July 5, 2017 --

Let's have a nationwide July 4, 2018 concert of Broadway show music, originating from Times Square, New York City, and viewable on monitors set up in every village, town and city in the USA. The program would include individual songs, and orchestral medleys (preferably those of the Boston Pops, from the years it was led by the inimitable Arthur Fiedler.

The program could open with "Strike Up the Band, and go from "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," from "Oklahoma!" all the way through many of the great Broadway musicals, concluding with "Make Our Garden Grow," from "Candide."
The program would include songs from the musicals of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Adler and Ross, Sondheim, July Styne, Frank Loesser, Lerner and Loewe, Kander and Ebb, Bock and Harnick, Harold Arlen, Lane and Harburg.

In particular, the concert should include "You Gotta Have Heart" (Damn Yankees), "The Impossible Dream" (Man of La Mancha), "When You Walk Through a Storm" (Carousel), "Tomorrow " (Annie), "Is Anybody There" (1776).

Why should we have -- why do we need --this concert? LPR can think of no better way to reaffirm a national consensus of optimism within the context of liberty than a concert of the authentic, heart-stirring music bequeathed to us for all time by the great Broadway Composers.

And a collateral suggestion ...

We should have a Broadway Musical Theater that will be comparable to, say, the Metropolitan Opera -- a repertory theater that produces revivals of great musicals that are no longer feasible for individual revivals. LPR calls on the Broadway community to serve the national interest by keeping alive the great Broadway shows of the past, shows that are very much part of the American heritage. True, Broadway currently enjoys a smash revival of "Hello Dolly." But a marvelous production of "Finian's Rainbow" didn't last long in revival a few seasons ago. And how about t about "Brigadoon," "Kismet," "Bells Are Ringing," "Flower Drum Song," "Kiss Me Kate," "Music Man," "Call Me Madam," "Redhead," "Fanny," "Hazel Flagg," and on and on and on?