Victor Schertzinger

Johnny Mercer (1909-1976) wrote the lyrics to more than 1500 songs, including dozens upon dozens for movies and Broadway shows. He received 19 Academy Award nominations, and won four Best Original Song Oscars. Mercer was also a composer, a vocalist and the foresighted founder of Capitol Records. To appreciate The American Songbook, one must be familiar with this multifaceted artist. In a revue presented last Thursday to Sunday at the Studio Theater on West 42nd Street, Accentuate The Positive staged its title song as an evangelical meeting. You've got to ac-cen-tu-ate the positive/E-li-mi-nate the negative/Latch on to the affirmative/Don't mess with Mister In-Between…(Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer) Stephen Belida played a preacher while around him Lynne Halliday, Tom Hafner, Madison Stratton, Lou Steele, and Carey Van Driest chanted, sung, snapped, clapped, circled, and raised their arms in Hallelujah fashion. An auspicious beginning.

Following an electric evening of jazz performances at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this past January, Jazz & Colors returns with a more focused and intimate experience. Programmed in collaboration with Met Museum Presents, and titled Jazz & Colors: The Full Spectrum Edition, renowned jazz musicians will once again perform in various iconic Met spaces for a dynamic evening of sublime entertainment tonight, April 24, at 6:00 and 7:30 p.m.

Following an electric evening of jazz performances at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this past January, Jazz & Colors returns with a more focused and intimate experience. Programmed in collaboration with Met Museum Presents, and titled Jazz & Colors: The Full Spectrum Edition, renowned jazz musicians will once again perform in various iconic Met spaces for a dynamic evening of sublime entertainment on Friday, April 24, at 6:00 and 7:30 p.m.

The Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, Illinois, north of Chicago, has an enormous subscription base, deep pockets, a talented and experienced in-house design team and a film property to adapt that touches on a number of important, stage-worthy themes (military patriotism, family, nostalgia, a timely re-visit to accusations of communism in America, parenthood, mid-century entertainment history and censorship, both military and network). And the show's lawyers have acquired the rights to a Hit Parade of jukebox-musical-worthy tunes. But is that enough to make a new stage musical out of the 1991 film 'For The Boys'?

Broadway stars Christine Ebersole and Lewis Cleale have joined the 'Lyrics and Lyricists' Johnny Mercer at the Movies concert, while Sylvia McNair has withdrawn due to illness; the concert runs May 6th through May 8th

Jason Graae will be among the performers in 'Johnny Mercer at the Movies' from May 6th through May 8th at the 92nd St. Y