Lerner and Loewe are Loverly at Musical Theater Heritage

Musical Theater Heritage abides by its name with Wouldn’t It Be Loverly, a show written by MTH founder George Harter that’s equal parts show and tell, similar to his radio series A Night on the Town, on public radio (heard locally on KANU 91.5). Here, Harter digs into the background of legendary songwriting team Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe, who crafted such Broadway hits as Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, Gigi and Camelot. Wouldn’t It Be Loverly acts as the radio program brought to the stage, history and anecdotes interspersed with well-known songs from those musicals.  

It’s a well-crafted mix of teaching moments and musical numbers, if a little weighed down by 1942’s Brigadoon at the start. Eight singers — Patrick Beasley, Elizabeth Birger, Donna Dandino, Justin
McCoy, Linnaia McKenzie, Andrew Schmidt, Sarah Sommerer and Ashley Wheat — capture the tunes on which the lyricist Lerner and the composer Loewe so famously collaborated. (Lerner, Harter tells us, placed the craft of songwriting somewhere between that of woodcarving and photography.) Harter himself switches from narrator to actor, doing an admirable Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady‘s “Why Can’t the English” and Maurice Chevalier in Gigi‘s “I Remember It Well.”

We get a time-capsule picture of Paint Your Wagon — a show most politically incorrect, we learn, by today’s standards (and rarely performed because of it). Harter lends pertinent background to the featured songs (including trivia from the movie version) to underline his points.

The show’s most rousing moments belong to conductor and pianist Jeremy Watson, who leads Jeff Harshbarger on bass and Ron Ernst on drums. Watson takes a star turn himself at center stage, heading up Paint Your Wagon‘s “I’m on My Way” and stealing the show with My Fair Lady’s “Get Me to the Church on Time.”