Ira Gerswhin

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 not really fans of politics, so this primary season, we're featuring primary colors found in songs from a variety of musicals from stage and screen.

One of the reasons we love musicals is that most of them include a variety of musical styles in their scores. For some reason, we decided to look at musicals that include rags of various kinds, and, along with two slow rags called drags, we'll be looking at fourteen songs on this week's program.

We looked at music of George Gershwin last week on The Dress Circle, and this week (7/15 7:00 p.m.) we’ll concentrate on lyrics by his brother Ira but…