The holidays seem to induce memories, and some of them seem to be rather interesting. This is the case with this week’s Dress Circle (12/21 7:00 p.m.) and our playlist of songs from musicals and films that make up some of our holiday memories. Several of these may not be what you might expect.
Some of these pieces are rather straightforward. We’ve got pieces from film musicals like “Say One for Me,” “On Moonlight Bay,” “The Five Pennies,” and “Meet Me in St. Louis.” We’ve also programmed songs from television musicals including “The Stingiest Man in Town,” “Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates,” and “The Gift of the Magi.”
We only ended-up with one stage song this week as we turned to “A Year with Frog and Toad” for the very charming “Merry Almost Christmas.”
You’ll hear vocals from a wide variety of performers including Johnny Desmond, Betty Madigan, Sally Ann Howes, Allen Case, Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Jimmy Durante, Judy Garland, Danny Kaye, and Shirley Temple along with several more.
We’ve also planned to include two of our favorite spoken performances with Lionel Barrymore reading “A Visit from St. Nicholas” and one of our favorites, Charles Laughton performing “Mr. Pickwick’s Christmas,” a selection from “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” by Charles Dickens.
It’s not what you might expect or perhaps it is. Either way, we still think you’ll enjoy this rather eclectic mix of Christmas and holiday fare.
