A wonderful song is a terrible thing to lose. Yet thousands drift off into the ether or crumble to shreds on yellowed scores.
Such was the fate of countless numbers from past Broadway shows, until Michael Baron began rummaging through the public library and unearthed a huge treasure trove of melodies from musicals long gone.
Baron, Signature Theatre’s associate director, chose the best for “The Lost Songs of Broadway, 1940s-1950s,” the company’s second annual musical journey to bygone days. They are lovingly reprised in a cabaret setting with table seating reminiscent of the nightclubs that once lured theater-goers.
“The 1940s was a great time for Broadway musicals like ‘Oklahoma,’ ‘Brigadoon,’ ‘South Pacific’ and so many that we still remember and continue to see on stage and in film,” he says. “It was also a time for Broadway shows with music by classical composers, like ‘Carmen Jones’ adapted from Bizet’s opera and ‘Song of Norway,’ the story of Grieg’s life set to his music.”
So many musicals hit the boards that many songs were lost in the cracks. Even Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Kurt Weill, Rodgers and Hart and their illustrious peers wrote hundreds of duds. Some of the songs never made it across the footlights, axed to minimize excess material. Others had no time to rattle around in listeners’ brains before a show’s premature closing. Even those representative of a composer’s best work were trapped in productions too dated or silly to be reprised for modern audiences.
Thanks to Baron’s perseverance, Signature veterans Will Gartshore and Eleasha Gamble will pair up with newcomers Kimberly Sherbach and Jobari Parker-Namdar — the latter two recent graduates of Catholic University and Howard University, respectively — for an evening of disinterred gems.
Backed by piano and drums, they will sing solos and duets from “By Jupiter,” “Cabin in the Sky,” “Mexican Hayride,” “One Touch of Venus,” “Du Barry Was a Lady,” “St. Louis Woman” and other nearly forgotten shows.
“There’s so much material from lost Broadway musicals that the list of great songs is endless,” Baron says. “We may do only one verse of each to leave room for others. Next year we’ll feature music from the ’50s decade.”
Baron entered Wake Forest University as a political science major, but soon moved into theater. After spending a semester in London, he was hooked on directing. In addition to his directing assignments at Signature, he is responsible for the main casting and conducting all auditions. Already he is working on his next major show, “The Little Dog Laughed” starring Helen Hayes Award winner Holly Twyford.
“It’s hysterically funny and all about Hollywood, which everyone has an opinion about,” he says. “Light, bright fun is just perfect for mid-winter.”
(If you go: The Lost Songs of Broadway, 1940s-1950s; 8:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; Signature’s ARK Theatre, Shirlington Village, Arlington; $30 at Ticketmaster, 703-583-7328 or at the Signature Theatre Box Office; www.signature-theatre.org)
