New Year’s Eve and beyond with Gershwin and Friends at the Skylight

For several years, the Skylight Opera Theatre has brightened the dark gap between the holidays with intimate shows in its Studio Theatre. Artistic director Bill Theisen knew he wanted to do something with George Gershwin, whose music he hadn’t yet explored during his tenure. He went to Cynthia Cobb and Parrish Collier — Skylight veterans, despite their youth — with a hazy idea notion of “Gershwin and Friends,” with the focus on New York in the 1920s.

Cobb and Collier, partners offstage as well as on, came back with a clever, two-part idea: In Act 1, they’re catering a New Year’s Eve party at Gershwin’s Long Island estate. In Act 2, they head to Harlem for some after-hours fun of their own. It fit in every way, given the times and the fact that Cobb and Collier are African-American. They accounted for music director Paul Helm — who is a character in the show as well as its on-stage pianist — by making their caterers insist that he come along with them to the after-party.

“That’s where Arlen, Fats and Duke come in,” Theisen said, in an interview Monday (Dec. 27). All three, at various times, led the band at the Cotton Club. So it all fits.

“I gave them an idea, they ran with it, and then we tweaked it together,” Theisen said. “It was a fun collaboration, and Paul was a big part of it, too.”

Helm took on the under-appreciated, but crucial and daunting task of getting all the songs into the right keys for the singers and weaving a number of them into medlies. So he arranged the show, plays piano in it, and even sings.

The team met in October to nail down the scenario. Gershwin and Friends is a revue and thus song-centric, but it does have a whiff of a plot. They arranged the 36 songs — that’s a lot — to tell the up-and-down love story of the two main characters. The whole show builds to a final medley that brings in all four songwriters and resolves the romantic issues. It’s not autobiographical about the offstage couple, but it still sort of fits.

“They’re very good, and they are two of the dearest people,” Theisen said.

Cobb and Collier have worked together at the Skylight in All Night Strut and Smokey Joe’s Cafe. Collier last appeared there as Tom Collins in Rent last spring. He has a long list of credits in Chicago, where he and Cobb live, and has toured Europe with West Side Story, Starlight Express and Five Guys Named Moe. Cobb, a Milwaukee native, has played the Skylight many times, most recently as Lady in the Skylight’s Blues in the Night. In addition to her stage work in Chicago and elsewhere, she is a dame at sea as a regular performer in cabaret shows for the Royal Caribbean cruise line.

Gershwin and Friends opens on New Year’s Eve (SOLD OUT) and runs through Jan. 9 in the Studio Theatre of the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway. Click here for the full schedule and to purchase tickets, $37.50 each, online. Tickets are also on sale at the Broadway Theatre Center box office, 414-291-7800.

The Songs

Act I, all by George Gershwin

RHAPSODY IN BLUE

SHALL WE DANCE

STRIKE UP THE BAND

LET’S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF

STAIRWAY TO PARADISE

EMBRACEABLE YOU

SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

FASCINATING RHYTHM

I’VE GOT RHYTHM

I’VE GOT PLENTY O’ NUTTIN’

SUMMERTIME

BESS, YOU IS MY WOMAN NOW

THERE’S A BOAT DAT’S LEAVIN’ SOON FOR NEW YORK

BUT NOT FOR ME

BLAH-BLAH-BLAH

LOVE IS HERE TO STAY

CLAP YOUR HANDS

Act 2

TAKE THE “A” TRAIN- Duke Ellington

DROP ME OFF IN HARLEM- Duke Ellington

THIS JOINT IS JUMPIN’-Fats Waller

IT DON’T MEAN A THING-Duke Ellington

HIT ME WITH A HOT NOTE-Duke Ellington

SATIN DOLL-Duke Ellington

AIN’T MISBEHAVEN- Fats Waller

THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC- Harold Arlen

MOOD INDIGO-Duke Ellington

STORMY WEATHER- Harold Arlen

SOPHISTICATED LADIES- Duke Ellington

SOLITUDE-Duke Ellington

OVER THE RAINBOW- Harold Arlen

GET HAPPY- Harold Arlen

I LOVE TO SING-A- Harold Arlen

DON’T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE-Duke Ellington

SIN TO TELL A LIE- Fats Waller

PAPER MOON-Harold Arlen

THEY ALL LAUGHED- George Gershwin