Zoren: There’s a star-studded fall lineup at Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Grill

Viewers of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” know the character of Shy Baldwin, the popular singer who boosts Midge’s comedy career by asking her to be the opening act for his national tours.

Baldwin appears in Seasons 2, 3, and 4 of the “Maisel” series, most prominently in Season 3.

The person you see playing Shy Baldwin is actor Leroy McClain.

Seeing doesn’t always tell the entire story. The person you singing as Shy Baldwin is an actor well known to stage folks, Darius de Haas.

Locally, de Haas has performed in Bucks County Playhouse productions of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Guys and Dolls.”

On Broadway, he has been in the original cast of several shows, including “Rent” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

He’s known for the versatility of his voice. In October — Monday, Oct. 20 to be exact — he will be the headliner for a cabaret show at Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Grill.

It will be good to see deHaas as well as hear him.

Also on the Rittenhouse lineup for the fall are Adam Pascal (Sept. 29), one the main original stars of “Rent” and well as “Aida” and other Broadway shows; Christine Ebersole (Nov. 17) one of the top leading ladies of this century, with Tonys for Best Actress ina”42nd Street” (2001) and “Grey Gardens” (2007); and Mark Nadler and Stephanie Pope (Dec. 15).

Ebersole appears with Billy Stritch — who I watched into a star — first by appearing with two of his cabaret buddies from Texas in cabaret shows, later accompanying the likes of Liza Minnelli and getting his own solos, and finally and for most of the last 25 years, as an act on his own with an encyclopedic knowledge of American songs and a repertoire that brings those songs alive.

Nadler was another I first saw at the piano, mainly accompanying singers. Like Stritch, he created his own limelight.

Pope has been in many shows on Broadway, “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” being among the most prominent.

Ebersole will be familiar to TV audiences from her years on the ABC soap operas “Ryan’s Hope” and “One Life to Live,” her recent stint on “Bob Hearts Abishola,” and TBS’s “Sullivan and Son.”

Last Chance at Hedgerow

Chuck Elliott, decades-long Saturday host of WXPN’s (88.5 FM) Saturday and Sunday morning show, “Sleepy Hollow,” appears as emcee for a concert by the local folk duo, Last Chance, at 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon July 22, at the Hedgerow Theatre on Rose Valley Road in Rose Valley.

Elliott retired from “Sleepy Hollow,” late last year.

He was replaced primarily by Julian Booker, who himself signed off at ‘XPN a couple of months ago. Booker was heard Saturday onWRTI (90.1 FM)’s evening program, “The Get Down.”

Keith Kelleher has been the host of the 6 to 10 a.m. Sunday rendition since April. The Saturday installment, also at 6 to 10 a.m., has a rotating roster of hosts, including WXPN veteran David Dye.

Appearing with Last Chance at Hedgerow are their special guests, Bethlehem and Sad Patrick.

Composers and TV shows

Television touches everything.

When composer Charles Strouse died a few weeks ago at age 96, obits and people in general quickly mentioned his scores for the musicals, “Annie,” “Bye Birdie,” Applause” and others.

My favorite song by Strouse and his longtime lyricist, Lee Adams, alive at age 100, is from neither of those shows. It’s “Once Upon a Time” from a 1962 flop, “All-American.”

“Tomorrow,” “Kids,” and “Put on a Happy Face” aside, Strouse’s most widely known composition with Lee Adams is probably few are aware he wrote.

Here’s a hint. Two characters, destined to become candidates for a sitcom Mount Rushmore are sitting on the bench of an old spinet in their living room.

The woman is playing the piano.

The man begins the song with the phrase, “Boy, the way Glenn Miller played.”

Yes, of course, it’s the opening theme of “All in the Family.” The characters are Edith and Archie Bunker, and the song is “Those Were the Days.”

Most viewers from the ’70s and ’80s know every word, from the part about Glenn Miller to, “Gee, our old La Salle ran great” and caneven imitate the timbre of Jean Stapleton’s voice as Edith.

Charles Strouse wrote at a time when melody, and original melody lines, were important. His musicals continue to entertain millions and since I can’t imagine a time when “Annie” will not be produced, they will go on doing so for generations.

Opera and musical theater composers contributed a lot to music on television.

