Film Musical

Many of us grew up with the soothing songs of Burt Bacharach who has been called “The King of Easy Listening.” At the time of his passing in 2023, he had amassed 73 Top 40 hits in the U.S. and 52 in the United Kingdom. His songs also appeared in eight productions on Broadway as well as in 772 film and television soundtracks, and on this week’s Dress Circle (8/30 7:00 p.m.) we’re going to sample just a few of them.

July 26 is National Aunt and Uncle Day! Who knew? We found out before it was too late, so this week’s Dress Circle (7/26 7:00 p.m.), we’re going to be celebrating some aunts and uncles through stage and screen musicals along with at least two television series. Since there were actually so few songs dedicated to aunts and uncles, we’ve gone far afield and found some interesting and forgotten/rare pieces.

Once again, summer came early with two heatwaves already and a third one looming in the next week. To cool things down a bit, we’re turning to the musicals for songs about “summer” on this week’s Dress Circle (6/28 7:00 p.m.), and we’ve been able to cull together fourteen pieces even though, oddly enough, there aren’t as many songs about summer as you might have thought.

There are “dog” people, and there are “cat” people, and we are definitely “cat” people. To that end, this week’s Dress Circle (6/14 7:00 p.m.) will be taking a look at our feline and feline-adjacent friends as seen through a variety of musicals.

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.