Kander and Ebb

Break out your dancing shoes because this week’s Dress Circle (9/20 7:00 p.m.) is celebrating National Dance Day. This “dance” program isn’t featuring actual dances per se; It’s looking at songs from musicals about dance including dance as a metaphor for life and living.

During a recent medical procedure that involved anesthesia, Michael came up with a brilliant idea for this week’s Dress Circle (6/13 7:00 p.m.). We never program a “Labor Day” program because the Sunday of that weekend is generally the first Sunday, so we default to our monthly feature looking at shows that opened in September. Through the dim haze of waking up, Michael thought, “What comes after Labor Day?” The response came quickly and with great clarity: After Labor Day comes “Baby Day”! For some reason Ted wanted to run with that idea, so we’re bringing you a program of “baby” songs from the musicals showcasing a wide variety of “babies.”

People want a great many things, and we’re back to some songs that showcase that on this week’s Dress Circle (8/9 7:00 p.m.). However, these “I want” songs are in disguise as the “want” doesn’t appear in the title.

It’s June, and people, especially television weather-people, just can’t “believe it.” We don’t know why not; it happens every year around this time, so that means we’re going to celebrate it on this week’s Dress Circle (6/7 7:00 p.m.) with pieces from ten of the shows that opened in New York in June.

Who knew that there was a day set aside for the celebration of 8-Track tapes? It’s on April 11, but this week’s Dress Circle (4/12 7:00 p.m.) is dedicated to it since we couldn't let it pass. We need something to celebrate, and it's just so wonderfully strange.

So much is being said about cross-dressing and drag now that we thought we’d take a look at how musicals have looked at this aspect of theatre on this week’s Dress Circle (4/16 7:00 p.m.). Men portraying women on stage were a major part of Greek and Roman theatre as well as early European theatre mainly because women weren’t allowed to appear on stage. However, once that taboo was overturned, women often portrayed men, especially in operas and British Pantomimes.

Happy New Year! (We hope.) We're still showcasing musicals that opened each month on the Dress Circle (1/4 7:00 p.m.), but instead of framing the program with the "oldest" and "newest" openings, we decided, instead, to pick a random sample of musicals we haven't showcased in a while to present their overtures and opening numbers or prologues to give a bigger picture of entire piece.

For many, this time of year features a whirlwind of parties. We really don’t have first-hand knowledge of that, so we had to turn to the musicals on this week’s Dress Circle (12/28 7:00 p.m.) for some help with what parties might entail.

In the past, we’ve looked at various types of songs found in musicals such as the “I want” songs where a character lets the audience know his or her reasons for doing things. In this week’s Dress Circle (7/14 7:00 p.m.), we’re going to be looking at ‘story songs” which are, oddly enough, songs that tell stories. Sometimes, those stories are life-histories, but many times, they act as allegories.

We’re turning to the first of two programs on this week’s Dress Circle (10/19 7:00 p.m.) that will feature some of our favorite songs from stage and screen musicals and soundtracks. Michael is up first, and he’s chosen 13 vastly different songs that really do express his rather eclectic tastes, and by no means is this even the tip of the iceberg of the list of his “favorites.”