A Musical Feast for the Eyes and the Ears!

When a theater company creates a revue of music, to present as part of its season, what a job that becomes for the director!

Marge Patefield, one of Little Theatre of Manchester's best known actor/singers, is now donning the director's hat for the next show - The LTM Music Revue - Songbook!

What that title implies is a compilation of music from the Great American Songbook, which is full of the best known, hum-it-around-the-house, sing-it-in -the-shower, kind of music!

In one 1972 study of the Songbook, American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950, songwriter and critic Alec Wilder provided a list of the artists he believes belong in (the published) Songbook, as well as his ranking of their relative worth.

Wilder devotes whole chapters to only six artists: Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, and Harold Arlen. Vincent Youmans and Arthur Schwartz share another chapter; Burton Lane, Hugh Martin, and Vernon Duke share one more. Wilder provides one chapter covering songwriters he deemed "The Great Craftsmen": Hoagy Carmichael, Walter Donaldson, Harry Warren, Isham Jones, Jimmy McHugh, Duke Ellington, Fred Ahlert, Richard A. Whiting, Ray Noble, John Green, Rube Bloom, and Jimmy Van Heusen. Wilder concludes with a catch-all 67-page chapter entitled "Outstanding Individual Songs: 1920 to 1950" that includes other individual songs that he considers memorable. (Wikipedia)

Marge Patefield created her Revue of these same great works with the expertise of a person who has sung so many of them!

She takes us on a journey that begins in Hollywood with the music of Mercer, Whiting, Warren, Dubin, Gershwin, Berlin, Kerns, Hammerstein and others and drives us to Broadway where many of those same composers are joined by Meredith Wilson, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Lerner and Loewe and the list goes on and on.  Oh, and did I mention Cole Porter?  Oh, how about Betty Comden and Adolph Green.  Geez, and I forgot Duke Ellington!

As you can see, the talent is huge and Marge's ability to cull the list of musical geniuses down to a two hour show was a task she finished with joy!  Her music director, Kim Aliczi and choreographer, Sheila Waters Fucci, have added their talents and the amazing cast brings it all together.

The summer show is set cabaret style with little tables and the bar up in the Cheney Hall great room.  Some special treats will be offered and the celebration is more than what's on stage, so come and join us for two weekends starting on August 9th.  Tickets are just $20 for this musical feast.

Sponsored by UNICO, Manchester Chapter, and our season sponsor, Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Company.

Cheney Hall is located at 177 Hartford Road, Manchester.  The box office is open Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  For more information go to cheneyhall.org or call 860-647-9824.  What tune is going through your head right now?