By Jerry Tallmer
April in Paris, February on First Avenue.
Monday, February 13, to be exact, when Crystal Field’s Theater for the New City, First Avenue and 10th Street, holds its 3rd annual “Love n’ Courage” champagne-supper bash, this one celebrating the life and lyrics of the great E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, whose “April in Paris” was the other side of his bitter, poignant Depression-era “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” coin.
Those and various others of the more than 500 songs to which Harburg put penetrating or poetic words, or both — “Over the Rainbow” and “When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich,” just for two — will be sung that night at TNC by such glittering talent as Catherine Russell, Stephen Bogardus, Mary Cleere Haran, Charles Busch, and Harburg’s teenage grandson Ben, who will tackle the exquisite “Paper Moon.”
Ben’s parents, Ernie and Deena Harburg, are sponsors of the evening, some of which benefits TNC’s Emerging Playwrights Program and $25 of which will go toward the regeneration of Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.
Reservations ($150) are available to the public at (212) 254-1109, or www.theaterforthenewcity.net, or at the door.
