While looking for a topic for this week’s Dress Circle (5/22 7:00 p.m.), we were faced with a dilemma while choosing a theme and looked to monthly observations for May as it would be difficult to choose music for “International Drum Month,” “National Asparagus Month,” “Correct Your Posture Month,” “National Cheese Month,” and “National Bike Month” to name a few. Since we found very few (if any) songs from musicals about one’s posture or asparagus, we settled on one that sounded more promising. May is also “Gifts from the Garden Month,” and we found quite a few songs and musicals about gardens, so…
To celebrate our gardens, we’ll turn to three recordings of “The Secret Garden,” the original Broadway cast recording by Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman and two studio cast recordings one by Alfred Shaughnessey and the second by Diana Morgan and Steven Markwick. Leonard Bernstein is also represented in two recordings: his “television opera” “Trouble in Tahiti” and, one of our favorites, “Candide.”
Some of our garden songs come from lesser-known works like the TV musical “The Adventures of Marco Polo” which featured the music of Rimsky-Korsakov in adaptations by Clay Warnick and Mel Pahl with lyrics by Edward Eager.
We’ll also be tilling fertile land for planting from musicals such as “Can-Can,” “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” “Radio Gals,” “Prettybelle,” “Merrie England,” “Celebration,” and “Pal Joey.”
Our vocalists of the evening include Barbara Cook, William McAlpine, Cleo Laine, Michael Glenn-Smith, Beverly Wolff, Rebecca Luker, and many more.
We can guarantee only the finest bounty from our gardens and nary a single weed, so grab a porch swing and join us this Sunday evening.
