After their first collaboration in 1965, John Kander and Fred Ebb worked together on many musicals until Ebb’s death in 2004. Now the Kennedy Center is celebrating that collaboration in an expanded version of the musical first performed at Arlington’s Signature Theatre called “First You Dream: The Music of Kander and Ebb.”

Co-conceived by David Loud and Eric Schaeffer and directed by Schaeffer, the musical celebrates not simply the songs that Kander and Ebb wrote, but a certain Kander/Ebb philosophy about life that rejects cynicism or idealism. Though some days may not be as great as others, the theory goes, life is all we have and it should be lived to the fullest.