In the early 1950s, Richard Rodgers co-wrote — with Richard Rodney Bennett — the score to the important television documentary, “Victory at Sea.”

Curtis graduate Gian Carlo Menotti wrote his opera, “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” for Christmas Eve broadcast in December 1951.

Diva assoluta Renée Fleming, in her Saturday evening concert with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra at the Princeton Festival, sang a touching piece set to music by Broadway composer John Kander, now age 98.

It was clear as Fleming began the text was the letter from a Rhode Island soldier, still in training and a week from battle, that was a centerpiece of Ken Burns’s 1990 PBS documentary, “The Civil War.”

Kander’s music was not in Burns’ film. For a theme, he used a different contemporary piece, Jay Ungar’s 1983 “Ashokan Farewell.”

Kander’s was a setting that may have been suggested by Renée Fleming.

The source was “The Letter of Sullivan Ballou,” one written by the soldier, neither youthful nor a man with previous military experience or training, as he and others camped in Washington, D.C., about to travel to the Civil War’s first major battle, the first of two Battles of Bull Run.

Fleming’s rendering made it clear why Ballou’s letter became such a memorable part of Burns’ documentary. Since 1990, the missive to Ballou’s wife, Sarah, has appeared on several lists of significant passages in war films and documentaries.

The letter is not only well-composed but covers the rigors of training, the apprehension of going into battle, the reason why Ballou is ready to give his life for his country, the reasons he hopes he survives, and most poignantly of all, his affection for Sarah and how much he wants to return to her and have a long life together with their children.

Sullivan Ballou’s fate was sad. A week after composing his articulate and touching letter, he is killed at Bull Run. The Princeton audience gasped when Fleming revealed that, even though many already knew.

Kander’s music commemorates Ballou’s letter in song.

Fleming, in a glorious concert that demonstrated her gift for singing all kinds of music and that earns her the right to end her show with Andrew Lippa’s “Diva,” made it clear how dramatic and heartfelt Sullivan Ballou’s words and sentiments were and why they became such a part of television history and American lore when heard by millions in Burns’ program for television.

Of ‘Funeral’ and ‘Glitter’

When you begin noticing one TV tie, others crop up.

A painting immediately recognizable from the walls of the Huxtable house in NBC’s “The Cosby Show” figures prominently in a play currently at Philadelphia’s Theatre Exile.

The painting, “Funeral Procession” by Ellis Wilson, can’t help but be noticed when the lights come up on R. Eric Thomas’ complex comedy, “Glitter in the Glass.”

It gets a huge laugh when attention is finally drawn to it by an interior decorator who mounted it as “dofer,” a work of art holding the place of a future work of art until that future piece is found and purchased.

“Glitter is the Glass” is chock full of jokes.

Thomas is funny, and he knows how to make his characters funny without it seeming that they are trying to be. It also offers a lot of points of view about identity and the elements various people consider as they determine and establish theirs.

Thomas, whose work is frequently performed in Philadelphia, also has television ties. He was a writer for the Apple TV+ series “Dickinson,” and a book, “Here For It, Or How to Save Your Soul in America” (2020), chosen as one of Jenna Bush Hager’s Book Club Picks on NBC’s “Today.”

A key Murrow moment

For now, and possibly forever, but I doubt it, CNN’s broadcast of George Clooney as news giant Edward R. Murrow in “Good Night and Good Luck,” live from Broadway, was a one-time airing.

I could not watch the show live — I had reviewing assignments — so I taped it for later enjoyment, but I keep hoping that since the Clooney show closed this weekend on Broadway, the production will stream somewhere or be seen, as a lot of National Theatre of Great Britain shows are, in local movie theaters.

Of course, television figures into this play as well. Murrow was an authoritative news presence on TV and radio. His reports and his program, “Person to Person” were regarded as being for the record and often contained important new information.

“Good Night and Good Luck” focuses on the McCarthy hearings, which in 1954, were among the first political inquiries aired on the relatively new and definitely formative medium of television.

It was while interviewing Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) on a CBS program called “See It Now” that Murrow posed the now-famous question and crux of Clooney’s play: “Mr. McCarthy, have you no decency?”

That question caused doubt about McCarthy’s investigations and tribunals that involved thousand of Americans, including many top celebrities. It helped bring around the senator’s downfall.