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Don’t you just love when a Broadway lyricist thinks of A Great Idea for a Song? We’re not just talking about clever “squabble-Bob’ll”-type rhymes but an idea for a song that wouldn’t occur to a run-of-the-mill lyricist. My nominees for Greatest Song Idea of the Decade? In the forties, E.Y. Harburg for “When I’m Not […]

The concert version of OVER HERE! last month in New York spurred Lynda Wells to give me a call. She was Maxene Andrews’ daughter and longtime lover. Did that sentence grab your attention? Wells was Andrews’ lover first and foremost starting in 1973, around the time when plans were afoot to bring OVER HERE! to […]

We know the word “de-lovely” from a Cole Porter song and the title of a 2004 biopic of the legendary composer-lyricist. In case you’ve ever wondered how it originated, THE LETTERS OF COLE PORTER will inform you. In a missive to Variety editor Abel Green on May 25, 1945, Porter wrote of the time he, […]

Those who have lived with parents — and have had grandparents visit them – were quick to learn one fact of life. Grandparents love you in a way that your parents can’t, don’t or won’t. We see that once again in BEAU, a new funk-folk bluegrass musical that isn’t blue in either mood or language. […]

Back in September, there was a nifty new play that posed a question which you’ll find a real head-scratcher. New York didn’t see the show, although it should. Dan McCabe’s THE PURISTS is great fun when it needs to be and deadly serious when the situation warrants it. The show, given a dazzling production by […]