Interview: Bobby Underwood Honors a Comedy Legend in THANK YOU TOM LEHRER at City Winery

On December 28 and 29, New York based actor and comedian Bobby Underwood (whose credits include performing in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF IN YIDDISH off-Broadway) will present a tribute to Tom Lehrer, one of the greatest satirical songwriters of the 20th century, at City Winery. The show is titled Thank You Tom Lehrer: A concert celebrating the wit and brilliance of legendary Satirist Tom Lehrer. (The December 28 performance is already sold out, but you can book tickets to the December 29 show here.)

Read a conversation with Bobby about the show and Tom Lehrer’s comedy legacy.

How did you initially discover the work of Tom Lehrer?

I was introduced to Tom Lehrer at such a young age that I cannot remember a time when I did not know his name or his voice. My parents -- Jewish New Yorkers from opposite ends of the Silent Generation (Mom was born in 1944, Dad in 1929) – had his records and songbooks, and they were a constant presence in my childhood home. In fact, growing up in Brooklyn in the '90s and attending a demographically diverse school, “National Brotherhood Week” was my primary lens into contemporary views on racism. This led to a rude awakening when my mother informed me that the South Pacific song “You've Got to Be Carefully Taught” was not satire.

What's important to you about presenting Lehrer's work to people who may be unfamiliar with him?

I have two primary reasons for wanting to keep Tom Lehrer's legacy alive, one personal and one more altruistic. The latter is that his subject matter – nuclear war, xenophobia, the bluster and posturing of politicians and media personalities – is timeless, and his lyrics remarkably prescient. As he himself said, "predict the worst and they'll hail you as a prophet," and his influence is evident in everyone from The Smothers Brothers to Jon Stewart. I believe the world would benefit from his material being known by a wider audience.

My more personal reason for wanting to present his material – and this is something I didn't fully realize until Zalmen Mlotek and I were putting this show together – is that, aside from my parents, nobody had a greater impact on my comedic sensibilities and the way I see the world. My influences are myriad, from Billy Crystal and Larry David to Woody Allen and Stephen Sondheim, but nobody influenced me more than Tom Lehrer. Dan Pardo paid me the highest of compliments when he said that although we've been friends for many years now, seeing me do this show made him feel like he was truly seeing me for the first time (I'm tearing up as I write this) and that it was if I had been born for the sole purpose of introducing a new generation to Tom's repertoire.

What went into planning this show? Can you tell us a little about choices you made in putting together the arrangements and the set list?

I come from a semi-political family -- my mother, Barbara Underwood, was New York's first female attorney general, as well as the United States' first female (acting) solicitor general -- so when it came to narrowing down our list of songs, I wanted to do as much of his political material as possible. We decided against his songs with more specific targets, as Hubert Humphrey and George Murphy are not atop anyone's mind these days, and aimed for his more evergreen material. Consequently, most of the second half of our program is from his final full-length album, That Was the Year That Was. Even with his less overtly political songs, the self-importance of Harvard University and the Catholic Church, as well as the very concepts of love and marriage, are endlessly enduring fodder for ridicule. His two most famous songs are probably “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” and “The Elements Song,” so naturally we included those as well. We also incorporated two songs from his time writing for the PBS show The Electric Company, which will be new even to many longtime fans of Tom Lehrer (one never refers to him simply as "Lehrer").

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I've said a lot and at the moment I can think of nothing else to add, other than to ambiguously say that my connection to Tom predates my own birth. As to how that can possibly be, well, you'll have to see the show to find out!

Learn more about Bobby Underwood on his website at www.underwoodbobby.com