Todd Gershwin, great-nephew of George and Ira Gershwin, means to introduce family's music to new generation
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Todd Gershwin, the great-nephew of George and Ira Gershwin, has embraced his family name and made their music his business.
As a trustee of the family trusts, which administer copyrights for George Gershwin's music, the next-generation Gershwin, 35, has handled musical theater, orchestral, movie and television projects that use the diverse songbook created by composer George and lyricist Ira.
It was his idea to repurpose Gershwin tunes from shows such as "Strike up the Band," "Of Thee I Sing," "An American in Paris" and "Porgy and Bess," plus the Hollywood years and symphonic works, and create something "upbeat and fun" that could play around the country.
"So much of theater is built for Broadway, with huge budgets, and I've found that so much of that never gets to the rest of the country outside of New York and L.A.," Mr. Gershwin said. "So why not create something specifically with the rest of the country in mind that would be able to play pretty much any city, anywhere, with that great upbeat, fun kind of mission behind it? That was really how it came about, and fortunately we hooked up with Ray, and he had a great concept."
"Ray" is Ray Roderick, writer-creator of " 'S Wonderful," the world-premiere show opening in previews tonight at the Cabaret at Theater Square, Downtown. Mr. Gershwin is among the producing partners in the show with Pittsburgh CLO.
Before he got the green light, Mr. Roderick said that last fall, he, with his wife, Karyn Quackenbush (now off-Broadway in "Love, Loss and What I Wore"), and Jim Stanek (who will appear in "The Producers" for CLO this summer), performed a run-through for producing partners and members of the Gershwin family in a New York apartment.
"It's one thing to hear a pitch, but it's another thing to actually see it and hear the songs sung through; it was really exciting," Mr. Gershwin said. "And that very first time we got together, we were able to see he was going down the right path, and it was really special."
First Published June 17, 2010 12:00 am
