For 25 years, Encores! at New York City Center has been giving new life to rarely heard American musicals. In celebrating its 25th anniversary, artistic director Jack Viertel and music director Rob Berman created
Hey, Look Me Over!: a smorgasbord of said obscure shows. Or rather, selected numbers and scenes from them. Pulling the hits from the misses, if you will. It bears one notable difference from the traditional revue:
Bob Martin as the Man In Chair (see
The Drowsy Chaperone). Martin plays an opinionated Encores! subscriber leading a tour of ten “shocking omissions” from the series, which he cites as “perfectly respectable shows that never made it to this stage for unknown reasons.” After all, as any good urologist will tell you: “Longevity is not the definitive measure of worth.”