Film Musical

In 1868, Decoration Day was proclaimed a holiday to honor Union soldiers who died in the Civil War. In 1971, Memorial Day was established to honor all branches of the Armed Forces who have died in service. On this week’s Dress Circle (5/24 2026), we’ll not only be honoring the military personnel whom we lost, but we’d also like to extend the day to remembering everyone who was lost in service to others by combining their “memorial” days which occur earlier in May (nurses, police, and firefighters) and March (doctors) along with others, in our thoughts.

We’re celebrating a birthday on this week’s Dress Circle (2/15 7:00 p.m.).Actually, we’re celebrating two birthdays. This week’s program begins our 43rd year as volunteer hosts of the Dress Circle, a fact of which we’re extremely proud. Since that, in itself, isn’t very musical, we’re also going to be celebrating the 121st birthday of Hyman Arluck who is better known as the fabulous composer of musicals and film songs, Harold Arlen.

We’re beginning a two-part program that may extend to others on this week’s Dress Circle (1/18 7:00 p.m.) as we sample four original French musicals. These are not French translations of English language works as we’ve done in the past but works that began as French originals, and this program will look at two stage and two screen musicals.

Even though the winter hasn’t been too awful for our section of the country, I’m still hearing many people moaning that they want spring. With that in mind, on this week’s Dress Circle (1/11 7:00 p.m.) we’re going to jump ahead to March (when the spring equinox hits) with some Marches from the Musicals.

When George Gershwin died just a few weeks short of his 39th birthday, his brother and writing partner, Ira, was devastated and withdrew from public life and writing. It took Kurt Weill, Moss Hart, and a musical about psychoanalysis to get Ira writing again, and on this week’s Dress Circle (9/28 7:00 p.m.), we’ll be looking at some of the works that Ira penned after George.

We’re revisiting a theme we presented over a decade ago on this week’s Dress Circle (9/21 7:00 p.m.) mainly because there are many new sources from which we can choose.That theme is International Disney, and we’re looking at sixteen selections from a variety of Disney films in fourteen different languages.

We hope you’re enjoying your holiday weekend, and on this week’s Dress Circle (8/31 7:00 p.m.), we’re hoping to add to that enjoyment with “work” songs for Labor Day. The fourteen songs we've programmed include physical work, allegorical work, mental work, and more.

We decided to get everyone prepared for summer on this week’s Dress Circle (6/15 7:00 p.m.), since it officially begins on June 20th. To do this, we’ve turned to “summer songs” from thirteen diverse musicals.

We know that spring sprang last month, but it seems as though all of the flowers bloomed around here this week (at least, that’s what our eyes and sinuses have been telling us). Since that’s the case, we thought we’d honor spring springing with a program of “spring” songs on this week’s Dress Circle (4/27 7:00 p.m.).

Sometimes, one just needs a place, a special place to find solace and comfort, and we’re going to look at fourteen of our favorite places to escape on this week’s Dress Circle (4/20 7:00 p.m.).