hollywood

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.

Shakespeare seems to get credit for a great many things, but this time, he deserves it even if the quote is a bit “off.” We’re “Gilding the Lily” on this week’s Dress Circle (8/16 7:00 p.m.), well, we’ve amassed songs about beauty and its secrets, dressing to impress or excess, and a few make-up tips from a variety of musicals.

We’re going a bit “colloquial” on this week’s Dress Circle (7/19 7:00 p.m.) as we continue with our look at “I want” songs by turning to songs from a dozen shows that say “I wanna,” and as former English teachers, it really pains us to “wanna” do this.

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.

So many stage musicals were destroyed by Hollywood when they were adapted into films. Often, entire scores were thrown out, and other times, two or three songs, and on this week’s Dress Circle (4/19 7:00 p.m.), we’ve put together a program of some of the songs that never made it Hollywood with the rest of the show.

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.

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 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.

Thanks to John, a listener from Mercer County, we’re looking at a new theme for this week’s Dress Circle (8/10 7:00 p.m.) in a program we’ve titled “Duets for Her.” We’ve programed a baker’s dozen of duets for the ladies with some being sincere and others being sincerely snarky. (We prefer the snarky.)