REVIEW

MILT THOMAS

It’s that time of year, when our seasonal residents (and vacationers) begin to return and Riverside Theatre puts out the welcome mat with a slate of great shows sure to please. The season opener this year is a review of familiar and time-tested songs by Academy Award winning lyricist Johnny Burke.

Songs like “Swinging on a Star,” “Pennies From Heaven,” “Misty” and more are forever hits, but the lyrics come to life in this excellent production by talented performers and musicians. Working with nearly 40 of Burke’s most famous tunes (of the more than 300 he wrote!), the production begins in a Chicago speakeasy, with songs including “You’re Not the Only Oyster in the Stew,” written in 1934 and made popular by Fats Waller, and the popular jazz standard, “What’s New.” It was originally an instrumental tune but Burke’s 1939 lyrics morphed it into a tearful torch song, sung effectively by Sara Andreas.

The second setting is the Bowery during the depths of the Great Depression.  “Pennies from Heaven,” written in 1936 for Bing Crosby’s film of the same name, was sung by Ryan Murray. It is another standard seared into the DNA of any music lover. “Annie Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” was performed by Ryan Murray, Brian Ogilvie and Denis Lambert in the loudest checkered suits you ever saw on a stage.

The third scene is during a radio show in New York City, the highlight is the Burke/Ven Heusen song, “What Does it Take to Make You Take to Me?” sung by a somewhat ditzy blond fictional star named Vicky Vovay, played effectively over the top by Jennifer Swiderski.

The first act ends with a wartime USO show set in the Pacific and includes “Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” written in 1940 and the first hit for Frank Sinatra with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, plus the show’s anthem, “Swinging on a Star.” The latter song was another of Burke’s tunes sung by Bing Crosby, this time in the movie Going My Way and won Burke an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1944.

The second act opens in a hotel ballroom and features songs that spotlight different patrons and employees, including a budding romance between the blond coat check girl (performed by Andreas) and a waiter (Lambert) to the Burke/Van Heusen hit, “Imagination.”

The next scene pays homage to the Crosby-Hope-Lamour “Road” movies, beginning and ending with “The Road to Morocco,” the title of the 1942 film and song. It opens with the three stars played by Ryan Murray (Crosby), Brian Ogilvie (Hope) and Mary Little (Lamour).

Finally, the show ends at the Starlight Supper Club in Manhattan and features seven major Burke hits including “Misty” (Burke put words to a Erroll Garner instrumental and it became Johnny Mathis’s signature song), “Moonlight Becomes You” (written for Road to Morocco), and the 1953 hit song that became a jazz standard, “Here’s That Rainy Day.”

The show finished with a reprise of “Pennies from Heaven” and finally, “Swinging on a Star.” The only disappointment if you can call it that, was when the performers ended up in swings lowered to the stage but the swings didn’t move while the audience did, giving them an extended standing ovation. The show was a delight from beginning to end and put these seven fine performers (and six excellent musicians) through their paces.

“Swinging on a Star” is performed on the Riverside Theatre’s Stark Stage and will run through November 15.