Broadway to Main Street features the songs of Ira Gershwin

Laurence Maslon, author of numerous books on stage and screen musicals (South Pacific, The Sound of Music), and Associate Chair/Arts Professor at the Graduate Acting Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, continues his popular radio series of explorations of the Great American Songbook with a new, hour-long broadcast devoted to Ira Gershwin (pictured above with Tony Bennett in 1968).

Via a discussion of lyrical themes and a choice selection of recordings, Ira Gershwin: George and Beyond spans the lyricist’s career. Featuring works written (sometimes posthumously) with his brother George—Funny Face; Looking for a Boy; Of Thee I Sing; For You, For Me, Forevermore; A Foggy Day; I Can’t Be Bothered Now; They Can’t Take That Away from Me; and Love Is Here to Stay—the show also captures Ira’s wordplay in songs from his sometimes neglected career with other notable composers: Here’s What I’m Here For (Harold Arlen), Don’t Be a Woman If You Can (Arthur Schwartz), In Our United State (Burton Lane), Long Ago and Far Away (Jerome Kern), Island in the West Indies & I Can’t Get Started (Vernon Duke), and You’d Be Hard to Replace (Harry Warren).

George and Ira Gershwin were featured in earlier episodes of the series devoted to Of Thee I Sing, Porgy and Bess, and in a broadcast called Michael Feinstein Sings Ira.

Hosted by WPPB-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate on Long Island, Ira Gershwin: George and Beyond and its companions—now more than 200 in number—can be also be heard at http://www.broadwaytomainstreet.com/ or on iTunes.

The Ira and Leonore S. Gershwin Philanthropic Fund is pleased to be a sponsor of Broadway to Main Street.

— Michael Owen