Sheldon Harnick, Klea Blackhurst & More Set for Lyrics & Lyricists' 2017 Season at 92Y

92Y announces Lyrics & Lyricists 2017, the 47th season of the country's preeminent American Songbook series. L&L brings together top music directors, lyricists, artists and music historians to present original revues featuring award-winning Broadway and cabaret performers.

Robert Kimball, Vince Giordano and Klea Blackhurst team up to launch the season with Harold Arlen's early years, featuring The Nighthawks swinging songs from "Get Happy" to "Over the Rainbow." David Loud, who most recently led L&L's highly-acclaimed celebration of the Sondheim-Prince collaboration, returns to celebrate Cole Porter. Series artistic director Deborah Grace Winer takes the helm for a show paying tribute to the great women of the American Songbook from Dorothy Fields and Carolyn Leigh to Mary Rodgers. Rob Fisher explores famous songs by "unsung" lyricists (Herman Hupfeld?) with frequent L&L collaborator Sheldon Harnick, and the season closes with Rob Berman on the legendary Lerner and Loewe.

L&L shows are Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 2 and 7 pm, and Monday at 2 and 7:30 pm. Subscriptions to the five-concert series running from January to June are on sale now, starting at $275. Individual tickets start at $58 and are on sale July 18; 92Y's Lex List program also offers discounted tickets for all performances.

More information: 212-415-5500 | www.92Y.org/Lyrics

Lyrics & Lyricists: 2017 Season

January 21, 22, 23
GET HAPPY: HAROLD ARLEN'S EARLY YEARS
Robert Kimball, Vince Giordano, Klea Blackhurst: Co-Artistic Directors
Featuring The Nighthawks

Harold Arlen achieved immortality with "Over the Rainbow." But long before that, he was composing classics like "Stormy Weather" and "I've Got the World on a String" for Broadway, Hollywood and the big-bands. L&L kicks off the season with Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks playing vintage arrangements of many of Arlen's greatest songs.

February 11, 12, 13
LET'S MISBEHAVE: THE SENSATIONAL SONGS OF COLE PORTER
David Loud, Artistic Director

Cole Porter's famous wit and sophistication are evident in songs like "Night and Day" and "I've Got You Under My Skin." Acclaimed music director David Loud goes on a tour of Porter's most exquisite creations, from smash-hit shows like Anything Goes and Kiss Me, Kate, showing why he's still "the top."

March 18, 19, 20
BABY, DREAM YOUR DREAM: DOROTHY FIELDS AND THE WOMEN OF THE AMERICAN SONGBOOK
Deborah Grace Winer, Artistic Director

Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and Hollywood may have been boys' clubs - but that didn't stop some bold, brilliant women from breaking through. Led by Dorothy Fields, lyricists and composers like Betty Comden, Carolyn Leigh and Mary Rodgers crafted astonishing songs and shows, including "The Way You Look Tonight," On the Town, "Witchcraft," Once Upon a Mattress and more. Fields biographer Deborah Grace Winer salutes this sisterhood.

May 6, 7, 8
SONGBOOK CLASSICS BY UNSUNG LYRICISTS
Rob Fisher, Artistic Director
Sheldon Harnick, Host

They're standards we all know and love: "As Time Goes By," "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," "The Nearness of You." But the writers of those famous words - Herman Hupfeld, Leo Robin, Ned Washington - who? Fiddler on the Roof lyricist Sheldon Harnick salutes the unsung wordsmiths behind some of the world's greatest songs.

June 3, 4, 5
FROM CAMELOT TO CALIFORNIA : THE WORLDS OF LERNER AND LOEWE
Rob Berman, Artistic Director

Lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe evoked entire worlds in their groundbreaking musicals: from Brigadoon (Scotland) to Paint Your Wagon (California), to Gigi (Paris) - not to mention Camelot. They were all conjured by the Old World Austrian Loewe and the Harvard-educated American Lerner. Rob Berman (Bright Star, New York City Center Encores!' Do I Hear a Waltz) explores the pair's most romantic songs, from "Almost Like Being in Love" to "I Could Have Danced All Night."