off-Broadway

In “The Prates of Penzance,” Kate sings: “Let us shut our eyes and talk about the weather” in order to avoid a “complication.” On this week’s Dress Circle (8/2 7:00 p.m.), we’ll approach the weather with eyes wide open as we look at the recent spate of storms the easter seaboard has been facing this summer through thirteen musical storms.

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.

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.

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.

Like all months, April is a month of many celebrations. We’ve already looked at shows that opened in 1965 in order to celebrate National 8-Track Tape Day – We are fully committed to our calendar art, and on this week’s Dress Circle (4/26 7:00 p.m.), we’ll be looking at something we think everyone needs right now: Songs of hope from the musicals as April is the National Month of Hope.

Happy April, and although the month is starting to look like one that’s unsettled as much as March was, we’re still going to celebrate just a few of the shows that opened in April on this week’s Dress Circle (3/5 7:00 p.m.). We’re only looking at eleven musicals this week as we focus on overtures and opening numbers, but we’re still covering 100 years of Broadway history.

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.

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.