaning:

Carton’s tenderness becomes plot. The lyric shows what he is capable of when he is not performing cynicism. It also frames his redemption as an act of guardianship, not romance.

"Finale: I Can't Recall" (Seamstress, Sydney, Ensemble)

The Scene:

The guillotine sequence. The music has to do a brutal job: keep the scene moving while allowing the audience to feel time slow down. Often the lighting goes stark, stripping the stage of comfort.

Lyrical Meaning:

By bringing the earlier Carton material back in a new context, the show turns a personal crisis into a public act. The lyric closes the loop: the man who tried to forget chooses to be remembered, for someone else.

Live Updates

As of February 2, 2026, “A Tale of Two Cities” is not in a Broadway run or a large commercial tour. Its current life is in licensing, concert presentations, and regional productions. Concord Theatricals continues to license the Broadway version, including detailed musical-number breakdowns that function as a practical map of how the score sits inside the story.

Recent and upcoming productions signal the show’s real ecosystem. Ogden Musical Theatre advertised a concert version running February 20 to March 1, 2025. Servant Stage Company promoted a full production for September 2025 in Virginia. Those are not footnotes. They are the proof-of-life pattern for this title: a big, literary musical that fits best where a company can throw bodies, voices, and design at it without worrying about Broadway weekly grosses.

If you are tracking recordings instead of tickets, the International Studio Cast recording is the cleanest modern listening experience, and it exists alongside the earlier concept album and the PBS “In Concert” video edition.

Notes & Trivia

• The Broadway production played the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, with 33 previews and 60 performances.
• The show had a sold-out regional tryout at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota in 2007.
• There is no single “Original Broadway Cast Recording” CD that became the default reference point. Instead, the show built an unusual recording ladder: concept album (2002), PBS concert edition (2009), then International Studio Cast recording (2011).
• The International Studio Cast recording was recorded in London and released on CD in 2011, with a label credit that reflects international distribution.
• The PBS “In Concert” presentation was narrated by Michael York and used a large orchestra, with arrangements and orchestrations credited to Ed Kessel.
• During Broadway previews, the opening was revised and at least one song (“Resurrection Man”) was cut before opening night.
• The show has had a significant production history in Japan, including productions credited to Toho.

Reception

Critical reaction in 2008 split along a familiar fault line. Reviewers tended to respect the ambition, then argue with the execution. The most common complaint was not that Santoriello could not write. It was that the adaptation carried too much plot weight, leaving the score to serve as narration when it wanted to be character. Even so, the show’s defenders often pointed to the melodic writing and to the sincerity of Carton’s arc.

Variety called the Broadway version “overwrought” and “under-nuanced,” framing it as an artifact rather than a clean reinvention.

New York Magazine argued that a small piece of stagecraft in this “deeply dumb” production still proved how durable Dickens can be.

Variety’s 2007 regional review noted “pretty melodies” and lyrics that were often stronger than the surrounding material.

Quick Facts

• Title: A Tale of Two Cities
• Broadway year: 2008
• Type: Epic romance musical with book, music, and lyrics by a single author
• Book, music, lyrics: Jill Santoriello
• Based on: “A Tale of Two Cities” (1859) by Charles Dickens
• Broadway venue: Al Hirschfeld Theatre
• Broadway dates: Previews Aug 19, 2008; opened Sep 18, 2008; closed Nov 9, 2008
• Director (Broadway): Michael Donald Edwards
• Choreography (Broadway): Warren Carlyle
• Notable cast (Broadway): James Barbour (Sydney Carton), Brandi Burkhardt (Lucie), Aaron Lazar (Charles Darnay), Natalie Toro (Madame Defarge)
• Key number “placements” (selected): “Dover” (Act I travel), “The Trial” (Act I courtroom), “Without a Word” (Act II Lucie solo), “The Bluff” (Act II confrontation)
• Album status: Concept recording (2002); PBS concert video edition (2009); International Studio Cast recording (CD release 2011; later reissues on streaming)

Frequently Asked Questions

Who wrote the lyrics for “A Tale of Two Cities” (2008)?

Jill Santoriello wrote the book, music, and lyrics, which is part of why the score feels unusually unified even when the adaptation gets crowded.

Is this the same as the Dickens novel, beat for beat?

No. The musical refocuses the epic narrative around a tighter emotional triangle, with Sydney Carton’s redemption acting as the primary spine.

What song best explains Sydney Carton?

“I Can’t Recall.” It captures his self-protective numbness, then shows how fragile that numbness really is.

Is there a cast recording?

Yes, but the most widely referenced audio version is the International Studio Cast recording (released on CD in 2011), alongside the earlier concept recording and the PBS concert edition.

Is the show running now?

It is licensed and produced regionally and in concert form, but it is not currently in a Broadway run or a large commercial tour.

Why do some people say the score “sounds the same”?

Because the show uses recurring musical language to glue an enormous plot together. That cohesion can read as monotony if the staging does not sharply differentiate London’s restraint from Paris’s fury.

Key Contributors

Name	Role	Contribution
Jill Santoriello	Book / Composer / Lyricist	Wrote the adaptation and full score; developed the project over decades through concerts, readings, and multiple recordings.
Michael Donald Edwards	Director (Broadway)	Staged the Broadway production and managed late-preview revisions.
Warren Carlyle	Choreographer (Broadway)	Created movement vocabulary for ensemble-driven revolution sequences.
James Barbour	Original Broadway cast	Originated Sydney Carton on Broadway; also featured in the PBS concert edition.
Brandi Burkhardt	Original Broadway cast	Originated Lucie; featured in the PBS concert edition.
Aaron Lazar	Original Broadway cast	Originated Charles Darnay; key voice in “If Dreams Came True.”
Natalie Toro	Original Broadway cast	Originated Madame Defarge; anchors “The Way It Ought to Be.”
Ed Kessel	Arranger / Orchestrator (PBS concert)	Arranged and orchestrated the PBS concert edition with a large orchestra.
Michael York	Narrator (PBS concert)	Narrated the televised “In Concert” edition.
Concord Theatricals	Licensing	Licenses the Broadway version and publishes the official musical-number map used by producing theatres.

Sources: IBDB; Playbill; Variety; New York Magazine; Concord Theatricals; Broadway.com; AllMusic; Sound Imagination; Ogden Musical Theatre; Servant Stage Company; Wikipedia (for consolidated production history, cross-checked).